Noah woke staring up at the sky.
Only… it wasn't the sky he remembered.
It was a deep red, veined with streaks of purple. The clouds overhead churned like black smoke, heavy and low.
He sat up slowly. A dry, brittle crunch met his ears, the grass beneath him didn't bend or sway, it crumbled like breadcrumbs.
"Where the…?" he muttered. "What's going on, am I still asleep?"
His hand shot to his forehead as a sharp pulse of pain throbbed above his brow.
"Argh"
There was a small bump, tender and swollen.
Just then, a sudden flicker of light blinked into view. A glowing screen, translucent and rigid, hovered in front of him.
TUTORIAL COMPLETE
PLEASE SELECT YOUR CLASS
FAILURE TO SELECT A CLASS WITHIN THE GIVEN TIME WILL RESULT IN CLASS AUTO-ASSIGNMENT
"…Okay, definitely asleep," Noah mumbled. "Tutorial? Class? I must've passed out in front of my PC again."
He rubbed his eyes, but the message didn't go away.
"Damn, I really gotta ease off the late night gaming sessions…"
Another throb. The pain spiked, fresh and real.
He winced. "Did I hit my head on my desk or something?"
He glanced around the barren field. No sign of civilization. No lights. No roads. Just dark grass, still air, hills as far as the eye could see and that dark sky overhead.
Noah slapped himself on the cheek to check if he was in fact dreaming.
He got pain in return.
"This isn't right... I felt that. Usually when you dream, even when it's lucid, you're supposed to know you're dreaming. This is... real."
Panic began to set in.
"I can hear my heart beating, my mouth is dry, and this grass that crumbles the moment I touch it..."
WARNING
10 SECONDS LEFT TO SELECT YOUR CLASS OR ONE WILL BE CHOSEN FOR YOU
"what kind of situation is this? I don't remember doing any tutorial"
The timer ticked.
He tapped SELECT CLASS, and a list of 6 combat styles revealed themselves:
MELEE
RANGED
MAGIC
SPECIALIST
FORBIDDEN
"Well if I had to fight anything I'd rather not do it up close, I even main a caster in 'Swords & Sorcery Online' so let's go with something..."
He tapped on MAGIC CLASSES.
The timer hit 5 seconds.
"Dammit, I don't have time to read through all of this!"
He quickly tapped at random.
CHRONOMANCER SELECTED
"I guess that'll have to do."
The timer stopped. For a moment, there was nothing but a frozen screen.
Then...
ERROR 001: TUTORIAL INCOMPLETE
CANNOT BEGIN THE FIRST LE—
The screen began to twitch and glitch, pixelating in jagged red lines. Letters blinked in and out.
UNABLE TO PROCE—
"Woah, why's it doing that?"
He waved a hand through the screen. It phased right through. The image continued to jitter violently.
Then suddenly…
5
4
3…
"No no no, I selected it! I selected it! I literally just picked the class, is this thing broken?!"
He started tapping wildly on the glitching menu, but nothing responded.
"C'mon man, this things buggier than an early access game!"
The countdown ticked faster,
2
1
"Don't you dare!"
YOU HAVE NOT SELECTED A CLASS
ONE WILL BE SELECTED FOR YOU
Noah's mouth hung open. "What? No... no way. It just glitched on me!"
"Okay what is this? Some kind of VRMMORPG? Who's running this show and why does it feel so real?"
Silence.
Nothing but a faint breeze and the lingering scent of something foul wafting through the air, like rotting meat and ozone.
The screen flickered again.
—zzzt—
CLASS AUTO ASSIGNED: SWORDSMAN
ERROR: CHRONOMANCER SEL-
ERROR: CLASS AUTO ASSIGNED
ERROR: CHRONO-
—zzzt—
ERROR: SWORDSMAN AUT-
ERROR 001: TUTORIAL INCOMPLETE
CANNOT BEGIN THE FIRST LEVEL
YOU HAVE NOT COMPLETED THE TUTORIAL
CLASS SELECTED: CHRONOMANCER
CLASS AUTO-ASSIGNED: SWORDSMAN
ERROR: 001: TUTORIAL INCOMPLETE
ADJUSTING PARAMETERS...
—zzzt—
The screen buzzed violently, lines of red and white code jittering across the screen. Noah stepped back.
"You've gotta be kidding me... Okay that's enough fun, time to leave."
