From the moment I woke up and inhaled the familiar presence wafting through the air, I knew something was seriously wrong.
I push myself upright, moving deliberately. Staying calm. I move my hands and locs shake loose from the bonnet I was wearing—and that's when the wrongness crystallizes. I was wearing a bonnet, yes, but also my glasses are already perched on my face. A white sweater I recognize but would never wear to sleep drapes over my frame. Baggy jeans, like those skaters wear hang at my hips. Running shoes I've never owned. A tote bag of supplies slung over my shoulder.
The outfit is practical. Comfortable, even. Like someone dressed me for a field trip.
If I didn't notice three unusual details, I might think I was about to catch the bus to my morning classes at the university.
Unfortunately, I'm not.
"E-excuse m-me?"
The girl to my right is unusual detail #1.
I turn slowly, taking her in. She's seventeen, maybe eighteen. Soft features framed by long hair that spills in loose waves. The tear-distressed expression on her face suggests she's been awake longer than I have. She's wearing a private school blazer, expensive, by the look of it, the crest catching the light filtering through the canopy above.
The light of an alien dawn. That's unusual detail #2: the sky here is wrong. The color is off by just enough to unsettle me, however, more shockingly is the second foreign moon.
To clarify a few things: I don't sleep in forests. I don't have roommates. And of the seven other people scattered around this clearing, six of them still unconscious, I recognize none of them.
"D-do you know where we are?" Her voice trembles.
I examine our surroundings more carefully. Dense forest. Unfamiliar flora. The air smells different, leaner, sharper. "I'm sorry, I don't."
Her breath hitches. I watch her eyes go glassy, the precursor to panic I've seen in too many stressed students during exam season.
"However," I add quickly, "I suspect the individual over there may know."
I gesture toward unusual detail #3.
The figure perched on the boulders about twenty meters away is... difficult to categorize. At first glance, my mind tried to process them as a scarecrow, something about the way they sat, unnaturally still. Then I blinked and saw a beggar, hunched and ragged. Now, looking more carefully, I see something closer to a drunkard, dangerous in the way only unpredictable people can be.
They're draped in what looks like matted fur, a top-heavy beanie covering most of their grayed hair. In their hands, and this detail strikes me as particularly odd, are eight round-bottom bottles with narrow necks. The kind you might see in a medieval illustration. Each filled with a striking, familiar, blue hue.
Medieval. That's the word that keeps circling in my mind. This person looks medieval.
Their skin is a patchwork of grays and ashen tones. Their face is hollowed, like skin draped directly over bone with nothing in between. Sunken eyes, shriveled. Not just old but ancient. Or ill. Or something else entirely.
"So you've noticed?"
The voice is male, old, and parched like drought-cracked earth. Despite the scarf covering his mouth, despite the twenty meters between us, the words arrive as clearly as if he were whispering directly into my ear.
Which should be impossible.
I raise my voice, keeping it level. "Excuse me, sir, would you happen to know where exactly we are?"
The figure stands. Not slowly, not carefully—just stands, as if gravity applied to him differently. Then he kicks off the boulder and leaps.
My mind struggles to process what I'm seeing. Twenty meters. He crosses it in a single bound, soaring forward in an arc that looks more like gliding than jumping, and lands with such gentleness that not even the grass seems to bend beneath his feet.
The familiar scent I'd smelled when I first woke, it intensifies near him. Despite his appearance he smells, earthy, ancient, like soil and stone and something underneath that I can't identify.
Something in me, some instinct I don't understand, decides politeness is essential right now.
"Apologies, sir, for my rudeness. My name is Lacrima, sir, could you—"
"Ah, yes, so you're Lacrima Yorae."
He knows my full name. My family name that I never use, that barely anyone knows.
His shriveled gaze slides to the girl beside me. "Sophaulia Ecrest, I assume?"
"Y-yes?" She sounds even more frightened now.
He knows our names. Both of our names. The analytical part of my mind that's been trying to make sense of this situation starts generating hypotheses: kidnapping, yes, but organized. Premeditated. We were selected specifically.
"Ah... then before I answer your question, let's wake up the rest of your sleeping companions. Or future companions, I suppose."
No warning. No countdown.
He brings his hands together and claps.
The sound doesn't just reach my ears—it hits me. A physical wall of pressure that makes my inner ear scream and my balance betray me. I shift my stance instinctively, bending my knees to stay upright. My locs whip around my face.
Beside me, Sophaulia doesn't fare as well. She topples sideways, her large school bag tumbling with her.
