Riley Cross never expected the universe to notice him.
At sixteen, he was the kind of invisible that didn't require superpowers. Teachers forgot to mark him present, classmates forgot his name, and even his few online posts drowned in the infinite scroll before anyone cared.
He sat on his bed at 3:14 a.m., the glow of his cracked phone screen the only light in the room. He wasn't posting anything—just staring at the emptiness of his notifications like usual.
Then the screen flickered.
Riley frowned. "Not tonight… my charger's not even broken."
Static filled the display, pure white noise. Then—
A bright pulse exploded from the phone, swallowing the room in blinding light.
SYSTEM ERROR—AUTHORITY OVERRIDE
RECALIBRATING USER…
YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED
Riley didn't even have time to react before gravity disappeared.
His bed rose like a balloon beneath him. His posters peeled from the walls, the air vibrated like a speaker cranked too high, and his body pixelated at the edges—little cubes flaking off into nothing.
The world turned into code.
Riley reached for the real world, his voice glitching in his throat.
Then everything snapped into darkness.
And the new world loaded.