"You should just die."
The words echoed off the tiles of the empty university classroom.
I looked down at her.
Miss Aris.
She was twenty, maybe twenty-one, fresh out of her own education and thrust into the role of our homeroom instructor.
Right now, she was on her knees, the fabric of her skirt bunching up against the floor.
Her makeup was ruined, with lines of mascara running down her cheeks and dripping onto her blouse.
She lost her job.
The university board fired her this morning.
I was the one who sent the emails.
I compiled the photos, the chat logs and proof that she had been sleeping with most of the parents of the students in her seminar.
She did it to fulfil her own desires, for money, for favours, or a twisted sense of control over the people who paid her salary.
Did I expose her for justice?
For the poor, betrayed wives sitting at home waiting for their husbands?
Fuck no.
I did it because I wanted to see this exact expression on her face.
I wanted to see this bitch shamed, broken, and stripped of the arrogant smirk she wore during lectures when she thought she was untouchable.
I spent three weeks gathering the data, tracking her movements, and intercepting her messages.
Not because I cared about the morality of her actions, but because it was a puzzle and she was the target.
"Why did you do that?" she shouted, her voice cracking. Her hands tightened into fists against her thighs.
"Why did you?"
I leaned against the edge of the nearest desk, crossing my arms.
I'm Ken.
Twenty years old.
And her crying that she lost her job was not my problem.
I just felt a mild, pleasant happiness in the back of my neck.
"You liked it, right?" I replied.
"The thrill of riding them."
She stared up at me, her mouth opening and closing.
She expected an apology, or maybe a righteous speech about ethics.
"The same way it is for me," I finished.
I pushed off the desk and walked toward the door.
"Ken!" she screamed behind me, her voice shrill and desperate.
"You're completely sick!"
I didn't bother looking back.
I walked down the hallway and out the main doors of the building.
The campus was crowded.
Students were walking in pairs, talking about upcoming exams, arguing about weekend plans, laughing at stupid jokes.
I navigated through them without making eye contact. By the standards of a normal person, I was supposed to be building a future, making connections, and finding a career.
But I hated it.
I didn't like anything in this world.
Everything was too safe and predictable.
Nothing excited me.
I didn't care about sports, I didn't care about relationships.
I spent most of my free time in my apartment, sitting at my PC.
I played those punishing, unforgiving games where one mistake sent you back to the start.
The kind of games where you had to memorise attack patterns, manage stamina, and exploit every tiny weakness to survive.
But even those got boring once you figured out the underlying math. Once you cracked the system, there was no thrill left.
The only other thing that held my attention was a webnovel I had been following.
A trashy, dark fantasy story. The world in the book was a complete menace.
Humans were weak, hunted by cannibals, succubus, and slaughtered by mutated beasts.
The protagonist was a self-righteous idiot trying to save a world that clearly wanted to die.
I stepped off the campus grounds and onto the busy city sidewalk.
I wanted a world like that novel.
If I were in that world, I wouldn't waste time trying to save anyone.
I would exploit their fears and would climb over their corpses to get what I wanted.
The pedestrian light turned green.
I didn't hear the horn until it was entirely too late.
A truck with a massive force hit me.
But I had no time to panic. Just a single thought.
Finally. Something interesting happens.
People were screaming around me.
Footsteps rushed toward my body.
It was so noisy.
So annoying.
I was done with this boring, restrictive world. The noise of the panicked city disappeared.
Dead.
I was finally dead.
Then, a smell hit me.
It smelled like rotting meat, dried urine, and sweat.
I opened my eyes.
My body wasn't in a morgue.
I was lying on a cold, packed-dirt floor. My body felt heavy, but completely intact. The crushing agony of the truck was gone.
I sat up, inspecting my hands. They were smaller and thinner than I remember.
I looked around, my eyes adjusting to the gloom.
I was locked in a cage.
In the far corner of the cage, huddled as far away from me as possible, was another person.
It was a man.
He was missing his left eye, the socket a jagged pink scar, and his clothes were nothing but rags.
"You're awake," the man whispered, his voice trembling so hard his teeth shook.
"They're coming. The man-eaters... they're coming for the next batch."
Man-eaters? Cannibals?
A smirk formed on my face.
[Ding!]