Dusk had fallen, and the city was drowning beneath a heavy coat of dust and haze. The sky sagged low and gray over the rooftops, while down on the streets, traffic surged in an endless current. Car horns blared. Engines roared. The cacophony pressed against the eardrums like an iron weight.
Through the chaos walked Kin Jonathan, adrift like a lone shadow. He was only twenty-five, tall and lean, his golden hair—once striking—now disheveled from a long day. Under the glow of the streetlamps, the strands caught a faint light, like dying embers struggling to burn.
His white shirt was rumpled, one side untucked from the waistband. Blue eyes, dulled with exhaustion, carried dark shadows beneath them, the marks of sleepless nights. A battered shoulder bag hung from his frame, the strap frayed and cutting against his skin. Each step he took dragged heavy, as though tethered to the monotony of all the days before.
Jonathan didn't exactly hate his job, but he found no meaning in it either. Morning: the commute. Day: endless typing, reports, reprimands. Evening: a return to his rented room of ten square meters, a quick meal, a hollow scroll through social media, sleep. His life spun like a wheel locked on the same iron track.
Tonight the alley leading to his boarding house felt strangely hushed. Street stalls had closed earlier than usual, their sagging tarps fluttering with a hollow flap in the wind. Jonathan hunched into his thin shirt, quickening his pace.
Then he saw it.
A letter.
It lay squarely in the middle of the walkway, almost as if it had been placed there for him.
At first he thought it was trash, some crumpled flyer. But the moment the lamplight struck, it gleamed faintly with a silvery sheen, not at all ordinary. The envelope was jet black, its edges traced with delicate golden patterns that shimmered like flowing streams.
And most unsettling of all—on the very front, written in sharp silver ink—were the words:
"To Kin Jonathan."
His heart lurched. His full name. Printed neatly, precisely, as though carved into the paper itself.
Every instinct screamed at him to walk away. It could be a prank. A trap. Yet something deeper, long smothered beneath years of gray repetition, tugged at him: Pick it up. Just this once.
Jonathan bent down. The moment his fingers brushed the envelope, a chill coursed through his body. The texture wasn't paper—more like stiff silk glazed with metal. Smooth, but dangerous, as though he were gripping the edge of a blade.
He drew a breath and carefully tore the seal.
A faint snap rang out—
And the world around him distorted.
The streetlamp above flickered wildly. The sounds of the city warped, stretched thin, and then receded as though funneled through a broken speaker. The alley rippled, twisted, like a painting being crumpled by invisible hands. Passersby in the distance fragmented into shards of light and vanished.
Jonathan froze, his blood running cold.
Still, his trembling hand drew out the card within.
Silver light spilled from it, almost blinding. Etched into its surface were words that glowed like flowing mercury:
"Kin Jonathan.
You have been chosen.
The Game of Choosing a God shall commence on the next full moon.
Should you refuse, your fate will remain the worn wheel it has always been.
Should you accept, a door to another world shall open.
The choice is yours."
As his eyes passed over the lines, a low droning sound filled his ears, the world squeezing and warping again, twisting his stomach. The lamp flared once, then went dark, leaving the alley in suffocating black.
Jonathan's gaze fell to the bottom of the card—and his breath caught. There was no signature. Instead, stamped in crimson, was the print of a hand, its five fingers splayed wide.
For an instant, he swore the blood was fresh. Still wet. The iron tang clawed at his nose.
"What the hell…" he whispered, stumbling back.
He blinked—
And suddenly everything snapped back. The lamp shone steady. The city roared as usual. In his hand, the envelope appeared no more than plain silvered paper.
Only the pounding of his heart and the sweat on his skin proved he hadn't imagined it.
Stuffing the card into his pocket, Jonathan hurried away, his every step haunted by the sensation of unseen eyes tracking him.
…
The boarding house door creaked shut behind him. He sagged against it, chest heaving, ears still echoing with that distorted hum. The stairwell smelled of damp plaster. One dim bulb buzzed overhead, its light sickly yellow.
