The flickering glow of three monitors was the only source of light in Shen's apartment as he leaned back in his chair, rubbing his exhaustedly tired eyes. The clock in the corner of his computer screen read 3:47 AM. He'd promised himself he'd log off at midnight.
But That was four hours ago.
"Okay, seriously. After this quest," he muttered, cracking his knuckles and immediately recognizing the self-told lie for what it was. He'd said the same thing after the last three quests.
His character, a mid-level ranger he'd un-creatively named Wanderer, stood at the edge of a cliff overlooking the Ashen Expanse. The landscape stretched out before him in breathtaking detail—jagged mountains wreathed in perpetual smoke, rivers of lava cutting through blackened smooth stone, and in the distance, the obsidian fortress of the Demon Lord Karthos.
'New Genesis' really was something else.
Even after three years, the game still managed to surprise him. It wasn't just the graphics, though those were incredible themselves.
It was the world itself.
NPCs that seemed to have their own lives, whole entire economies that shifted based on player actions, and political systems that evolved organically. Sometimes Shen wondered if the developers had somehow created an actual artificial intelligence to generate it, because the game world felt less like a program and more like a living, breathing entity.
He took a sip of coffee that had long since gone cold and bitterly grimaced. His apartment was a disaster zone— there were empty takeout containers stacked on every available surface, clothes forming small mountains in the corners, and a concerning number of energy drink cans that he really should have thrown out weeks ago.
The life of a dedicated gamer, he thought wryly. Or maybe just a guy with too much free time and not enough actual direction.
His day job at the convenience store barely paid the utility bills, but it left his nights free for what really mattered: New Genesis. Here, he wasn't just another face behind a register. Here, he could be someone who actually mattered, who ruled his own life, who existed in a world that really made sense to him; one that felt like living.
Well, as much sense as a fantasy VRMMO could make.
A notification popped up in his guild chat. Someone was asking for help with the Dreadmoor dungeon. Shen typed out a quick explanation of the boss mechanics— the attack patterns, Highest Damage windows, the usual—then went back to his own quest.
'Alright, this pack of orcs probably have armor with no ability nor magical resistance so I can just use the thunder arrow skill to quickly snipe each of them.'
He was attentively lining up a shot on a patrolling Orc guard when his screens went white.
All three of them. Simultaneously.
"What the—" Shen's hands flew to his keyboard, fingers jabbing at keys that suddenly wouldn't respond. Alt-Tab did nothing. Ctrl-Alt-Delete brought up nothing. Even his power button seemed to have completely stopped working.
His gaming tower had gone eerily silent, with both the fan noise, and the whirring of the monitor immediately disappearing.
Shen instantly understood that this was not a normal crash.
Strange glowing text began to appear across his screens, letter by letter, like someone was typing it out in real-time:
[CONGRATULATIONS, PLAYER: WANDERER]
[YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED]
"Selected for what?" Shen said aloud, his voice sounding too loud in the silent apartment. He reached for his phone to maybe google what kind of virus this was, but his phone's screen was black. It was somehow Dead! Even though it had just been at 67% battery just a minute ago.
His heartbeat quickly picked up anxious pace as More text scrolled across the screens that read out:
[YOUR PLAYTIME: 8,247 HOURS]
[YOUR GAME KNOWLEDGE: EXPERT TIER]
[YOUR ANALYTICAL CAPABILITY: EXCEPTIONAL]
[YOUR EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT: MAXIMUM]
Shen stared at the words. That playtime was accurate—embarrassingly so. He'd checked his stats just last week during a moment of questionable life choices. But how would a virus know that? This information was stored on the game's servers, not his local machine.
"This is some next-level hacking," he muttered, pushing back from his desk. Maybe he should just unplug everything. Cut the power and deal with it in the morning when he could think straight.
But for some reason, he couldn't look away from the screens.
[AFTER EXTENSIVE OBSERVATION, YOU HAVE BEEN DEEMED SUITABLE]
Suitable? Suitable for what? Shen's mind raced through possibilities. Was this some kind of recruitment thing? He'd heard stories about game companies hiring top players for testing, but this seemed way too elaborate for that.
