The subway car rattled with the same dull rhythm it always did; iron wheels grinding against endless rails, a metallic heartbeat that filled the stale air. Alex slouched in his seat, his head tilted against the smudged glass, watching tunnels smear past like black rivers. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed, flickering every so often, making shadows lurch unnaturally across the passengers' faces.
He sighed. Another late night at work, another ride home through the graveyard hours. The train was nearly empty, save for a drunk muttering into his sleeve at the far end, and a woman staring dead-eyed at her phone. The usual kind of night.
Then—
The lights went out.
Darkness devoured the car so completely that Alex couldn't even see his own hands. The train shrieked, grinding to a halt with a metallic scream. The silence that followed was thicker than the dark, suffocating. Alex opened his mouth to speak, to ask if anyone else was there, but no sound came out. His throat constricted.
And then he heard it.
A wet, dragging sound from outside the car. Something pulling itself along the tunnel floor, claws scraping concrete, like nails across stone.
He froze. The air grew colder, as if the oxygen itself had been drained from the world. His pulse throbbed in his ears, but the dragging sound grew louder, closer, until it was right outside the door.
The lights snapped back on.
The train was empty.
The woman. The drunk. Gone. Only Alex remained. His breath fogged the cold glass as he scanned the car, heart hammering. His eyes fell to the floor—where black streaks like tar smeared beneath the doors, as if something had melted its way inside.
The doors hissed open.
Black fog poured in, carrying with it the stench of rot and sulfur. Alex stumbled back, covering his mouth, but the mist coiled with a mind of its own, winding up his legs like serpents. His skin burned at the touch, pain searing deeper than fire. He tried to scream, but the mist forced its way down his throat. His vision cracked, warped…
…and then he wasn't on the subway anymore.
He lay sprawled on damp earth beneath a blood-red sky. A forest stretched in all directions, but the trees were wrong; towering, twisted things with bark like charred flesh and branches ending in clawlike hooks. No wind stirred their leaves, yet they whispered ceaselessly, like voices murmuring in a language too old to comprehend.
Alex staggered to his feet, dizzy, clutching his throat. Every breath scraped like glass inside him. His shoes squelched into black mud, and when he pulled them free, something wriggled beneath the surface. Worms the size of snakes slithered back into the muck.
"This… this isn't real." His voice cracked. "I'm dreaming. I—I must be."
But the pain in his lungs was too sharp, the acrid stench too vivid. And the whispers from the trees grew louder, circling him like vultures.
Something moved between the trunks.
Alex whipped his head toward the sound. A shadow detached itself from the bark, unfolding into a shape both human and not. Too tall. Too thin. Its limbs bent wrong, like broken sticks forced back together. Empty hollows gaped where eyes should be, and yet Alex felt its stare pierce straight through him.
It didn't walk. It glided, feet never touching the ground. The shadows bent toward it, drawn in as if worshiping.
Every instinct screamed at Alex to run, and he obeyed. He sprinted blindly through the forest, branches raking his arms, mud sucking at his legs. Behind him, the whispers turned into screeches. The thing followed, not fast, but inevitable, like night chasing the sun.
He burst through the trees into a clearing and froze.
A village. Or what remained of one. The huts were made of bones lashed together with sinew, roofs draped in tattered hides. Black smoke curled from a central pit where a fire burned, but the flames gave no warmth, only a sickly green light. Around it hung corpses impaled on stakes, their mouths sewn shut, eyes wide with eternal terror.
Alex gagged, stumbling back. His stomach lurched, bile burning his throat.
"Welcome."
The voice slithered from behind him. He turned, heart thundering, to see a figure cloaked in ragged robes. The hood concealed its face, but pale hands emerged, fingers far too long, tipped with nails that gleamed like obsidian.
"You… you can talk?" Alex rasped.
The figure tilted its head, birdlike. "You bleed fear. That means you live." It stepped closer, dragging its fingers across the air as if feeling invisible threads. "And if you live… you are chosen."
"Chosen for what?" Alex demanded, though his voice trembled.
The figure chuckled, a sound like breaking bones. "For the Game."