The trees shake. Not sway—shake, like someone grabbed them by their trunks and rattled them. Birds I hadn't noticed shriek and scatter from the canopy. The ground beneath my feet hums with a deep, bass rumble, as if the earth itself is annoyed at being disturbed.
When the reverberations fade, I'm breathing harder than I'd like to admit.
The six sleeping figures around the clearing jolt awake with various degrees of alarm. Gasping, swearing, scrambling upright. For a few seconds, they're disoriented, groggy. Then awareness sets in: unfamiliar forest, unfamiliar people, and panic ripples through the group like a contagion.
"What the... fuck?"
A ginger-haired youth, maybe nineteen, lurches to his feet and dusts soil and grass from his clothes with sharp, aggressive movements. His eyes are striking, aquamarine and currently filled with the kind of rage that comes from fear. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a switchblade, flicking it open with practiced ease.
"Someone better start fucking talking before I gouge out the eyes of you kidnappin' fucks."
He means it. I can tell by the way he holds the blade, not like a prop, like a tool.
My pulse almost kicks up. This situation just escalated.
Around the clearing, the others are taking stock. A middle-aged man with a scruffy beard and heavy-lidded eyes looks more tired than afraid, but his posture is careful, contained. A tall young man with dark skin and a curly high top fade is staring at all of us with the kind of intense focus that suggests he's cataloging details, trying to solve a puzzle. He's wearing the same style of uniform as Sophaulia, his is white though, not blue, but the crest on both of their chests suggests they likely attend the same private school.
There's a pale youth with platinum blonde hair, edgy in the deliberate way some people cultivate, with neck tattoos visible above his hoodie. He's also holding a switchblade, though he hasn't opened it yet. Another young man with a distinctive red-pink mullet and tattoos visible on his neck and arms sits cross-legged, wearing an all-red outfit that makes him look like a target against the green. He seems less panicked than the others, more... resigned?
Finally, there's a young woman with blonde hair pulled into a messy side ponytail, wearing a blue and white sports jersey. She's crouched in a ready stance, eyes sharp and calculating as she scans the clearing.
We're arranged in a rough circle, each of us about two to three meters apart. It's too perfect to be coincidence—someone arranged us this way while we slept.
And in the center of our circle stands the beggar. How did I not notice him move?
"I'm fucking serious! Hey, you Mr. Bored fa—"
The ginger is looking at me now, blade pointed in my direction, and I'm about to respond when—
CLAP.
This one is worse. The pressure doesn't just hit—it crushes. My legs sink, knees buckling. The world tilts sideways. I catch myself on one hand, palm pressed into soil. My ribs ache. My teeth hurt.
The sound of a clap shouldn't do this. Physically, acoustically, it's impossible. Air pressure doesn't work this way. But my body is screaming at me that yes, it does, it very much does, and I need to accept that the rules I thought governed reality might not apply here.
"Now now friends, I get it, youthful, excited, a wonderful new world with opportunity galore, it's natural to feel a little..."
The beggar's voice changes mid-sentence. The wheeze drops away, replaced by something colder, sharper. Dangerous.
"...hot-headed. Get it? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ah... fuck."
The laugh is wrong. It starts almost jovial and decays into something bitter.
"Well, let me get introductions out of the way, shall I?"
Another clap. Lighter this time, but still enough to rattle my bones. I feel it in my ribs, my jaw, the space behind my eyes.
"I was Nieshar, a System's [Sergeant Leader] back in my life."
The way he says those words, 'System' and 'Sergeant Leader', they sound capitalized. Official. Like titles from some organization I've never heard of.
"Not that you'd get what any of that means, so to put it in good-boy and good-girl terms: don't fuck with me or you'll be royally fucked. Capiche, kids?"
Beneath his scarf, I swear I see the edges of his mouth curl upward. Not a smile. Something meaner.
Around me, I hear several people swallow hard. The ginger with the switchblade hasn't lowered it, but his hand isn't quite as steady anymore. The platinum blonde has gone very still, the way rabbits do when a hawk passes overhead.
We've all just realized the same thing: we're not the predators in this scenario. We might not even qualify as prey, just insects, easily crushed.
Nieshar claps again, normally this time, almost cheerful. "But to answer your question, Mr. Hothead, this is floor 1. The first and guiding floor of Miasma's Tower."
Floor 1. Tower. The words suggest a structure, a system, something with rules and levels. My mind immediately tries to map that onto concepts I know. Video games, maybe? But that feels reductive.
The tall youth in the white uniform, the one who'd been cataloging details, awkwardly raises his hand. The gesture is so incongruous, so instinctively polite in this bizarre situation, that I almost want to laugh.