He reached up, mimicking the motion of removing a headset from his face.
Nothing.
No sensation of straps or gear. Just air.
He opened the system menu, at least he tried to. But all he got was static and a non-functioning interface buried under a wall of errors.
He tried shouting.
"HELLO?! HEY! GET ME OUTTA HERE! GAME MASTER! ADMIN! GOD?!"
Silence again.
Then another message appeared:
PARAMETERS ADJUSTED
NEW HIDDEN CLASS AUTO-ASSIGNED:
CHRONOBLADE LVL 1
The glitches stopped.
A clean interface popped up in front of him.
---
NAME: Noah
LEVEL: 1
JOB: None
TITLE: None
REGEN: 0
PASSIVES: NULL
LIVES: 1
HP: 100/100
MP: 10/100
---
ATTRIBUTES
STR: 3
VIT: 5
AGI: 6
PER: 2
INT: 10
Suddenly, the field grew unnaturally cold. A sound like flesh dragging across stone echoed through the air.
From behind a hill of dead, blackened grass, It emerged. Slouching. Lopsided. Its head, a gaping, tooth-filled mass, and it was wearing someone's else's face over it like a mask, barely stitched on. Blood dripping down onto it's apron, patchworked together from various players who failed the tutorial.
As it locked eyes with Noah. A red targeting square appeared on Noah's HUD.
Then it began to advance towards him.
DING
Text appeared just above it's head.
THE MAWSMITH
It hovered there, then after a moment 3 large health bars appeared just under its name.
Then more information began to flood his interface, jittery, stuttering in and out of focus like broken code:
NAME: The Mawsmith
LEVEL: 100
TYPE: Tutorial Instructor
OCCUPATION: Friendly
CLASS UNDETECTED
PLEASE SELECT A CLASS
ERROR: UNRECOGNIZED CLASS
ERROR: TUTORIAL NOT COMPLETED
BEGINNING ENEMY ENGAGEMENT
[EMERGENCY SURVIVAL PROTOCOL ENGAGED]
OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE
WARNING: YOU ARE UNARMED
Noah took a step back, then another. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.
"This is unreal."
But the way his breath clouded in the air, the sting of the wind, the nausea curling in his gut, it was all real.
The Mawsmith didn't speak. It just groaned, a low, vibrating sound that made Noah's teeth chatter, and began to pick up speed.
Limping, then jogging, then running.
Slam. Slam. Slam.
Its footsteps crushed the soil, each one leaving smoldering black craters in the earth.
Noah turned and bolted.
He didn't know where he was going, only that he had to move. He tore across the field, tripping over roots and bones and something that might've once been human. The HUD flickered wildly in his periphery, spamming the same warning again and again:
WARNING: LEVEL DISPARITY TOO GREAT
SURVIVAL CHANCE: 0.3%
Something sharp hissed past his ear, a hook, flung from the Mawsmith's arm. It missed by inches and slammed into a tree ahead, instantly rotting the bark it touched.
He swerved. The terrain changed.
The field gave way to a crooked path, winding through twisted stone and rusted iron fences. And there, standing like a corpse risen out of the ground, was a chapel.
Or what used to be one.
Half the spire was gone. The roof had collapsed inward with overgrown vines crawling up its broken frame. A fractured stained-glass window bled dim orange light. Crows circled the bell tower, their cries strangely muted.
Noah sprinted toward it, legs burning, lungs screaming. The Mawsmith was still behind him, closer now. Too close.
The chapel doors were slightly open. Black ivy curled around the hinges like claws. Noah ducked inside.
The Mawsmith reached the threshold... and stopped.
Its body lurched violently, twitching like a puppet with its strings cut. Its jaw flexed open, unhinging wider than a human skull should allow. Then it reeled back, screeching.
A new interface message blinked:
AREA: CHAPEL OF THE BROKEN VOW
YOU HAVE ENTERED A SANCTUARY ZONE
SYSTEM ENTITIES CANNOT ENTER THIS AREA
Outside, The Mawsmith paced in slow circles like a predator waiting at the mouth of a den. Every so often it would throw its shoulder against the doorway, but never cross.
Inside, Noah collapsed to the cold, marble floor. Breathing hard.
His HUD still flickered with errors. His hands were shaking.
No sword. No class. No guidance.
Just a name.
And the wrong kind of silence.
He looked up at the rotted altar ahead.
"What even is this situation I'm in right now..."