The system didn't give me time to breathe.
[All participants, gather at the nearest plaza.]
[Scenario condition: Survive the first wave.]
The text blinked in front of me, as cold and impersonal as a corporate memo.
I didn't even have time to curse.
The next moment, my body lurched forward. Not by choice. My feet weren't moving, but the floor beneath me twisted, warped, and folded like reality itself had been picked up and shaken by unseen hands.
The room dissolved. The peeling wallpaper, the dusty curtains, the single bulb swinging weakly from my ceiling—all gone.
And when I opened my eyes again, I was no longer in my dingy apartment.
I was standing in the city square.
Except… it wasn't a square anymore.
✦
Hundreds of people had been dragged here, dumped together in a ring like cattle awaiting slaughter. Office workers still in their suits, college kids with half-zipped backpacks, even a grandmother still clutching a torn grocery bag with tomatoes spilling across the ground.
Everyone froze.
No one breathed.
The silence felt like glass—thin, fragile, ready to shatter with one wrong word.
Then the crowd erupted.
"What is happening?!"
"Where am I?!"
"My kids—my kids are at home—"
"Is this some kind of joke?!"
Voices overlapped, sharp and frantic. Some screamed. Some cried. Some just stood there, staring blankly like their brains had fried.
And above us all, floating like a judge's verdict, a message appeared:
[Welcome, players.]
[Survive the First Hour.]
[Monsters approaching in 3… 2… 1.]
My stomach dropped.
The countdown hit zero.
And the hounds came.
✦
They weren't wolves.
That was my first thought as they bounded from the shadows at the edge of the plaza.
They weren't anything. Not really.
They were wrong.
Too many eyes glowing like broken glass scattered in the dark. Jaws that stretched too wide, filled with too many teeth. Limbs bent at angles no creature's body should allow. They were half-wolves, half-nightmares, shaped like someone had copied a wolf from memory but got bored halfway through and let the mistakes stay in.
The first howl shattered whatever courage the crowd had left.
Then the screaming began.
A man broke from the circle, sprinting toward the nearest street.
The hound caught him before he'd taken ten steps. Its jaws clamped onto his back. Bones snapped with a sickening crunch. His scream cut short, and a notification appeared in the corner of my vision.
[Participant 1,232 eliminated.]
Another number on my HUD dropped.
The hounds lunged into the panicked crowd. People pushed and shoved, some trying to run, some frozen stiff, others clawing at each other just to get away.
The plaza became a slaughterhouse.
✦
"Move!"
The voice cut through the chaos like steel on stone.
I turned.
A young man was striding forward from the mass of trembling survivors. Black hair streaked faintly with silver. His movements—calm, measured, utterly fearless. His eyes—sharp, cold, dangerous—scanned the battlefield with the confidence of someone who wasn't seeing this for the first time.
And my heart stopped.
No.
That face. Those eyes. That name that hovered above his head in faint glowing letters:
Kael Arathis.
My breath caught. My pulse hammered.
I knew that name.
I had written that name.
Kael Arathis wasn't just some random hero the system spawned. He was mine. My character. My creation from a half-finished novel I had abandoned years ago.
I remembered the late nights typing, the way I'd described his black hair, the hint of silver at the edges like moonlight catching steel. His fists that could shatter monsters, his calm that could steady armies. The tragic protagonist I'd never finished writing.
And now… he was here. Alive. Breathing.
My character had walked off the page and into reality.
✦
The hounds lunged at him.
He didn't hesitate.
He met them head-on, barehanded.
The first hound leapt—he crushed its skull with a single punch. Bone cracked like ceramic under his knuckles. Blood sprayed, steaming in the night air.
Another lunged from the side. He pivoted, his leg whipping out in a kick that shattered its ribs and sent it tumbling across the pavement.
He moved exactly as I had written him years ago. Fluid, precise, merciless.
The crowd gasped. Some even cheered.
And then the system rewarded him.
[Participant Kael Arathis has earned Title: Hero of the First Hour.]
The title flashed above his head, glowing like a crown.
Hope surged through the survivors. People cheered his name, rallied behind him, as if he were some chosen savior dropped from the sky.
But my stomach sank.
Because I knew the truth.
Kael wasn't the system's gift. He wasn't their savior.
He was my failure. My story. My abandoned draft.
And now he was here, living it.
✦
While everyone rallied to him like moths to a flame, I slipped toward the edge of the plaza. Hero worship wasn't my style. My instinct screamed not to stand in the spotlight—but to survive.
That's when I saw it.
Half-buried under rubble, glinting faintly.
A weapon.
If you could call it that.
It looked pathetic. A rusted dagger, thin as a broken pen. Honestly, it looked like something you'd find at a flea market for five rupees, maybe in the bargain bin labeled "decorative only."
But the system pinged anyway:
[Item Acquired: Nameless Growth-Type Weapon (Grade ???)][Growth Condition: Rewrite alongside its wielder.]
I blinked. "Wait… growth-type?"
It pulsed faintly in my hand. Warm. Like it had a heartbeat of its own.
Kael slaughtered monsters like a demigod, each kill feeding the crowd's faith in him. And me? I was holding what looked like my old fountain pen had been melted down and forged by a drunk blacksmith.
"Fantastic," I muttered. "He gets 'Hero of the First Hour.' I get stationery."
Still… I gripped it tighter. Because it was all I had.
✦
The hounds broke through the panicked crowd.
Screams tore the air. Blood splattered across concrete. Kael roared, tearing through them like a living storm, his fists now glowing faintly as if even the system itself bent to his presence.
Meanwhile, a hound's many eyes fixed on me.
It lunged.
My new "weapon" trembled in my grip.
Panic surged—my mind racing, throat tight, heart slamming in my chest—and then, like a cruel editor with a deadline, the familiar window popped up.
[Sentence: The hound ripped through Ishaan Reed before he could defend himself.]
[ Rewrite? (Y/N)]
My breath caught. My hand shook.
But I pressed Y.
The sentence flickered, words bending like ink dissolving in water.
[Sentence: The hound stumbled, leaving its throat exposed.]
Reality twisted. The monster faltered, its leg buckling mid-lunge.
I moved without thinking. The dagger-pen slid into its throat.
No resistance. No physics. Just… the story changing because I said so.
The hound collapsed in a heap, lifeless.
And in my hand, the weapon pulsed, its rust flaking away, the blade glowing faintly like fresh ink across a blank page.
✦
A system message rang out:
[Participant Ishaan Reed has earned Title: The Lone Quill.]
The announcement echoed across the plaza. Heads turned. Survivors stared. Even Kael's sharp eyes flicked toward me, narrowing, calculating.
The gods were watching.
And for the first time, I realized this wasn't just about survival.
This was about stories.
And mine had just begun.