"Oh, looky here, a brat with manners. Ask your question..." Nieshar pauses, his sunken eyes unfocusing slightly, as if reading something invisible. "...Forbes! Forbes Gold! Yeah, whaddya needya know?"
Forbes. So that's his name. And Nieshar just read it from... somewhere.
"Sir, I understand that this is the first floor of 'Miasma's Tower', but we're civilians. Why are we here? I can't recall ever signing up for this..."
Good question. Practical. Forbes sounds like he's trying to stay analytical, keep his fear boxed up with logic.
"Speak the name with some more respect, kid."
The temperature drops. Not metaphorically; I feel it. The air grows colder, heavier. There's a taste in my mouth, metallic and sharp. Iron. Blood? But I'm not bleeding.
Nieshar's eyes, already disturbing, become something worse. Empty. Ancient. Fixed on Forbes with the attention of something that could unmake him with a thought.
Then he laughs. "Nah, I'm just bustin' ya balls kid, ha-ha-ha-ha-ah... fuck."
The temperature returns to normal. The iron taste fades. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.
"Anyways beats me when it comes to the specifics, but the gist is definitely this."
His eyes curve into crescents. I can't see his mouth through the scarf, but I know he's smiling.
"Your planet..."
He lets the pause stretch. Five seconds. Ten.
"...is fucked."
The red-pink-haired youth, the one in all red, repeats the word like he's testing it. "F-fucked?" His voice catches between disbelief and the absurd hope that this might be an elaborate prank.
It's not. I can feel that it's not.
"Spectacularly," Nieshar says, and there's something almost gleeful in his tone. "Cosmically. Irreversibly, unmistakably! Well, unless you lot and a whole lot more of you kiddos, twerps, and recruits pull off something impressive. Hence…" He spreads his arms wide, the bottles in his hands clinking together. "…this little camping trip."
The ginger, the angry one, takes a step forward. "What the hell does that mean? We get it, you're hot shit here or something, but at least speak straight."
Nieshar doesn't seem offended. If anything, he sounds amused. "It means, in ten years your blue marble will be under invasion. A colloquial species from a relatively close planet has decided to stomp through your atmosphere and rearrange your architecture. Pillaging your resources and people for themselves."
Invasion. Ten years. Aliens.
The words don't feel real. They're too big, too absurd. But everything about this situation is absurd, and I'm standing in it, living it.
Forbes, still trying to understand, asks: "And we're here... on this first floor to prevent that? How?"
"Yes, exactly!" Nieshar points at each of us in turn with a chipped, gray fingernail. "You eight are part of the… let's call it 'Early Adoption Program' for Miasma's Tower. You've been selected, scouted, plucked from your cozy, pathetic lives, to be given a chance to climb."
The word 'climb' drips with mockery.
"A chance to get strong enough that you might matter when things really go to shit."
"Selected?" Sophaulia's voice is barely a whisper. "By who?"
"By what," Nieshar corrects, and I hear the pedagogical edge in his voice, he's teaching us, in his cruel way. "The System. Miasma. Call it whatever helps you sleep at night, kid. But don't fool yourself into thinking this was a democratic process. You're all here because something about you, be it your bodies, your minds, your… traits... looked promising on a status screen."
Status screen. Another game-like term.
Yet as I look around me, I have a hard time marking any of these people as particularly special. Or at least, not in the way he is.
Nieshar sighs, a sound like wind through dead leaves, and twists his neck side to side. Something in his spine pops audibly. "Don't misunderstand, though, you eight ain't the only special kids in the world."
He holds up both hands, all ten of his gnarly, discolored fingers spread wide.
"Ten thousand, that's how many from your planet have been 'chosen' by the System for this tutorial, basics run."
Ten thousand people. Scattered where? In groups like this? I try to imagine ten thousand people going through variations of this exact moment, waking up confused, meeting Nieshar or someone like him, being told the world is ending.
The middle-aged man, the tired one with the scruffy beard, pinches the bridge of his nose like he's dealing with a difficult situation at work. When he speaks, his voice is measured, controlled. "Alright. Nieshar... Say I believe you. How many floors are in this 'Tower' and how exactly do we leave?"
"So many questions, questions, questions, you initiating planets are all the same, really." Nieshar sounds almost nostalgic. "Not that I'd know... my memories get wiped after each one, ha-ha-ha-ha-ah... fuck."
Wiped? He's done this before? With other worlds?
"Anyways, my time window is actually quite limited here, kids."
He reaches up and pulls down his scarf, and I immediately wish he hadn't.