Inside his room, he flipped the switch. A fluorescent tube flickered reluctantly before casting its sterile glow.
The place was pitifully small: a single bed against the wall, a rickety desk piled with papers and books, a short shelf stacked with half-read novels. A mini fridge rattled in the corner, its contents little more than instant noodles and cheap beer. The air carried the faint moldy damp of unwashed walls.
Jonathan dropped his bag, collapsed onto the bed, and pulled the card from his pocket. Under the light, its silvery surface shimmered like an eye staring back at him.
"The Game of Choosing a God… another world…"
He muttered the words again, his voice unsteady.
Was it a prank? An invitation? A threat?
His gaze shifted to the ceiling. For years, he'd lived like a ghost. Work. Return. Eat. Scroll. Sleep. Repeat. Somewhere deep inside, he had longed for something—anything—to break the monotony. But not like this. Not with a letter dripping in menace.
The bulb overhead blinked. Jonathan frowned.
He glanced at the wall clock—and froze.
The second hand had stopped.
For one breath, silence pressed against him. No tick. No hum. As though time itself had stalled. His skin prickled with gooseflesh. Then, with a blink, the hand resumed, the ticks resuming as if nothing had happened.
Jonathan yanked the curtain aside. Outside, the alley lay empty under the streetlamp's cone of light. But he swore—just for an instant—he'd seen a figure slip by. Tall. Thin. Vaporous. Gone in a blink.
"Damn it…" His grip tightened on the letter.
He tried to laugh it off. Stress. Exhaustion. Hallucinations. But deep down, he knew the distortion was real. Too sharp. Too visceral.
He tossed the card onto the desk, cracked open a can of beer, and gulped. The bitterness bit at his throat but dulled nothing. He lay back, eyes locked on the ceiling, questions gnawing at him:
If I refuse, can life ever go back to normal? If I accept… what awaits me? Who sent this to me?
The wind whispered at the window. The night stretched on.
…
He dreamed.
He stood in a void without sky, without ground, nothing but infinite black stretching forever. The cold numbed his skin. From afar, a voice resounded, not male, not female, but a chorus of countless throats speaking at once:
"Jonathan… choose… choose…"
He tried to shout back—Who are you? What is this?—but his throat locked tight, no sound escaping.
Before him, a door rose. Towering, infinite, carved with spirals that seemed to flow. In its center glowed the same red handprint he had seen on the card. As Jonathan neared, the hand shifted, curling and uncurling its fingers as if beckoning him closer.
The void twisted. The air shivered like fractured glass. Jonathan dropped to his knees, dizzy.
Words flared across the dark sky, burning white:
"On the next full moon. Decide."
Jonathan jolted awake.
He shot upright in bed, gasping, his shirt soaked in sweat. The clock on the wall read three a.m. The room was silent save for the fridge's buzz.
But the card on his desk gleamed faintly in silver, pulsing once, as though answering his dream.
Jonathan clutched his head. Dream? Or had he been dragged into something real? Either way, he knew—there was no turning back.
He looked out the window. Clouds parted, and the pale outline of a full moon peeked through.
His chest tightened.
"The next full moon…"
The words slipped from his lips.
And as if in reply, the moonlight fell across his desk, lighting the silver card until its carved letters gleamed once more.
Jonathan sat motionless for a long time. No answer left his mouth. Only fear. Only hunger for escape. Only a dangerous spark of curiosity, growing.
Jonathan lay wide awake on his bed, eyes open in the darkness. The room was silent except for the faint glow of the streetlight filtering through the window, painting pale streaks across the ceiling. He had turned off the lamp hours ago, yet sleep refused to come. Restlessness coiled inside him, like invisible wires tightening around his mind.
Again and again, the letter replayed in his head. The neat handwriting, the smooth black ink, the way his full name was written clearly on the envelope: Kin Jonathan.
He remembered the moment he unfolded it: space itself seemed to warp, like an old television screen glitching with static. It had lasted only a few seconds, but it was real enough to chill his bones.