Before Alex could speak, the ground beneath him split open. Black tendrils shot up, wrapping around his arms and legs, yanking him into the air. He thrashed, screaming, but the more he fought, the tighter they constricted. The hooded figure raised a hand, and the tendrils froze, suspending Alex like an offering.
"Survive, and you may find purpose. Fail…" The figure's hood tilted, and Alex glimpsed teeth,too many teeth, layered like shark jaws, grinning within. "…and you will be remembered as nothing."
The tendrils flung him into the fire pit.
But it wasn't fire that consumed him.
It was light.
Blinding, searing light that drilled into his skull. Words branded themselves into his mind, not seen but known, burning into the marrow of his being:
[System Integration Complete.]
[Player Identified: Alex Wright.]
[You have been summoned to the World of Kharion.]
[Rule One: Survival is your only privilege.]
Alex collapsed onto scorched earth, gasping, his vision bleeding with afterimages. The voice wasn't human, wasn't even sound; it was law, etched directly into his soul.
He pushed himself up on shaking arms. The village was gone. The hooded figure was gone. He now stood at the edge of a vast chasm, black stone cliffs plunging into an abyss with no bottom. Across the gulf, towering spires of jagged rock rose like the teeth of some colossal beast. Lightning forked between them, silent yet blinding.
A narrow bridge of bones stretched across the chasm. At its far end, something waited.
A gate.
Thirty feet high, forged from flesh and iron, its surface writhing as if alive. Faces pushed outward from the metal, their mouths opening in silent screams before sinking back. Chains thicker than trees bound the gate shut.
And as Alex watched, the chains began to snap.
One by one.
With each break, the air grew heavier, pressing against his chest until he could barely breathe. From the cracks in the gate oozed black liquid that hissed and burned holes into the ground.
The final chain broke.
The gate opened.
From the darkness beyond stepped a creature too vast to comprehend. Its body was an amalgam of beasts, horns like a bull, wings like a bat, legs of a spider. But its head was unmistakably human. A face stretched impossibly wide, pale and eyeless, its mouth opening to reveal a spiral of teeth spinning inward forever.
Alex fell to his knees, paralyzed by the sight. Every nerve screamed to flee, but his body betrayed him, locked in place.
[First Trial Commencing.]
[Survive the Herald of the Gate.]
The monster's head tilted toward him. Its spiral of teeth spun faster, and a howl rose from its throat, not sound, not noise, but despair itself given voice.
Alex screamed, clutching his ears, but the sound was inside him, ripping through his thoughts, unraveling his memories. He saw flashes,his childhood, his parents, the mundane safety of the subway, all burning away, replaced by endless darkness.
He staggered to his feet, blood running from his nose, his mind cracking under the weight of the howl. The bridge quaked beneath him as the monster advanced.
"I… I can't…" His voice broke. His knees buckled.
Then words carved themselves into the air before him:
[Skill Unlocked: Defiance.]
Power surged through him, alien yet his own. His heartbeat steadied. The despair pressed down, but no longer crushed him. He raised his head to meet the monster's faceless gaze.
"I won't die here."
The howl faltered. For the first time, the monster paused.
The bridge split beneath Alex's feet, collapsing into the abyss. He leapt forward instinctively, landing hard on the far side, only yards from the writhing gate. The Herald lunged, its spiral mouth descending, teeth spinning toward him.
And in that instant, Alex felt something ignite inside his chest. A light—not warmth, not comfort, but raw, defiant will.
He screamed and threw his fist forward.
The light erupted from his hand, slamming into the monster's face.
The Herald reeled back, shrieking, its spiral teeth shattering into shards of darkness. The ground quaked. The gate slammed shut, the chains reknitting themselves, sealing the abyss once more.
Alex collapsed, every muscle trembling. The light inside him guttered out, leaving only exhaustion and the bitter taste of fear.
[Trial Complete.]
[Reward Granted: The Right to Continue.]
Alex lay on the cold stone, staring up at the blood-red sky. His body screamed with pain, his mind frayed at the edges.
But one thought cut through it all:
This wasn't a dream.
This was his new reality.
And survival was the only rule.