My name is Isaiah Ford but people usually call me Zay.
I was 18 years old when this all started and I was a professional poser before all of this occurred. At home I was reclusive weeb who spent all of my time reading and playing video games. On the other hand, the second I left my humble abode I was a completely different person. What the world truly knew me as was Zay the animal.
See I was the guy in school who slept in class all day and made it my mission to make teachers feel like their the villains for waking me up. I was the person who drank till I passed out at parties and approached women leagues above what a person with my appearance should ever dream about.
In short I used to pride myself in being the popular party animal who was always down to indulge in any and all forms of debauchery possible.
Naturally these two personas didn't quite suit each other so I kept them separate entirely.
At home I was your typical weeb, watching anime, reading novels and playing video games all day. My friends online all loved and accepted me as one of them and I loved having a circle online who accepted this side of me.
Whilst outside I was an incorrigible troublemaker who hung about in the sketchy parts of town committing acts that would send my parents to an early grave if they found out.
And quite frankly, I loved having things this way.
I was able to enjoy the best of both worlds as a normie and a nerd.
But both of those lifestyles would come to an end that day as I woke up in a white room surrounded by all sorts of people.
These were people of different ethnicities, races and paths of life.
Some looked as proper as they come, in suits and dresses and one guy was even wearing a monocle. There was a plethora of smart, refined looking people all with expressions either portraying an obvious confusion or a cold indifferent demeanour.
In contrast, there was also plenty of people who appeared to embody the idea of delinquency. A large number of the people in this room had tattoos, piercings, scars and whatever else you could associate with the local gangsters in your neighbourhood. Some looked excited, some had scary expressions and some just looked bored but the difference to the former group was that they were much more expressive than them wearing their emotions clearly.
There were many more archetypes of people in this room like: soldiers, gym guys, martial artists, religious practitioners, influencers and many more different types of people.
Though the one thing that everyone in this room seemed to have in this room was that they appeared to be formidable.
Everyone had the aura of someone important, figures of authority and power.
Everyone apart from me.
I was just a regular person.
I looked like someone trying to fit in whereas everyone else in this room broke the mould of ordinary and appeared to actually be someone of value, unlike me.
Overwhelming would be a huge understatement of what this situation was as I found myself in this diverse white void of people trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.
It was only after a minute of confusion that the voice of my future tormentor finally spoke up.
"Welcome to the tournament deciding the fate of life on earth."