Chapter 1: The Day Gods Played Dice
Death sounds like silence.Arjun Malhotra learned this truth at exactly 9:47 AM when Mumbai stopped breathing.The train lurched forward, then froze mid-lurch. Mid-screech. Mid-everything. One moment he was scrolling through code repositories on his cracked phone, wedged between a sweating businessman and an elderly woman clutching a faded purse. The next—nothing. Complete. Absolute. Paralysis.His fingers hung suspended over his screen. His lungs locked mid-inhale. But his mind—God, his mind—was screaming.What the hell—The silence hit him first. In a city that never stops making noise, that violent absence was worse than any sound. The train's wheels stopped screeching. The businessman's phone call cut mid-word—that weird, hanging silence of interrupted speech. The old woman's breathing. The electrical hum of the motors. All of it—gone.Arjun tried to move. Couldn't. Tried to scream. Nothing. His heart hammered so hard he thought it might break ribs. He was conscious. He was aware. He was completely, utterly trapped in his own body.No, no, no—this is a stroke, carbon monoxide, something, anything but—Then the sky split open.Through the grimy train window, the morning clouds didn't just part—they tore. Like paper in angry hands. And behind them was something that shouldn't exist. Not darkness. Not light. Something other. A void that consumed reality itself, and from that wound in the world, something emerged.A countdown timer.Massive. Holographic. Hanging above Mumbai like a cosmic guillotine, visible from every angle simultaneously, impossible to ignore or escape.[SYSTEM INTEGRATION IN: 00:09:57]The digits burned blue. Brilliant. Merciless.00:09:56.00:09:55.Hallucination. Oxygen deprivation. A dream.But the timer kept counting. And then—worse—a voice spoke directly into his skull. Not through his ears. Into his mind. Gender-neutral. Ageless. Emotionless in a way that made every fiber of his being recoil."ATTENTION, INHABITANTS OF PLANET EARTH. YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED FOR INTEGRATION INTO THE GRAND SYSTEM."Arjun's silent scream echoed inside his paralyzed body."IN TEN MINUTES, YOUR SPECIES WILL BE EVALUATED. THOSE WHO MEET THE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS WILL BE GRANTED ACCESS TO THE SYSTEM. THOSE WHO FAIL WILL BE RECYCLED."Recycled.The word hung in his consciousness like a guillotine blade. No need for explanation. The casual finality said everything. Death wasn't an option—death would be merciful. They weren't threatening death. They were threatening processing."THIS IS THE GREAT FILTER. ONLY SPECIES CAPABLE OF ADAPTATION MAY SURVIVE. YOUR PLANET'S PROBABILITY OF PASSING: 0.003%. PREPARE YOURSELVES."The voice cut off. Left him alone with the timer and the math he desperately didn't want to do.0.003%.Thirty people out of a million.Out of eight billion...He didn't finish the calculation.00:08:45.Around him, the train remained frozen in time. The businessman's mouth hung open mid-sentence. A child three seats away was caught mid-laugh, joy preserved in amber. Birds outside hung motionless in the sky. Cars sat abandoned on the street, drivers probably experiencing the same nightmare.Arjun thought about his parents in Pune. His sister's wedding next month. College friends scattered across India. His roommates—were they frozen too? Could they all see it?And Priya from accounting. He'd been too scared to tell her anything.00:07:23.The void began to pulse. With each pulse, something cracked. Not physically—deeper. Reality itself seemed to groan under impossible weight. Through the window, Mumbai's landmarks began to glow with that same sickening blue.Gateway of India: luminescent.Bandra-Worli Sea Link: burning blue.Siddhivinayak Temple: blazing.One by one, every monument, every significant structure, every landmark across the entire globe was lighting up like Christmas decorations strung across a corpse.On his frozen phone screen, a browser tab still displayed. New York live feed. The Statue of Liberty: glowing. The Eiffel Tower: burning. The Great Wall. The Pyramids. Every place of power, every beacon of human achievement—all of it now part of some cosmic display.The burial of a species, Arjun thought.00:05:02.His panic had burned out. What replaced it was worse—clarity. If this was the end, there was nothing he could do. Nowhere to run. No choice that mattered.I'm going to die on a Mumbai local train. Between strangers. Never went abroad. Never paid off my loans. Never really lived.But a small voice whispered something else: Integration. That means survival is possible. That means there's a test. And I've passed tests my whole life.It was thin comfort. But it was something.00:03:17.The pulsing intensified. Arjun felt it in his bones—a vibration that resonated with his cells themselves. The blue light grew blinding, almost painful even through closed eyelids.00:01:30.His heart was going to explode.00:00:45.What makes someone pass? Strength? Intelligence? Luck?00:00:30.The frozen world began to crack—not with sound, but with a sensation of rules breaking. The laws that governed reality were being rewritten, and the old world was shattering to make room.00:00:15.Please. He prayed to gods he'd never believed in. Please let me live. Let my family live. Let—00:00:10.The void began to descend. It poured from the sky like liquid night, flowing down toward Earth in streams of impossible darkness.00:00:05.No no no no no—00:00:03.00:00:02.00:00:01.00:00:00.Reality exploded.The paralysis shattered like glass. Arjun gasped, sucking air like a drowning man. Around him, everyone on the train did the same—a collective gasp of humanity remembering how to breathe. The businessman stumbled backward. The old woman grabbed her chest. The child started crying.But Arjun barely noticed them.A translucent blue screen materialized directly in front of his face, hovering inches from his eyes. Nothing else mattered.