Chapter 1
Y'know what's worse than being surrounded by idiots?
Being the idiot surrounding everyone else.
Carter thought that pretty much summed up his life.
The classroom buzzed with the same stale energy it always had. The fan groaned above him, spinning like it was trying to hang itself. Chalk scratched against the board in painful rhythm. Even the sunlight looked tired—spilling across desks like it had given up halfway through shining.
Carter sat halfway down the row, chin on his hand, eyes unfocused. The teacher's voice had dissolved into background static—just vowels and consonants smearing together into something vaguely educational.
He wasn't lazy, not really. He'd tried before. It just never stuck.
Like trying to write on water—effort without evidence.
"Dude," a voice beside him said. "You look like you lost a fight with a coma."
Carter didn't bother turning. "I'm winning, actually."
Adam leaned back in his chair, smirking. "Sure doesn't look like it. You've been staring at that same page for ten minutes."
"Yeah, it's a psychological tactic," Carter said. "If I look pathetic enough, maybe she'll stop calling on me."
Adam snorted. "Or she'll call on you out of pity. 'Let's see if the dying kid in the corner knows the answer.'"
"Then we both die," Carter muttered. "Because I'll drag you down with me."
"Big talk for someone who failed last week's quiz."
"And big mouth for someone who didn't even show up," Carter shot back.
"Attendance is for the weak."
The teacher's voice sliced through the room. "Adam. Carter. Do you have something to share with the class?"
Adam didn't hesitate. "Just our suffering, ma'am."
The class laughed. Carter dropped his head into his hands.
---
When the bell rang, Carter was already halfway out the door. Adam caught up at the gate, walking backward in front of him like a circus act.
"Hey, corpse boy. You coming to the court later? Chris said he's bringing snacks."
"I don't play basketball."
"You don't play anything."
"Consistency is a virtue."
Adam clicked his tongue. "If life was a game, you'd still be on the tutorial."
"And you'd be the NPC that never shuts up."
"Rude," Adam said, grinning. "Accurate, but rude."
---
The school had ended early that week. Another student had gone missing—the fourth one in a month. Police cars loitered outside the gate, lights off but presence loud.
Carter didn't stop to stare like everyone else did. Missing posters were already part of the scenery. Every electric pole and bus stop had them—faces fading under rain and dust, names nobody would remember in a week.
He kept walking.
---
Carter had always been a loner, even back in middle school.
Not the cool, mysterious kind—just the quiet kid everyone forgot existed.
He used to think solitude made him strong. That being alone meant being untouchable. But life had a way of proving otherwise.
There's nothing cool about being a lone wolf. You just end up bleeding under a sky full of vultures, surrounded by beasts that hunt in packs.
The world doesn't respect silence. It chews it up.
You want to be somebody? You have to be seen.
And to be seen, you have to stand among others—even if it means pretending you belong.
That's why Carter kept Adam and Chris around. Not because they were great friends—hell, Adam was a walking migraine—but because total isolation was worse.
Still, he couldn't help despising how people worked.
How every hallway conversation was just recycled noise—who liked who, who said what, who got what grade.
Relationships felt like theater to him: everyone auditioning for roles in a play they secretly hated.
---
When Carter got home, the quiet hit like a wall.
Shoes off. Bag down. Controller on.
Same routine, same day, slightly different wallpaper.
Games were the only place where things made sense.
There were rules. Systems. Progress bars.
All the things real life refused to have.
Hours slipped by. Enemies fell. The screen flashed Victory, and for a brief moment, it almost felt like it meant something.
Then the theme music looped, and the illusion cracked.
He sighed, tossing the controller aside. "Yeah," he muttered, "definitely winning at life."
---
"Dinner's ready!" his mom called.
He trudged downstairs. The kitchen smelled faintly of reheated leftovers. His mom sat at the table, scrolling through her phone, face bathed in pale blue light.
"You eat already?" she asked, still scrolling.
"Guess I am now."
He ate quietly. "Dad's still at work?"
"Mhm. Overtime again. Your father's been pulling long hours lately."
Carter nodded, though the answer didn't really register. His dad hadn't joined them for dinner in days.
Silence filled the kitchen—soft but hollow. Not uncomfortable, just empty.
---
Later that night, Carter lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
He thought about Adam's jokes, the posters, the tired faces at school, the noise that never said anything real.
"Same thing, different day," he whispered.
The ceiling didn't argue.
Sleep came slow.
And when it did, something else came with it.
---
Carter wasn't sure when sleep took him. One moment, he was staring at the ceiling; the next, the world was gone.
At first, it was weightless—the kind of dream where thought and body drift apart.
Then came the smell.
Ash. Iron. Blood.
Am I lucid dreaming? he thought.
He stood on a hill overlooking an endless battlefield. Smoke rolled like a living tide across the land, glowing faintly from the fires below. The sky above was the color of a wound—red leaking into black.
"Maybe I've been playing too many video games," he muttered, though his voice felt like someone else's.
Below, a town flickered in the distance—wooden walls, faint torches, silhouettes running. Fear carried through the air like heat.
Men in battered armor clashed in the mud. Their blades met with dull clangs that sounded like resignation. They were losing.
But to what?
The other side of the valley wasn't an army—it was a mist.
It shimmered faintly, pulsing, as if something beneath it was breathing. Shapes moved inside—twisted, human-like, yet not. Wherever they stepped, the ground hissed and blackened.
The mist figures cut through men like smoke through flame. When a soldier fell, the mist swallowed him whole.
Carter's heart pounded.
He looked at his hands.
They weren't his. The skin rippled like dark glass, edges blurring into faint smoke. His movements felt alien—slow, deliberate, detached.
And then one of the creatures turned.
It didn't have a face, yet Carter knew it was looking straight at him.
Not through him. At him.
The air thickened, gravity twisting sideways. Carter couldn't move, couldn't breathe. The thing tilted its head—almost curious—and started toward him.
The world shattered.
Sound exploded. Red. White. Black.
Carter jolted awake, gasping. Sheets clung to his skin, drenched in cold sweat. His room returned piece by piece—the desk, the window, the faint glow of his monitor.
Everything looked normal.
But the silence was wrong.
He stared at his hands. Human. Solid.
And yet… he could still feel the other ones beneath them—
like a memory that didn't belong to him.
---