Ronan Kade noticed the silence before anything else.
Not the dramatic kind—the kind that crashes down with thunder or swells like a held breath. This silence was thin. Wrong. As if the world itself had briefly forgotten how to make noise.
The loading bay behind the distribution center was usually unbearable at noon. Engines idled. Metal clanged. Someone always yelled about schedules or missing inventory. But now, the air felt drained, like a room after everyone leaves at once.
Ronan straightened from the pallet he'd been lifting and frowned.
The crate in his hands bent.
Not creaked.
Not cracked.
Bent.
Steel-reinforced edges folded inward under his grip like damp cardboard.
Ronan froze.
He loosened his fingers slowly, expecting pain—expecting his muscles to scream or his joints to lock. Nothing happened. The crate slumped against the concrete with a dull thud, warped beyond use.
"What the hell…?"
He stared at his hands.
They looked the same. Scarred knuckles. Callused palms. Old cuts that never quite healed right. Nothing glowing. Nothing monstrous.
Around him, people were starting to notice.
"Hey—did the power cut?" someone called out.
"No, my phone just—" Another voice broke off.
Ronan felt it then. A pressure, like the air had thickened just enough to resist movement. Sound came back in fragments—half-formed words, a rising murmur of confusion.
Then the shadow fell.
It wasn't cast by a cloud.
The light itself dimmed, as if the sky had been turned down by an unseen hand. Ronan stepped out of the bay and looked up.
Something hovered above the city.
It was small enough to fit between two office buildings, but wrong in ways size couldn't explain. Its body looked stitched together from shapes that didn't agree on physics. Limbs bent at uncomfortable angles. Its skin shimmered like oil on water, reflecting colors that didn't belong to daylight.
And its face—
Its face was all teeth.
Not sharp, not animalistic. Just… too many. Layered in a grin that stretched wider the longer Ronan looked at it.
The thing clapped.
The sound snapped through the air like a judge's gavel.
People screamed.
Cars crashed into one another as drivers panicked. Someone dropped to their knees outright, hands clasped, sobbing prayers into the pavement. Phones were raised everywhere, recording, livestreaming, desperate to anchor the moment in something familiar.
The creature tilted its head, watching them react.
"Ahhh," it said, voice slick and cheerful and far too loud inside Ronan's skull. "Such wonderful expressions. Fear really is universal, isn't it?"
Ronan's jaw tightened.
The voice hadn't traveled through the air. It pressed directly against his thoughts, bypassing his ears entirely. He could feel the words, like fingertips tapping the inside of his head.
"Attention," the creature continued. "Attention, humans of this fine little world."
Its grin widened.
"You have been selected."
The pressure spiked.
Ronan felt it settle into his chest, heavy and absolute, like gravity had suddenly decided to care about him personally.
Selected.
For what?
The sky behind the creature shifted, darkening further, and glowing letters burned themselves into the air. They were sharp-edged, angular, written in a language Ronan had never learned—and yet understood perfectly.
> WORLD SCENARIO INITIALIZED
A woman near Ronan screamed until her voice broke.
The creature clapped again, delighted.
"Oh, don't look so upset," it said. "You should feel honored. Not every world gets the chance to be… useful."
Ronan felt anger spark—quick, hot, instinctive.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
The creature's many eyes snapped toward him.
For the first time since it appeared, it looked genuinely interested.
"Well now," it said, floating closer. "An early speaker. How refreshing."
It leaned forward, face lowering until it loomed just above the street. Ronan could see reflections of the city in its eyes—warped and fractured, like broken mirrors.
"We are dokkabies," it said proudly. "Administrators. Overseers. Executors of narrative law."
It spread its arms.
"And you are now incarnations."
The word landed like a brand.
Ronan felt it burn across his skin—not physically, but conceptually. Like something had reached into him and stamped ownership onto his existence.
A man shouted from somewhere behind him. "This is a joke, right? Some kind of AR thing?"
The dokkaebi turned without looking.
Its arm snapped out.
Ronan barely registered the movement—just a blur, a distortion in the air.
The man vanished.
Not exploded. Not crushed.
Gone.
The space he'd occupied collapsed inward for a split second, like reality had inhaled, then snapped back into place.
Silence followed. Total, suffocating silence.
