The bullying had always been there, his whole life.
It wasn't just a punch here or a mean word there; this was an everyday torment. It felt like the only thing he could breathe in that damn school was misery.
He had gone to the teachers so many times he couldn't even count. Their faces would get that tight look, that 'not this again, Nox' expression.
Then they would say stupid things.
"Boys will be boys," they'd claim or, "Just try to ignore them."
But how was he supposed to ignore a fist in his stomach, or his books kicked into the mud? It was just stupid advice, so incredibly stupid.
Once, he had even tried the police.
Lex and his usual group of tormentors had cornered him behind the gym. One of them, Jax, had actually pulled out a knife. He hadn't used it, just showed it, but the sight of that knife had stuck in Nox's head for weeks.
At the station, the officer had looked so tired, so bored. He took notes and asked questions, sure, but Nox saw it in the man's eyes. He was just another kid with another story.
So, of course, nothing was going to happen.
And nothing did.
Being an orphan didn't make anything better. There were no parents to march into the principal's office and yell on his behalf. No one to back him up, ever. He was completely on his own.
Then there was his uniform, a constant reminder of everything he hated. It had been second-hand when he first got it, already far too big in the shoulders and too short in the sleeves.
Now, years later, it just showed all the misery he had endured.
Faded patches marked where he had scrubbed at cafeteria food stains, and small tears he had tried to sew himself looked terrible.
The whole uniform had a general dirtiness that no amount of washing could ever remove. Sometimes he would spend what felt like forever bent over the stained basin in the orphanage bathroom, scrubbing until his knuckles were red.
But the stains, and that faint smell of old sweat and dirt, were just part of the fabric now. He figured they were part of him too.
He felt just like that uniform: old, stained, something people looked away from. or worse, they would look at him with pure disgust.
Over the years, something inside him had just gone, shut down. It wasn't some big dramatic event, no.
It felt more like something was slowly draining out of him, all the time. His heart, he guessed, just felt constantly tired.
It felt empty.
So he would watch other kids laughing, or crying, or getting angry about things, and it all felt so distant.
He wasn't really part of any of it.
Detached, yeah, that was the word for it.
The world was happening all around him, but he wasn't really in it; he was just watching from somewhere else.
---
The bell had rung, and Mr. Davies was droning on about something, history perhaps. Nox wasn't really listening; he was just trying to be invisible, as he always did.
Then he felt something cold and sticky soaking into the back of his already disgusting shirt.
He flinched but didn't turn around right away.
He already knew who it was and what it was.
Laughter erupted behind him.
He could pick out Lex's loud, ugly laugh, and Marla's high-pitched giggle.
It seemed like the whole classroom joined in; even kids who usually left him alone were snickering.
Mr. Davies stopped talking and looked up, his face annoyed at the interruption.
Nox slowly raised his hand, which felt incredibly heavy.
"Yes, Nox?" Mr. Davies said.
His tone was impatient; he probably just wanted to get back to his boring lecture.
"Sir," he began, his voice quiet, almost a whisper.
'I hate how weak I sound,' he thought.
"They poured juice on me."
He could feel the wetness spreading; it felt disgusting, so weird, and made him want to gag.
Mr. Davies looked at the back of Nox's shirt, then at the smirking faces in the rows behind him. Lex even made a show of wiping imaginary tears from his eyes, the bastard. Then, Mr. Davies actually chuckled.
It was a small sound, barely there, but Nox heard it.
'He's just like them huh,' Nox realized.
"Oh, come on, Nox," the teacher said, a dismissive smile on his face.
"A little juice isn't the end of the world. Try to have a sense of humor about these things."
The classroom exploded with laughter, louder this time, totally unrestrained.
All that mockery just washed over him.
His teacher. Even his teacher thought it was funny. This was after all the times Nox had told him, begged him for help.
He looked at their laughing faces, one by one.
Lex was still making those pig-like snorting sounds, and Marla was dabbing at her eye like she'd heard the funniest joke in the world. And Mr. Davies was just shaking his head slightly, that same stupid smile on his face, as if Nox were the most ridiculous, oversensitive kid on the planet.
In that moment, hearing all those laughs, something in him finally, completely, just snapped. That last little piece of him holding things together, the one that had been wearing thin for years, just broke.
Suddenly, everything was so clear, clearer than anything had ever been.
No one was going to help him.
No one ever had, and no one ever would.
So if he wanted this to stop, if he wanted the pain and the humiliation to finally end, he was the only one who could do it.
Only him. It had to be him.
So he reached down, his hand moving slowly, very deliberately, toward his worn school bag on the floor beside his desk.
His fingers brushed against something hard and cold hidden inside, wrapped in an old rag. He had stolen it from old Mr. Derry's lockbox at the orphanage weeks ago.