"Just fatigue… just an illusion," Jonathan whispered, trying to convince himself. But even he heard the tremor in his own voice.
He tossed and turned, crushing the pillow beneath his head, pulling the blanket tight as if it could shield him. His thoughts split in two directions: one voice urged him to step into this so-called "divine game," perhaps his one chance to break free from a dull life; the other screamed that it was a trap, something sinister from which there would be no return.
Memories surfaced—his childhood littered with small failures, a life that grew into nothing more than mediocrity. Jonathan once dreamed of greatness, but that dream had been buried under years of monotony.
He sat up suddenly, staring at the faint light outside. "No… I can't," he muttered. "A game of choosing gods? Ridiculous. I'm not some chosen hero in a novel. I'm just Jonathan, an office worker with nothing special."
He shoved the letter into the desk drawer, locked it, and sealed his decision. He would refuse.
The next morning, Jonathan dragged himself to work with dark circles under his eyes. His coworkers laughed about his tired look, but he brushed it off. The day passed slowly, filled with endless tasks, meetings, and the monotonous sound of keyboards.
For a while, he managed to bury the memory of the letter. It was nothing more than a strange dream, he told himself. By 5 p.m., he even felt a fragile sense of relief.
But at 18:29, fate stirred.
On his way home, he saw a fallen bicycle by the roadside. A young woman sat beside it, clutching her knees, tears streaming from her wide eyes. Blood trickled from a cut on her forehead.
The sight pierced Jonathan's heart. In her, he glimpsed Elena, his ex-girlfriend who had left him years ago. She too had once fallen from her bike, looking at him with that same vulnerable expression. Back then, Jonathan had hesitated—too slow, too cowardly. And Elena had walked away, never to return.
He helped the young woman, guiding her to a nearby clinic. Yet the act tore open old wounds. He heard Elena's voice again, remembered her smile, and the day she left, leaving behind a hollow silence.
When he stepped out of the clinic, Jonathan froze on the sidewalk. A thought struck him with cruel force:
"If I had chosen differently back then, what would my life be now?"
And like a shadow, the memory of the letter resurfaced. A chance—mad as it seemed—to choose differently this time.
20:57.
Jonathan was running. His breaths came ragged, his shirt soaked in sweat. The streets stretched endlessly under the dim glow of lamps, but he forced his legs to move faster.
Finally, the building loomed before him—Building X, tall and foreboding, neon lights flickering on its facade. He pushed himself harder, every heartbeat like a hammer against his ribs.
21:00:02.
He reached the steel doors, collapsing against them. Too late. Two seconds too late.
Jonathan's fists clenched. He pounded the door with all his strength.
"Open! Please—I'm here! Just two seconds late!"
The sound echoed down the empty street. He struck again and again, his knuckles splitting open, blood smearing the cold metal. Yet the door remained still, silent as stone.
He clawed at its edges, tried pulling, pushing, searching for any gap. Nothing. It was seamless, mercilessly closed.
"Please… I'm begging you… let me in!" His voice cracked, dissolving into hoarse cries. Sweat and tears mingled on his face as despair gnawed at him.
Minutes dragged on. His fists grew weaker, each strike softer than the last. Finally, Jonathan leaned his forehead against the unyielding surface, trembling, his strength spent.
"Is this… the end?" he whispered.
But no answer came.
Time passed, and the night grew colder. Jonathan sat there until the wind cut through his thin shirt, until his hands stiffened with dried blood. At last, emptiness filled him, hollow and heavy.
He turned away. Step by step, he walked back down the lonely street. Each footfall echoed in the silence, distant and hopeless.
When he finally returned to his apartment, he didn't turn on the light. Dropping into a chair, he stared blankly into the dark. His hands throbbed with pain, crusted with blood.
Above him, the ceiling stretched endlessly into shadows. And in his mind, a single thought circled again and again:
"If only I had been two seconds earlier… would everything have been different?"