[QUESTION: WOULD YOU LIKE TO EXPERIENCE THE ULTIMATE GAMEPLAY?]
[AS AN EXCLUSIVE DEVELOPER, YOU WILL GAIN ACCESS TO SYSTEMS AND MECHANICS NO PLAYER HAS EVER WITNESSED]
Developer access. The words made something in Shen's chest tighten with an emotion he couldn't quite name. Was it Want? Curiosity? Fear?
[WARNING: THIS INVITATION CAN ONLY BE EXTENDED ONCE]
[WARNING: REFUSAL WILL RESULT IN STANDARD GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE]
[DO YOU ACCEPT?]
Two buttons materialized on his center screen, glowing softly: [YES] and [NO].
Shen sat frozen, his rational mind warring with something deeper. This was obviously suspicious. Unknown programs taking over your computer, asking for confirmation to install who-knows-what? Every internet safety lesson he'd ever learned was screaming at him to click [NO] and then burn his hard drive just to be safe.
But exclusive developer access...
He thought about all the mysteries in New Genesis that players had never solved. The locked zones that no one could enter. The NPCs with dialogue trees that seemed to go on forever. The hidden mechanics that the community had spent years trying to reverse engineer and hack.
What if this was real? What if someone at the company had actually noticed him, and thought he was a person worth investing in?
"It's probably just some elaborate phishing scam," he said to his empty apartment, trying to convince himself. "Or a weird marketing campaign."
His cursor—which had mysteriously started working again—hovered over [NO].
His finger trembled on the mouse.
Then, almost against his will, it drifted to [YES].
"I'm an idiot," Shen whispered aloud to himself. But his curiosity had always been stronger than his common sense. It was why he'd spent three years diving into a video game instead of building a normal real life. Why he'd rather explore digital worlds than face the disappointing reality of his studio apartment and dead-end job.
Then, He finally clicked it.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then his monitors didn't just go white—they exploded with light.
'Tch! What the Hell!?'
The overwhelming brightness punched straight through the screens, through the air itself, filling every corner of his apartment with a luminescence that shouldn't have been possible. It wasn't like looking at a bright screen. It was as if the light was coming from everywhere, though that shouldn't be possible!
Shen tried to cover his face but found he couldn't move his arms. He couldn't move anything! His body was locked in place while the light intensified, growing brighter and brighter until it transcended brightness entirely and became something else. Something that pressed against his mind and body simultaneously like a physical weight.
"Wait—" he tried to say, but his voice was swallowed by a sensation of movement.
He was...Falling?
No, not falling. He was being pulled. Like invisible hands had reached into his chest and grabbed something essential, something that made him him, and yanked it away from his body. The light around him began to bizzarely warp like it was physically made of rubber as Shen could feel himself be roughly hauled out of his room.
Terror quickly spiked throughout his body, sharp and cold.
He tried to scream but had no mouth. Tried to grab onto something but had no hands. He was being compressed and stretched at the same time, pulled through a space that his mind couldn't comprehend, like trying to imagine a fourth dimension while experiencing all three at once.
Time became meaningless. He might have been in that state for a second or a century. There was no way to tell.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped.
Solid ground materialized beneath him—or rather, he had materialized on top of solid ground. Shen hit the earth with a gasp, his lungs burning as they remembered how to breathe. His hands quickly felt his surroundings as he became relieved to feel the cold and hard touch of stone.
Letting out a long and painful groan, Shen gave himself a moment to acclimate and fully recognize what had just happened to him.
Before opening his eyes Shen started to push up from the icy stone floor and started to rub the areas around his chest that were still sore. "Shit...What hit me?" He asked with a grumble.
Now in a sitting position, Shen slowly opened his eyes carefully, as they were still suffering from the earlier blinding attack of light. Blurriness instantly clouded his vision but after rubbing them for a seconds, his eyes went back to his normal sight. However, the sight he expected to see was definitely not the one that came into view.
Grey stone.
That was all Shen could see at first. A floor of rough, grey stone beneath his hands, cold to the touch and utterly featureless. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision, thinking maybe his eyes were still adjusting.
But no. It was simply just... stone.