His mouth is a nightmare. Teeth arranged like piano keys, some black, some gray, some yellowed. Gaps where teeth should be. The gums are receded, dark. The smell that wafts from him intensifies: rot and earth and something ancient.
"So while I'd love to keep listening to your curiosity, really I'd love to..."
He claps. This time the effect is different, less physical force, more... internal. For a split second, I feel disconnected from my body, like I'm floating just outside myself, and then I snap back in with a nauseating lurch.
"... I'd really need you to get yourselves signed in before anything else takes place. Now, repeat after me, twerps. System Window."
"What the fuck?" The red-pink-haired youth mutters, staring at Nieshar with undisguised disbelief.
Nieshar's rotted mouth stretches into something approximating a grin. "What, you think just because it's a cosmic murder tower you're exempt from paperwork? Don't get too bummed, it's the fun kind."
The athletic woman, the blonde in the sports jersey, stands abruptly. Her jaw is clenched, her posture that of someone about to do something reckless just to take action, any action.
"System Window," she says, voice clipped and sharp.
For a moment, nothing happens. Then her eyes go wide and she staggers backward, nearly falling. "I-It's real..."
She's staring at something none of us can see.
The ginger, the angry one, grips his switchblade so hard his knuckles go white. "System Window." His voice is defiant, but I hear the fear underneath. "Holy fucking shit."
He sees it too.
One by one, the others say the words. The platinum blonde mutters it under his breath. The middle-aged man says it like he's humoring a diagnosis he doesn't believe in. Forbes speaks clearly and carefully. Sophaulia's voice shakes.
Looking at all of this, their seemingly fine bodies after repeating after him, I swallow my suspicion.
"System Window."
A translucent pane of light snaps into existence directly in front of my eyes.
It's not exactly there, not physically present in the space before me. But I see it as clearly as I see the trees, the grass, Nieshar's horrible smile. The text is crisp, neutral, professional. It hovers against the green backdrop of the alien forest like an overlay on reality.
Welcome, [Candidate].
You have been drafted as a Climber of [Miasma's Tower].
Please confirm your Nickname.
This identifier will be visible in all public rankings, notifications, and broadcasts.
Once chosen, it cannot be changed.
My breath catches in my throat.
Nickname. Rankings. Notifications. Broadcasts.
I take a quiet glance around. Everyone is staring at empty space, but from their angles, I can tell they're each looking at something different, their own windows, positioned just for them.
We're all seeing the same impossible thing. Personalized for each of us.
This isn't a trick. It can't be, not with technology I understand. Which means either I'm hallucinating, or reality operates on principles I've never encountered.
Given everything else that's happened, I'm leaning toward the latter.
"Go on," Nieshar says, his tone almost gentle. "Pick something fun. Or pick something boring. Just don't pick something you'll regret, because it's getting stamped on your soul for the foreseeable future."
Soul. Not account, not profile. Soul.
"You're kidding," the platinum blonde says flatly. "A nickname? At a time like this?"
"It's your brand," Nieshar replies. "Can't have you saving, or failing, humanity under 'User573-A'. The audiences hate that."
Audiences.
The word lands like ice in my stomach. This isn't just about us. Someone, something else is watching.
"I don't…" Sophaulia's voice wavers. "I don't know what to put."
"Then put 'I Don't Know'," Nieshar says with a shrug. "Names don't make you powerful, kid. Power makes your name mean something. You can worry about the branding later."
Forbes clears his throat. "I'll set my nickname as Golden Boy." He sounds like he's trying to convince himself it's a reasonable choice.
"Ya know you have to type it and not just tell me... right?"
Forbes blinks, then reaches out toward his window. His fingers move through the air, and though I can't see what he's doing, I understand, he's interacting with it somehow. Typing on an invisible interface.
When he's done, he jumps slightly, startled. His eyes go wide as he scans whatever new information just appeared. "Stats? Traits? Time left until forced return what is all this?"
"Like I said, kids, my time's limited." Nieshar's voice takes on a rushed quality, like he's running through a script he's delivered a thousand times before. "Now that I've gotten all the orientation basics out of the way, let me leave with your final beginner's guide."
He starts counting on his gnarled fingers. "Try balancing your stats; too much strength and you might break your limbs, same with dexterity or mana. Lean into your traits, skills and passives and build around that, that's the shit you're good at. Lastly, there are four other groups in this particular instance of the first floor. If you get to the center, there's a clearing and a lake there. If you dive in, you can recover and mend from all types of wounds, barring you're not already dead. Ha-ha-ha-ah... fuck."