[SYSTEM INTEGRATION: COMPLETE][ANALYZING USER... PLEASE WAIT...]Something probed his mind. Not painful, exactly, but invasive—like invisible fingers rifling through his memories, his thoughts, his very essence. It felt like violation.Then it stopped.[ANALYSIS COMPLETE][WELCOME, ARJUN MALHOTRA, TO THE GRAND SYSTEM][YOU HAVE BEEN DEEMED: COMPATIBLE]Relief flooded through him so intensely he nearly wept. I passed. I'm alive. I'm—[INITIATING CLASS SELECTION...]The screen expanded, filling his entire vision. Six panels appeared, each glowing with a different color, each showing a silhouette and a title:[WARRIOR] - Masters of physical combat and weaponry
[MAGE] - Wielders of elemental and arcane forces
[ROGUE] - Specialists in stealth and precision strikes
[TANK] - Unbreakable defenders and protectors
[SUPPORT] - Healers and enhancers of allies
[RANGER] - Long-distance combatants and trackers[PLEASE SELECT YOUR CLASS. TIME LIMIT: 60 SECONDS]The train erupted into chaos. People shouted at screens only they could see. The businessman was laughing hysterically. Someone screamed. The child wailed louder.Arjun's cursor hovered between options. Warrior seemed safe. Mage sounded powerful but risky. Rogue had always been his choice in video games, but this wasn't a game.His heart was pounding again.30 seconds.Think. This choice probably can't be changed. What gives the best chance of survival?He moved toward SUPPORT. Healers were always valuable. Always needed. People protected healers.15 seconds.The train lurched as the driver hit the brakes. Arjun stumbled forward, hand flailing.His finger grazed [ROGUE].[TIME REMAINING: 5 SECONDS]No, wait—He tried frantically to change it, tapping at the screen, but it had frozen.3... 2... 1...[SELECTION RECEIVED: PROCESSING...]The screen flickered. Static ran across its surface.Around him, people were celebrating. The businessman shot small flames from his fingertips. Another passenger lifted an entire seat one-handed, laughing in disbelief at their newfound strength.But Arjun's screen showed something different:[ERROR 404: CLASS NOT FOUND]His blood went cold.No. No no no. Did I fail? Am I going to be recycled anyway?He tried tapping the screen. Tried dismissing it. Tried everything. It remained stubbornly frozen on that error message.Then it flickered again.The error distorted. Pixels rearranged themselves into new text, appearing letter by letter as if typed by invisible hands:[ERROR ACKNOWLEDGED][RUNNING DIAGNOSTIC...][ANOMALY DETECTED IN USER PROFILE][INITIATING ALTERNATIVE PROTOCOL...][CONGRATULATIONS, ARJUN MALHOTRA][YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED AS:][REDACTED]The last word was covered in black bars, like classified government documents."What does that mean?" Arjun whispered.The screen pulsed. Everything went black.When his vision cleared, he was still on the train. People around him were still celebrating or panicking. But his screen had completely changed:[WELCOME TO THE GLITCH SYSTEM][YOUR CLASS IS: SYSTEM HUNTER][RARITY: UNIQUE (MYTHIC)][WARNING: YOUR CLASS IS UNAUTHORIZED. DETECTION WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE TERMINATION.][MAIN ABILITY: SCAN & COPY][REMEMBER: KEEP YOUR IDENTITY SECRET. SURVIVE. EVOLVE.][GOOD LUCK, ANOMALY.]The screen vanished, leaving Arjun alone with a racing heart and a thousand questions screaming in his skull.Outside, the void had retreated. The timer was gone. The sky looked almost normal.But then—Screams. Real screams. Not confusion or joy, but terror.A woman's voice from the street below: "MONSTERS! Oh God, there are monsters!"Arjun pressed his face against the window and looked down.His breath caught in his throat.Crawling out of manholes. Emerging from alleys. Materializing from thin air—creatures that shouldn't exist. Green-skinned humanoids with crude weapons. Wolf-sized rats with glowing red eyes. Things with too many limbs and not enough faces.Above each creature's head floated a small label:[Goblin Scout - Level 3]
[Mutant Rat - Level 2]
[Corrupted Stray - Level 4]They attacked immediately. A goblin's club connected with a fleeing pedestrian. A rat launched itself at a stopped car. Chaos erupted across Mumbai in seconds.And Arjun, trapped in a frozen train with a glitching System and a class that apparently wasn't supposed to exist, understood one terrible, undeniable truth:The integration was complete.The real test had just begun.And he had absolutely no idea how to survive it.