There was silence.
Phones blinked out mid-scroll. Televisions collapsed into black screens. Highway billboards lost their glow. Laptops froze in the middle of emails that would never be sent.
For a heartbeat, there was no news to tell anyone what was happening.
Then something else took its place.
In midair, in front of faces, in the space where nothing should have been, text assembled in lines of pale light. It was perfectly readable no matter where you stood, no matter what language you spoke, no matter whether your eyes were open or squeezed shut in denial.
It was simply there.
And the voice that accompanied it carried no accent, no warmth, no hesitation—only certainty.
[Attention: The Labyrinth will open in 24:00:00]
Confusion came next. Then panic. The interface continued, indifferent.
[Gift Allocation: CHAOTIC BEAST EGG.]
[Eligibility: Humans ages 15–50.]
[Rule: Egg cannot be traded, destroyed, or separated from its recipient.]
[Participants must make a choice before Labryinth opening]
[Option A: Hatch Chaotic Beast Egg. Beast talent up to fate.]
[Option B: Delay hatching—enter first challenge alone for guaranteed talent opportunities.]
All over the world, individuals felt the same strange pressure bloom behind the sternum—warm and heavy, like a second heartbeat forming where it didn't belong. Some gasped. Some clutched their chests. Some fell to their knees, convinced they were dying.
And then that pressure flowed outward, down arms and into hands, gathering with an impossible weight that made fingers curl reflexively.
The egg manifested. Not dropped from the sky. Not delivered by drones. Not placed on doorsteps.
The Chaotic Beast Egg was the same for everyone. Ostrich-sized, smooth, unmistakably an egg. Its surface shimmered with faint glow and iridescence as it shifted through a multitude of colors—violet dissolving into green, silver turning to ocean blue, gold flaring briefly into red before melting away again. Everchanging, hypnotic, and undeniably real in the hands of millions.
Some people screamed and threw it. The egg didn't break. Some hugged it like a miracle. Others stared at it with the calm expression of someone realizing the rules of life had been rewritten.
And somewhere in a quiet rental house that still smelled like cardboard and fresh tape—because the Cross family never lived anywhere long enough to fully settle—two sixteen-year-olds slept through the beginning of humanity's journey into the Labyrinth.
Evan Cross lay on his back, one arm flung out as if he'd surrendered to exhaustion. The day had been a blur of lifting, climbing stairs, carrying boxes, and pretending he didn't mind starting over in yet another place. His jet-black hair stuck up in lazy angles. His deep purple eyes were closed, lashes still, his face younger in sleep than it ever looked when he was awake and thinking.
He didn't hear the silence outside, or see the world go dark.
But he felt the pressure in his chest, and his body responded the way it always did when something demanded action—half-asleep, half-annoyed, reaching for the fastest path back to comfort.
The interface assembled in the dimness behind his eyelids. He dismissed the system prompts as merely a vivid dream.
The warmth in his sternum deepened. It rolled outward like a tide, down his arms. His hands lifted without his permission, palms cupping empty air.
Weight settled into them. Even asleep, Evan's fingers tightened around it.
The egg's soft shifting glow painted faint colors across the sheets and his knuckles, like moonlight refracted through something alive.
A prompt hovered in his awareness—clean, patient, impossible to ignore.
[Choose: Hatch immediately or Delay hatching]
Evan's thoughts dragged themselves forward through the fog.
Choice?Hatch? Delay?
It didn't feel like danger. It felt like one of those game pop-ups you clicked through because you could deal with the consequences later—because later was always a problem for future you.
His thumb moved.
Not with careful strategy. Not with heroic resolve. Just with the lazy certainty of someone who didn't want to commit to anything while half asleep.
He tapped [Delay hatching]. A quiet chime rang—not in the room, but somewhere deeper, like the decision had been written into his bones.
[Warning: First challenge will be entered alone.]
The word alone should have snapped him awake. Instead, it snagged at the edge of his mind and slipped free, lost in exhaustion.
