October in Harborview was still brutally hot. Even though the rest of the country was finally stepping into autumn, this southern coastal city kept roasting under a sun that never seemed to get tired. The heat pressed down on everything, making the blacktop look a little too soft, almost like it was starting to melt.
Because of its perfect location and a long history with tech, Harborview had grown into the biggest hub for game companies in the nation. Dozens of studios packed themselves into the city, from tiny two-person startups to massive corporations. It was also home to the country's top university for game design: Harborview University.
In a dorm room on campus—Room 315 of Oakridge Hall—Evan Carter shut the windows, locked the door, blasted the air-conditioning to full power, and collapsed into his chair. He tipped back a bottle of ice-cold cola, swished it around his mouth, and exhaled with pure, lazy satisfaction.
"Now that's living," he muttered.
The cold air washed over him, and for a moment, he drifted back into memories he rarely said out loud.
In his previous life, Evan had been the definition of a homebody geek. A full-time consumer of the Ninth Art—video games. That was where all his passion and all his energy went.
Narrative adventures, MOBAs, fighters, management sims, card strategy games… he loved all of them. Capcom, Ubisoft, EA, Blizzard, Bethesda, CD Projekt Red—if a game existed, he was interested. But despite loving the industry more than anything, he'd majored in something completely unrelated, and that regret stayed with him for years.
Ironically, the thing that ended his life was a stupid moment at his college graduation dinner. One drink went down the wrong way and—
Darkness.
He woke up to find himself face-to-face with a literal Death God, who looked annoyed at his own paperwork.
"With deep regret," the Death God said, "a clerical error resulted in your death. Unfortunately, your original body is beyond saving. I can only transfer you to another parallel timeline and let you start over."
At that moment, Evan remembered his biggest frustration from his old life. And he shouted it instantly:
"I want to become the most amazing game designer ever!"
The Death God didn't even look surprised. He just pulled out an iPad like he was handling someone's HR onboarding, tapped a few things, and said:
"Alright. I'll send you to Earth Parallel Line 24. Its history is roughly similar to what you know, but the game industry there? I'll leave that to you to save."
Then he tossed Evan's soul into what felt like a cosmic wind tunnel. Just before he vanished completely, the Death God paused, snapped his fingers, and threw in a small black box after him.
"This is a server the Underworld decommissioned last year. I'll give it to you for recycling. I expect big things."
Every time Evan remembered how he died—choking on alcohol, at a celebration, in front of his classmates—he cringed. If he had stayed in his original world, he probably would've become the most humiliating legend in his university's hundred-year history.
Thankfully, the Death God had handed him something incredible.
The Death God Server looked like nothing special—just a tiny USB stick, the kind that would cost five bucks at a gas station. No manual, no model number, no branding. But over time, Evan slowly figured out what it could do:
Just touching it let him write code directly in his mind and send it straight to whatever device it was plugged into. He could think a full class, a whole module, an entire system—and it would appear instantly on his laptop.
He was effectively a one-man development studio.
There was also a massive chunk of data storage on the drive that was inaccessible. It was marked in bright red:
Unlock after creating the first game!
But simple stuff didn't count. Evan had tested that theory early on. Within his first few months in this world, he'd coded little prototypes—tic-tac-toe, tiny puzzle apps—just to see if the condition would trigger. Nothing happened.
So he assumed the required game had to be commercial grade—a real, publishable project.
Which was why the graduation project competition mattered so much.
For now, Evan pushed the memories aside and refocused on the screen. The server was plugged into his laptop, humming silently, and to anyone else it looked like a cheap flash drive from a convenience store.
He kept typing—well, thinking—and lines of code poured onto the display.
Then a small penguin icon in the bottom corner of his desktop started blinking.
Someone was messaging him.
Even in this parallel world, the most popular communication app was still the one with the penguin logo. That little bit of familiarity had made his first few months here a lot easier.
Evan clicked open the chat window. The message was from his roommate, Mark Dawson. The dorm was quiet—Saturday, sunny, everyone else was out having a life. His three roommates had left campus to hang out, while Evan was stuck working on his graduation project from hell.
Mark:
Dude, did you hear? Rich Boy Langford is entering the graduation project competition!
Harborview University had transformed its final evaluation for graduation projects into a public competition years ago. It gave their best students a chance to shine, and companies loved scouting talent from it. Anyone who believed in their work could sign up. A combo panel of university leaders and corporate representatives would score all entries.
If you stood out, you earned fame, prizes, job offers—pretty much everything a young developer could want. Reporters even called the annual winners Best Graduates.
But if you lost? Your academic credits got reduced. Lose badly enough, and you might not graduate at all.
Evan typed back:
Evan:
No. But it's not really my problem.
Mark:
Bro, how is it NOT your problem?! You know how Richard Langford is. We've been classmates for four years—have you EVER seen him show up to class? Word is his dad hired a full dev team to build his project just so he can score first place and graduate. If they didn't cheat for him, he wouldn't have enough credits to get his diploma. The guy's desperate.
Evan didn't even blink.
Evan:
I signed up. I'm not backing out. Even if Langford shows up with an army, this year's Best Graduate is still going to be me.
Mark:
…Fine. If you insist. We'll all come cheer for you.
Evan closed the chat window.
He absolutely knew who Mark was talking about. Richard Langford, heir to a wealthy family rumored to own several companies in Northshore City, the city right next to Harborview. Evan had heard the name for years but had never seen him in person. The guy had basically skipped three full years of classes. And now, suddenly, he wanted to join the biggest academic event of the year?
Just to force his way into a diploma?
Evan shook his head.
"Rich Boy Langford… your face might be unfortunate, but your dreams sure are pretty."
And the truth was: Evan had plenty of reasons to treat the competition seriously.
First, it determined his graduation status. Winning came with resources and opportunities he desperately needed.
Second, the Death God Server had strict conditions. The deeper functions inside it—whole sections he could see but couldn't access—remained locked behind that single requirement:
Unlock after creating the first game.
But the server clearly didn't consider small tests or simple prototypes to be "games." Evan had tried those already. Nothing triggered.
So his best guess was that it needed to be a real, commercial-quality product that actually reached the public.
And winning the competition was his best shot at making that happen.
Even without Richard Langford entering the arena, Evan would've treated this like the most important project of his life.
Because it was.
Unlocking the server meant unlocking his biggest, most dangerous, most incredible secret weapon.
And he wasn't about to let anything—or anyone—get in the way of that.