On July 6th, at exactly 3:00 a.m. UTC, the world blinked.
Every screen, every phone, every satellite feed—all of them cut to black.
Then came the message.
"SYSTEM ONLINE. AGE RANGE DETECTED: 15–30. TRIAL INITIATION PROTOCOL—BEGIN."
Location: São Paulo, Brazil
Marina Costa had just slipped out of her boyfriend apartment, earbuds in, music low, when suddenly a blue panel showed up in front of her vision. She waved her hand through the blue panel expecting to hit it, but her hand goes straight through it.
"What is this thing?"
Marina looked at the words in surprise that popped up on the screen.
"INITIATING TELEPORT SEQUENCE."
Marina started dissolving into little pixels and disappeared nobody hearing the screams she was trying to let out.
All around the world, it happened the same way.
In a mall in Seoul, a girl vanished inside a frozen elevator.
On a highway in Cairo, a young man disappeared mid-drive, car skidding into silence.
In Chicago, a seventeen-year-old boy named Aiden Ryo woke from a dream about drowning, heart racing, skin burning. Then he disappeared like the rest.
The world in chaos as people disappear. Media outlets covering the story trying to figure out what happened and why.