Evan shifted, hugging the egg closer without understanding why, and sank back into sleep as if the end of the world were nothing more than a loud dream that would fade by morning.
Next door, Elara Cross woke like a runner exploding off the line.
Her eyes snapped open. Her breath caught. For a fraction of a second, she lay still, listening—not for the voice, but for the house, for the subtle sounds that told her whether something was wrong. Years of moving had trained her body to map unfamiliar spaces quickly, to know the difference between quiet and too quiet.
The notification answered before she could decide.
It floated in front of her, clean and luminous against the darkness of her bedroom. No screen, no projector, no source—just an otherworldly panel occupying reality like it belonged.
Elara sat up, heart hammering.
A pressure slammed into her sternum. Not pain—something stranger. A warmth that didn't belong. A second pulse forming where none had existed. The sensation poured down her arms. Then it gathered in her palms, heavy and solid.
The egg appeared. Everchanging. Its shifting colors—icy blue to pale gold to violet—reflected in her crystal-blue eyes.
Elara stared at it, jaw tightening as the reality of weight and bond settled in. She could feel it—not metaphorically, not emotionally. Physically. Like a tether tied around her ribs and anchored to the object in her hands.
The prompt hovered again.
[Choose: Hatch immediately or Delay hatching]
Elara's competitive mind tried to do what it always did: categorize, assess, plan.
But there was no context. No manual. No coach, no rulebook, no opponent footage to study.
Only two buttons and an invisible clock she could feel ticking in the air.
She didn't press either. Not yet.
She swung her legs out of bed, balanced the egg against her hip, and moved into the hallway. Her steps were quiet, controlled, purposeful.
Boxes lined the walls like silent witnesses to yesterday's labor. The faint smell of cardboard and packing tape lingered. Their family had barely arrived, barely unpacked, barely existed here—and now Earth had been propelled into a new reality.
As she passed Evan's room, she paused. The door cracked. A thin line of hallway light fell across his bed. His posture was loose, unguarded. His hands were curled around the same shimmering egg, its glow washing his sheets in muted color.
Elara's chest tightened. She almost shook him awake, but then she stopped. If the system demanded a choice, waking him in a panic might make him choose wrong. Might make him choose quickly.
She swallowed that urge and kept moving.
In the living room, she set the egg carefully on the couch cushion—then immediately picked it back up, uncomfortable with putting any distance between herself and the thing bound to her.
She reached for the TV remote anyway. The television remained a blank rectangle. Elara tried her phone—black. Laptop—dead. The house's digital thermostat—dark. Even the tiny LED on the router was off.
For the first time, a flicker of unease touched her composure. A world without devices wasn't just inconvenient. It was blind.
Outside, voices rose—neighbors shouting across lawns, car doors slamming, someone crying, someone laughing too loudly, too thinly. A dog barked without stopping. Farther away, an alarm wailed and wailed until it cut out abruptly.
Elara stood in the center of the living room, egg in her arms, and stared at the floating prompt that still hovered in her vision like an accusation.
[Choose: Hatch immediately or Delay hatching]
Then—without warning—screens flickered back to life.
The TV flashed white, then snapped to a broadcast: a news anchor in a studio with emergency lights glaring off the desk, his expression strained and pale. Behind him, a wall of staff moved in frantic coordination.
"—We… we are experiencing unprecedented global reports," he said, voice tight. "Please understand that authorities are still gathering information. If you are between the ages of fifteen and fifty, you may have received an object—an egg—by unknown means. We urge everyone to remain calm. Do not panic. Remain indoors if possible. Await further instruction—"
She stood there with the egg clutched against her ribs and watched as the anchor spoke fast, as if speed could outrun terror. Elara barely heard the rest.
Her gaze dropped to the egg in her arms.
Its colors shifted slowly, endlessly, like it was alive in a way she didn't yet understand.
On the television, the anchor repeated it again, firmer this time—pleading professionalism stretched over raw disbelief.
And in the air before her, the Labyrinth's interface waited with two choices that could not be undone.