Five other groups. So forty people total in this... instance? The terminology suggests there are multiple copies, like server instances in an online game.
Likely if the ten thousand number from earlier is to be believed, 250 other instances.
Before I can process that fully, Nieshar starts throwing bottles. One for each of us, tossed with casual accuracy. I catch mine on reflex. It's heavier than I expected, the glass warm to the touch. Inside is a thick, aqua liquid that doesn't quite move like water.
"Drink those, skip the skepticism, the system actually doesn't allow me to directly harm you. Furthermore, even if I wanted to, you'd already be dead."
Comforting.
"The 'Vukmir extract' is necessary for awakening your souls to mana, otherwise you'd be like fish drowning, not knowing how to use your gills in some hours' time."
He brings his hands together one final time. The clap is louder than all the others, a thundercrack that makes my vision white out for a fraction of a second. I feel my senses disconnect, sight, sound, smell, touch all separating from each other like instruments in a song dropping out one by one. Then they snap back together with a nauseating rush.
When I can see again, Nieshar is gone.
Not walked away. Not hidden. Just gone, like he was never there.
For several long seconds, nobody speaks. We all stand there, eight strangers in a circle, each holding a bottle of mysterious liquid, staring at the empty space where our only source of information used to be.
Then the red-pink-haired youth, lets out a sound that's half-laugh, half-sob. It's the sound of someone whose understanding of reality just shattered and is trying desperately to find humor in the rubble.
He laughs for maybe ten seconds. It's painful to listen to, like watching someone crack. Then he stops and composes himself with visible effort, and stands up from where he'd collapsed. He dusts off his red outfit and looks around at all of us with the expression of someone who's just decided to make the best of a terrible situation.
"Kinda rude to kidnap people just 'cause 'we looked good on paper' don't you think?" he says, voice hoarse. Then, like he's at an icebreaker at orientation: "Name's Hayden. So is my user, I'm twenty-two by the way. Since we're all going through the same shit, thought it'd be better to at least be—"
"Shut the fuck up, twink."
The ginger's voice cuts through Hayden's attempt at civility like his switchblade might cut through flesh. He's still holding it, I notice. Still ready to use it.
"Kyle, nineteen. User's fuckoutmyface."
The hostility radiates off him in waves.
There's a pause. The platinum blonde sighs, hands still in his hoodie pockets. "Just call me Nocuous, nineteen."
His voice is flat, affectless. I notice he didn't give his real name, only his chosen nickname. Interesting. Is he already thinking about the "audiences" Nieshar mentioned? Or does he just not trust us?
Another pause. Forbes clears his throat, and I can see him trying to salvage Hayden's attempt at civility. "Since we're seemingly going in clockwise order, I'll introduce myself again. Forbes, Forbes Gold, senior at Clementon Institu—"
"You really think your fancy private school's gonna have any weight in the fucking apocalypse, Golden Boy?" Kyle sneers.
Forbes's expression tightens, but he keeps his voice level. "Well, I thought it prudent to be as transparent as reasonable, fuckoutmyface." A slight emphasis on the name, reminding Kyle that he gave his too. "Eighteen, by the way. My user's well, you already know, I presume."
The middle-aged man goes next, voice carrying the tired authority of someone used to introducing himself in difficult circumstances. "Harvey Nessman, retired sheriff of Clementon. My User's Outlaw. Fifty."
After he speaks, his eyes linger on Nocuous, not obviously, but I catch it. The ex-sheriff looking at the young man with the neck tattoos and switchblade.
Then Harvey's gaze shifts to the athletic woman, a subtle prompt.
She squares her shoulders. "Han Seo-Yeon, user: Regal, I'm eighteen as well."
Her voice is confident, controlled. Of everyone here, she seems to be handling this the best, or at least, she's the best at hiding her fear.
Next is Sophaulia. I can see her psyching herself up, taking a breath. "So-Sophaulia Ecrest, also from Clementon Institution of Astute Scholastics, I'm eighteen!"
The end comes out too loud, her anxiety spiking through the words. I can see the moment she realizes it, the embarrassment coloring her cheeks.
To spare her from dwelling on it, I go immediately after. "Lacrima, eighteen."
As I say it, I'm also reaching out to my own window, which has been patiently hovering in my vision this entire time. My fingers find the invisible interface, and it's strange, I can't feel it, but I know where it is. I type my name: L-A-C-R-I-M-A.
|| Confirm [Lacrima] as your Nickname?
[Yes] / [No] ||
I select [Yes].
The window shifts, expands. New information floods the screen.
And as I read it, my expression grows very, very dark.