Derry was a mean drunk, always passed out; he probably hadn't even noticed it was gone.
Nox hadn't known why he took it back then; he just had this feeling, this pull towards it.
But now, he knew why.
His fingers closed around the wooden grip, which felt heavier than he had imagined. Then he pulled it out: the gun.
It was a dull, black revolver, old and a bit rusty.
The laughter in the classroom started to die down, replaced by confused murmurs.
Some kids were still smiling, probably thinking it was a toy, just another one of Nox's weird ways of getting attention. Mr. Davies frowned, his amusement vanishing completely.
"Nox, what in the world is that?" Mr. Davies demanded. "Put that thing away immediately. This isn't funny."
But Nox didn't say anything; he just looked at Mr. Davies.
The man's smile was completely gone now.
'Is that fear I see in his eyes?' He wondered.
He raised the gun. His hand was shaking, but his mind felt strangely calm.
It was a dangerously calm feeling.
Then he started shooting.
The noise was so loud in such a small classroom, not clean like in the movies. No, this was a physical thing, a horrible blast that slammed into his ears.
Lex was the first. Nox saw the surprise on his stupid face. Then there was red, so much red, spreading out on Lex's chest.
Marla screamed, a high, thin sound, but it didn't last long.
Others were scrambling, yelling, trying to hide under desks that wouldn't do anything to protect them.
Reload.
Mr. Davies shouted something, maybe Nox's name, his eyes wide with disbelief, before he, too, stumbled and fell.
Nox didn't aim carefully; he didn't need to.
He just pointed and pulled the trigger, again and again.
The gun jumped hard in his hand with each shot, hot casings flying out and hitting the floor. The smell of gunpowder filled the air, mixing with the strange, awful smell of blood, urine, and feces.
He kept shooting until the gun just clicked.
It was empty. And then there was silence, not a single movement anywhere. A loud ringing in his ears was the only sound.
He looked around the room. Bodies were everywhere, sprawled in unnatural ways. Blood was pooling on the floor, soaking into textbooks and discarded papers.
The laughter was gone, all gone.
He just stood there in the middle of it all, the empty gun still tight in his hand.
He wasn't shaking anymore.
He thought he should feel something more. Horror, maybe? Regret? But there was nothing left inside him, especially not for them.
They couldn't hurt him anymore.
That was the only thought that truly registered, just circling in his head.
Then, right in front of his face, letters started to appear.
They were bright blue, like from a computer screen someone had forgotten to turn off, but they were just floating there in the air.
[Congratulations! Requirements met.]
[First Player Chosen: Nox.]
[You have unlocked: The Elemental System!]
He blinked.
'What the hell is this?' he wondered.
He just stared at the words, not understanding any of it.
'Am I hallucinating? Is this what shock does to a person?'
He was standing over his dead classmates and his dead teacher. Their blood was still warm on the floor, and some of it had spattered on his old shoes, on his stained uniform. And this thing was congratulating him?
He looked up, trying to clear his head, and then he saw the classroom ceiling was gone. Not just gone; it was as if the whole roof of the school had been ripped off.
Above, the sky was doing things skies just weren't supposed to do. It was churning, and colors were swirling together – green, purple, red.
Then the ground began to shake, and it wasn't a small tremor. This was a deep, violent shudder, as if the whole world was being torn apart.
Bookshelves in the classroom toppled over with a loud crash, and the remaining desks slid across the floor. Dust and bits of debris rained down from somewhere above.
The shaking grew stronger, so strong it threw him off balance. He stumbled and had to catch himself on a blood-covered desk to keep from falling.
This went on and on; he didn't know for how long, but it felt like an hour, maybe even more. He just huddled there, right next to Lex's body, feeling confused and dazed.
Those blue letters were still there in front of him, steady and unmoving.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the shaking stopped. The sky above calmed down, though it was now a strange, unfamiliar color—a dusky, unsettling orange he had never seen before in his entire life.
The blue letters in front of him changed.
[Merge complete.]
[Current World Population: 20 billion.]
He stared at the new words. 'Twenty billion?'
Earth only had, what, eight billion people? Maybe nine?
'Where did the other twelve billion come from? What merge?' he thought, bewildered.
'What in God's name is going on?'
His mind was already reeling from what he had done, so it couldn't process any of this new information.
But the system, or whatever it was, wasn't finished.
[Dungeons have been placed.]
[Mana has been injected into the atmosphere.]
[Good luck, Player Nox.]
Then the letters faded away, winking out of existence.
This left him alone again in the silent classroom, under a sky he didn't recognize, with impossible words like 'dungeons' and 'mana' echoing in his head.
'Good luck?' he thought.
He started to laugh then.
Luck had never been on his side, not once.
'So why the hell would it start now?'