The world ended quietly.
No explosions.
No sirens.
No divine trumpet announcing humanity's extinction.
Ethan Cross was sitting on his bed, controller loose in his hands, staring at a frozen game screen.
"Seriously?" he muttered. "Server crash again?"
The clock on his wall ticked past midnight.
00:00.
The moment the second hand clicked forward, the air changed.
It wasn't visible at first—just a pressure, like the atmosphere itself had gained weight. Ethan frowned, lifting his head. His ears rang softly, a high-pitched hum crawling into his skull.
Then the screen shattered.
Not cracked.
Shattered.
Pixels peeled away from the television, floating into the air like glowing fragments of glass. The room darkened as the light drained from every electronic device at once.
The hum deepened.
A voice followed.
Calm.
Emotionless.
Absolute.
[ GLOBAL SYSTEM ONLINE ]
Ethan froze.
The voice didn't come from the TV.
Or his phone.
Or the walls.
It came from everywhere.
[ Reality integration complete.
Game mechanics successfully deployed.
Welcome to Version 1.0 — Apocalypse Mode. ]
"What…?" Ethan whispered.
Outside, screams erupted.
His phone vibrated violently on the bed. The screen lit up by itself, displaying something that was definitely not part of any operating system he knew.
A translucent blue interface hovered inches above the glass.
[ PLAYER IDENTIFICATION DETECTED ]
Name: Ethan Cross
Age: 19
Status: Unregistered
Initialize System?
YES / NO
Ethan's breathing quickened.
This was a prank.
A dream.
Some weird viral AR thing.
Then something hit his apartment door.
Hard.
The entire room shook. Dust drifted from the ceiling. A wet, guttural snarl echoed from the hallway, followed by the sound of claws scraping against concrete.
Ethan's head snapped toward the door.
Another impact.
The wood cracked.
Outside his window, the city burned.
Buildings flickered like corrupted textures. Red warning grids crawled across the sky. People ran through the streets as creatures—things that shouldn't exist—emerged from glowing circles etched into the asphalt.
Health bars floated above them.
Levels.
Names.
This wasn't reality anymore.
His phone vibrated again.
Initialize System?
Ethan swallowed.
"No system… means no chance," he muttered.
He tapped YES.
Time stopped.
The snarl outside froze mid-roar. The splinters from the door hung motionless in the air. Even the dust particles stopped falling.
A larger interface unfolded before Ethan's eyes.
[ INITIALIZING PLAYER DATA… ]
Scanning physiology…
Scanning neural capacity…
Analyzing experiential history…
A new line appeared.
[ WARNING ]
Unusual data detected.
The interface flickered.
[ Experiential History:
— Video Games (RPG / FPS / Survival / Strategy)
— Total Logged Hours: EXCESSIVE ]
Ethan blinked. "Hey… that's just accurate."
The system paused, as if considering something.
Then the blue interface turned gold.
[ UNIQUE CONDITION MET ]
Player exhibits high compatibility with game-based reality.
Activating hidden protocol…
The pressure around Ethan intensified. His vision blurred as information flooded his mind—numbers, mechanics, probability curves, damage scaling, enemy behavior patterns.
Pain followed.
He screamed as his body convulsed, veins glowing faintly beneath his skin.
[ EVOLUTION IN PROGRESS ]
Human → Player Entity
His heart pounded like a war drum.
Every muscle tightened. Every nerve burned.
Then—
Silence.
[ EVOLUTION COMPLETE ]
Class: Undefined (Growth-Type)
Level: 1
Core Ability Unlocked.
[ PLAYER INTERFACE — ACTIVE ]
Stats appeared in his vision.
STR: 6
AGI: 7
END: 6
INT: 9
LCK: ?
Ethan gasped, clutching his chest. "I… survived?"
Another notification followed, darker than the rest.
[ PASSIVE ABILITY UNLOCKED ]
Name: Adaptive Overwrite
Description: You learn faster through combat.
Limits: None detected.
Ethan's eyes widened.
None?
The door exploded inward.
Wooden shards flew across the room as a creature burst through—once human, now twisted. Its jaw hung loose, eyes glowing a sickly red.
A health bar appeared above its head.
INFECTED — LV. 2
The creature lunged.
Ethan moved.
Not out of panic.
Out of understanding.
Time seemed to slow as invisible data overlaid the monster's movements.
Attack pattern: Linear.
Weak point: Neck joint.
Estimated HP: 180.
Ethan grabbed the metal bat leaning against his wall and swung.
The impact was clean.
The creature's head snapped sideways.
–52 HP
The infected crashed to the floor, screeching.
Ethan stared at the floating damage number.
"…I can see it."
He stepped forward and brought the bat down again.
The health bar emptied.
The body dissolved into particles of light.
[ ENEMY DEFEATED ]
EXP +25
[ LEVEL UP AVAILABLE ]
Ethan laughed—short, sharp, half-crazed.
"This is insane."
Outside, the screams grew louder.
New notifications flooded in.
[ WARNING ]
High-level entities detected in your zone.
[ EVENT ACTIVE ]
First Wave: Survival Trial.
Ethan tightened his grip on the bat.
Fear was still there.
But beneath it…
Excitement.
If the world had become a game—
Then he would clear it.
No matter how broken it became.
And somewhere deep within the system, an unseen counter ticked upward.
Because Ethan Cross had just become something the apocalypse was never meant to allow.
A player with no cap.