He pushed himself up to his knees, wincing at the soreness in his chest and arms, and that's when he noticed the size of the space around him. It was small and confined. About the dimensions of his bedroom—maybe twelve feet by twelve feet, if even that.
And beyond it lied Nothing.
Shen's breath abruptly caught in his throat at just the sight of it.
The stone floor completely ended. Like someone had cut out a perfect square of reality and suspended it in an endless void. Beyond the edge of his small platform, there was only darkness. Not the darkness of a room at night, or even the darkness of a moonless sky. This was the complete and utter absence of everything. A void so absolute that looking at it made his eyes hurt, and made his brain recoil from trying to process what it was seeing.
It felt hungry, like it was waiting; Threatening to consume even this tiny safe space he was standing on.
"Hello?" Shen called out, his voice cracking. It sounded small and pathetic in the overwhelming silence. "Is anyone there?"
There was Nothing. Not even an echo. The void swallowed his words completely leaving behind not a single sound.
He scrambled to his feet, nearly stumbling in his panic. "Hello?! Can anyone hear me?!"
Still nothing.
His heart was hammering now, each beat painful against his ribs. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real. He was dreaming. He had to be dreaming. Or maybe he'd had a stroke? A brain aneurysm? Was he dying right now in his apartment while his brain fired off random hallucinations?
"Please!" he shouted into the darkness, and god, he hated how his voice shook. "Please, if someone's there, I—I'm sorry! Okay? I'm sorry!"
The words tumbled out of him in a rush, desperate and panicked. He thought of all those stories, those myths about divine punishment. What if this was it? What if God—or Buddha, or whatever cosmic force governed the universe—had finally looked down at his wasted life and decided enough was enough?
"I wasted it, okay? I know I wasted it!" Tears were burning at the corners of his eyes now, his throat tight. "Three years! Three years playing a stupid game instead of living! Instead of doing something, anything with my life! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
He dropped to his knees, hands clasped together like he was praying. Maybe he was. He'd never been religious, but what else could he do?
"Please, if you give me another chance—just one more chance—I'll do better! I promise! I won't waste it! I'll live up to my potential, I'll be a better person, I'll—" His voice broke. "Please. Please don't leave me here."
As his response there was still only silence.
Overwhelmingly and suffocatingly pure silence.
The darkness pressed in from all sides, and Shen felt something start to crack inside of him. He was going to spend his eternity here, alone. In this tiny square of stone surrounded by nothing. No food, no water, no company. Just him and the void and the slow, inevitable march toward madness and death.
Maybe death would be a mercy.
The thought of ending it all crept slowly crept inside of his mind, and Shen found himself looking at the edge of the platform. It would be quick, wouldn't it? Just step off into that darkness and let it swallow him whole. Better than sitting here for days, weeks, years, slowly losing his mind—
[DING!]
Shen's head snapped up so fast his neck cracked.
The sound was familiar. Achingly, impossibly familiar. It oddly resembled the notification chime from his phone. That exact same tone he'd heard thousands of thousands of times.
As he looked over to where the noise originated from, he saw a blue light materialize in front of him.
It was a screen. A translucent blue screen, floating in the air about three feet in front of his face, glowing softly against the darkness. And on that screen, words were appearing, letter by letter, again as if someone was typing them out in real-time:
[CONGRATULATIONS, PLAYER: WANDERER!]
[YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY BECOME THE EXCLUSIVE DEVELOPER AND AS SUCH, BINDED TO THE DEVELOPER SYSTEM AS THE NEW SYSTEM HOST!]
For a moment, Shen just stared at it, his brain trying to process. Then something hot and violent surged up from his chest.
"YOU!" he screamed, lurching to his feet. "You did this?! You fucking—"
He lunged at the screen, trying to grab it, hit it, anything, but his hands passed right through the translucent surface. It didn't even flicker.
"Send me back! RIGHT NOW!" His voice was raw, nearly hoarse from shouting. "This is insane! This is a mistake! I didn't sign up for this! Send me HOME!"
The words on the screen faded, quickly replaced by new ones.
[DON'T WORRY, HOST! THIS IS ALL PART OF THE EXCLUSIVE DEVELOPER EXPERIENCE.]