The dokkaebi sighed theatrically. "Ah. I hate interruptions."
Ronan swallowed.
This wasn't a threat.
This was enforcement.
"Now," the dokkaebi said, clapping again. "Let's begin properly."
The letters in the sky rearranged themselves.
> ACT I: SURVIVE
Another line appeared beneath it, smaller but no less cruel.
> TIME LIMIT: 30 MINUTES
EXPECTED FAILURE RATE: 87%
A ticking sound echoed faintly through the air.
Somewhere, someone started counting down.
Ronan didn't wait.
The pressure in his chest shifted, sharpened. Instinct screamed at him to move—to do something—and he listened without thinking.
The ground split.
Not beneath his feet, but ahead of him, the asphalt cracking open as something forced its way up from below. A creature emerged, dragging itself into the light.
It looked unfinished.
Limbs mismatched in length. Skin like wet clay stretched over a frame that didn't quite fit together. Its mouth opened too wide, jaw unhinging as it let out a sound that wasn't quite a roar.
Ronan moved.
He didn't think about form or technique. He didn't wonder how or why. He stepped forward and threw a punch.
The impact jolted up his arm.
The creature folded backward, its torso collapsing inward as if struck by a wrecking ball. It flew, slamming into a parked truck hard enough to flip it onto its side.
Ronan staggered back a step, more from shock than pain.
He stared at his fist.
"That… wasn't possible," he muttered.
More cracks split the street.
Creatures poured out—dozens of them—crawling, lurching, shrieking as they oriented themselves toward the nearest humans.
Panic detonated.
People ran in every direction, trampling one another in their desperation to escape. The countdown grew louder, the ticking more insistent.
Ronan clenched his hands.
No plan. No instructions. No explanation beyond survive.
Fine.
He surged forward.
The world narrowed to motion and impact. He grabbed one creature and hurled it aside, the force of the throw sending it skidding across concrete. Another lunged, and he ducked under its grasp, driving his shoulder into its center of mass.
Everything felt wrong—and right.
His body moved with a precision he'd never known. Balance came naturally. Power flowed cleanly, without hesitation or strain. Each movement was efficient, decisive.
Terrifyingly so.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of light as a glowing mark burned itself into his forearm.
It didn't hurt.
It settled.
> INCARNATION STATUS CONFIRMED
The words appeared only for a moment, then faded, leaving behind a faint symbol etched into his skin.
The dokkaebi hovered above, watching.
"Oh my," it murmured. "This one adapted quickly."
Ronan didn't look up. He was too busy tearing through another creature, driving it back until it collapsed under the force of his blows.
The monsters kept coming.
But they weren't enough.
Minutes passed—maybe five, maybe ten. Time blurred under adrenaline and movement. Ronan's breathing stayed steady. His muscles didn't burn. His strikes didn't slow.
Bodies littered the street—not gore, not spectacle, just the aftermath of violence rendered efficient and final.
When the last creature fell, silence returned.
Ronan stood alone in the center of the destruction, chest rising and falling slowly.
None of the blood on him was his.
Around him, survivors stared.
Some with awe.
Some with terror.
Some with desperate hope.
A child peeked out from behind a wrecked car, eyes wide.
"Mister…" she whispered. "Are you… are you the hero?"
Ronan looked away.
Heroes died early. He'd learned that much from stories.
Above, something shifted.
Far beyond the sky—beyond clouds, beyond space—presences stirred. Vast and distant, like stars turning their attention toward a single grain of dust.
> A CONSTELLATION HAS BEGUN OBSERVING INCARNATION RONAN KADE
Ronan felt it—not as a voice, but as weight. Like countless eyes pressing down on him, measuring, judging.
The dokkaebi grinned wider.
"Well then," it said. "Looks like we've got a favorite already."
Ronan wiped his hands on his pants, jaw set.
"Is that it?" he asked. "Do we survive, and you leave?"
The dokkaebi laughed.
"Oh no," it said brightly. "You misunderstand your role."
It leaned closer, teeth gleaming.
"This world isn't being tested."
The countdown in the air ticked past the halfway mark.
"It's being used."
Ronan felt something cold settle in his gut.
And somewhere deep within the system that had just claimed his life, a note was made.
Not of approval.
Of expectation.