[UNFORTUNATELY, THE HOST CANNOT BE TRANSFERRED BACK INTO WORLD 17091-A, KNOWN AS EARTH.]
Shen felt the blood drain from his face. His legs went weak, and he stumbled backward, barely keeping his balance.
"What?" The word came out as barely above a whisper. "What did you just say?"
"No." He shook his head violently. "No, no, no, that's—you can't—" His voice rose to a shout again. "WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW?!"
The screen changed again, the words appearing with that same maddeningly calm, methodical pace:
[THE HOST WILL NOW ACT AS THE NEW FUNCTIONING EXECUTIVE GAME DEVELOPER.]
[AS THE NEW DEVELOPER, THE HOST WILL OVERSEE ALL OF THE CHARACTERS OF THE WORLD AND CREATE NEW PLAYABLE SCENARIOS!]
[THE DEVELOPER SYSTEM WILL GIVE THE HOST THE ABILITY TO CREATE AND BESTOW LESSER SYSTEMS THAT CAN DETERMINE AND DIRECT THE CHARACTERS' ACTIONS.]
[IT IS NOW UP TO THE HOST TO CREATE ENTERTAINING STORIES AND SCENARIOS WITH THE SYSTEM...]
The screen paused, and Shen felt a chill run down his spine as the next words appeared, slower than before, each letter seeming to carry weight:
[...OR ELSE THE HOST WILL BE EXTERMINATED AND A NEW EXECUTIVE GAME DEVELOPER WILL TAKE THE HOST'S PLACE.]
Exterminated...
The word hung in the air, glowing softly blue against the darkness.
[BUILDING AND CREATING PROTAGONISTS AND ANTAGONISTS, HEROES AND VILLAINS, THE HOST IS NOW THE GOD OF STORIES!]
Shen stood there, staring at the screen, his mind completely blank. He tried to speak, to form words, but nothing came out. It was like his brain had short-circuited, unable to process what he was being told.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he managed to croak out a single question:
"What... what happens if I refuse?"
The screen's glow seemed to intensify slightly.
[REFUSAL IS NOT AN OPTION.]
[THE HOST HAS BEEN SELECTED. THE BINDING IS COMPLETE.]
[FAILURE TO MEET STORY POINT QUOTAS WILL RESULT IN COMPLETE TERMINATION.]
[WOULD YOU LIKE TO BEGIN THE TUTORIAL?]
[{YES} {NO}]
Shen's legs finally gave out completely, and he collapsed onto the cold stone floor. His hands were shaking. His whole body was shaking. This was real. This was actually, impossibly, insanely real.
He'd been ripped from his world, brought to this... place, and told he had to create "entertaining stories" or die.
He thought of his apartment. His gaming setup. His job at the convenience store. His guild members - the closest thing he had to friends, who were probably wondering why Wanderer had suddenly logged off mid-quest.
All of it was gone.
He'd never see any of it - of them again.
"I just wanted to play a game," Shen whispered to the empty void, his voice breaking. "I just... I just wanted to escape for a while."
The blue screen hovered silently, waiting for his response.
[WOULD YOU LIKE TO BEGIN THE TUTORIAL?]
[{YES} {NO}]
Shen closed his eyes, taking a long, shuddering breath. When he opened them again, something had changed in his expression. Not acceptance of his situation, exactly. But a grim sort of understanding.
He was trapped. There was no way out nor No going back.
So he had two choices: give up and die here on this platform, or...
Or play the game.
Even if the stakes were higher than he'd ever imagined.
"Fine," he said quietly, his voice steadier than he felt. He looked up at the screen, and despite everything, despite the fear and anger and overwhelming sense of wrongness, he felt something else stir in his chest.
Curiosity.
It was the same feeling that had kept him playing New Genesis in the first place.
And Maybe that's why they'd chosen him.
"Show me the damn tutorial," Shen said. "And then you're going to explain exactly what I need to do to stay alive."
The screen pulsed once more, and the words hastily changed:
[TUTORIAL BEGINNING...]
[WELCOME, DEVELOPER SHEN, TO NEW GENESIS.]