Dustin lay perfectly still on his incredibly lumpy mattress. He stared at the familiar brown water stain on his ceiling.
'Three hours of absolute nothingness,' he thought to himself. 'That is a massive personal victory.'
The ceiling fan clicked rhythmically above his head. It wobbled precariously with every rotation. Fixing the fan would require finding a screwdriver and standing on a kitchen chair. Those were two physical actions that Dustin firmly refused to take on a Tuesday afternoon.
His phone began vibrating furiously on the cluttered nightstand next to his bed. The harsh buzzing noise rattled against an empty pizza box and an unwashed coffee mug. Dustin simply closed his eyes.
"Just give up," Dustin muttered to the empty room. "I am not answering that."
It was probably his landlord demanding the rent that was already two weeks late. Or perhaps it was his mother calling to ask if he had finally secured a job interview. Both of those conversations required mental energy that he simply did not possess today. He believed strongly in a personal philosophy that he called efficient energy management.
People loved to call him a jobless slacker. His few remaining friends called him a lazy bum who was wasting his youth. Dustin thought they were all completely delusional.
'Working forty hours a week just to pay for the fuel to drive to that exact same job is a terrible design flaw in human existence,' he reasoned internally.
He preferred to minimize his expenses and maximize his horizontal resting time. His entire life was optimized for avoiding unnecessary movement. He ordered his groceries online. He paid his meager bills using his phone. He spent his waking hours dominating highly competitive online survival games. In the digital world he was a master tactician who could conquer entire empires. He commanded armies with the click of a mouse. He outsmarted thousands of rival players without ever breaking a sweat. He enjoyed those games specifically because his digital avatars did all the running and fighting while he sat comfortably in his deeply indented computer chair.
The phone finally stopped buzzing. Silence returned to his messy apartment.
"Finally," Dustin sighed loudly.
He shifted his weight on the mattress and prepared to take a late afternoon nap.
Then the air pressure in the room suddenly changed.
It felt exactly like the heavy moment right before a massive thunderstorm breaks. The tiny hairs on his arms stood straight up. A low humming sound began to vibrate deep within the floorboards beneath his bed. Dustin opened his eyes and frowned at the ceiling. The wobbling fan was spinning rapidly but it was no longer making a clicking noise. The wooden blades were glowing with a faint white light.
Before he could even sit up to investigate the glowing light exploded.
It was a dense and physical wave of pure white energy that completely swallowed the walls of his apartment. The dirty clothes piled in the corner vanished. The empty pizza boxes dissolved into nothingness. The lumpy mattress beneath him ceased to exist.
Dustin felt a terrifying sensation of absolute weightlessness. He was falling through a void of blinding brightness. He squeezed his eyes shut and threw his arms over his face to block out the harsh glare. The wind roared in his ears.
The falling sensation stopped as abruptly as it had begun. His bare feet slammed into a hard surface. The sudden impact sent a sharp jolt of pain straight up his calves. He stumbled forward and barely managed to keep his balance.
"You have got to be kidding me," Dustin groaned as he rubbed his aching legs.
The familiar silence of his apartment was entirely gone. It had been replaced by a deafening wall of chaotic noise.
Dustin slowly lowered his arms and opened his eyes. He blinked several times to clear the bright purple spots from his vision. His apartment was completely gone. He was standing in the middle of a massive and endless expanse of pure white. There were no walls in any direction. There was no sky and no sun above him. The bright light simply existed everywhere at once in a perfectly even glow. The floor beneath his feet felt like polished marble but it stretched out smoothly into an infinite horizon.
He was definitely not alone.
Thousands of people surrounded him in every direction. The sheer scale of the massive crowd was absolutely staggering. There were men in expensive business suits bumping shoulders with teenagers in school uniforms. A woman wearing a flour covered apron was clutching a wooden mixing spoon tightly to her chest. A large man wearing expensive gym clothes still had a damp towel draped around his sweaty neck. Everyone looked completely terrified and utterly confused.
The deafening noise was the collective sound of pure human panic.
People were screaming at the top of their lungs. Some were sobbing hysterically and gripping their heads in shock. Others were desperately shouting the names of their missing children or their spouses. A man standing just a few feet away from Dustin dropped to his knees and began praying loudly in a rapid language.
Dustin simply stood there in his faded plaid pajama pants and his oversized grey shirt. He slowly rubbed his temples to soothe a newly forming headache.
'Screaming wastes precious oxygen,' Dustin thought as he watched a woman hyperventilating nearby. 'Running around in an endless void wastes valuable calories. Why is everyone wasting so much energy on panicking?'
He was not gripped by the same paralyzing terror as the people around him. He was mostly just incredibly annoyed. His peaceful afternoon nap had been ruined and now he was surrounded by thousands of loud strangers in a glowing void. This was the exact opposite of his efficient energy management philosophy.
A sharp ringing sound suddenly pierced through the chaotic noise of the crowd.
It sounded exactly like a microphone receiving harsh feedback on a massive stadium speaker system. The high pitched whine forced everyone to cover their ears in pain. The screaming and crying slowly died down as the thousands of confused people looked up at the empty white sky. The sudden heavy silence was almost as intimidating as the noise had been.
"Greetings to all of our newly selected participants."
A voice echoed across the infinite expanse. It was booming and impossibly loud but it did not sound monstrous or divine. It sounded exactly like the host of a daytime television game show. The tone was upbeat and vibrant and sickeningly cheerful. It possessed a synthetic smoothness that made Dustin immediately uncomfortable.
"Welcome to the initial processing phase of your new existence," the voice continued with bright enthusiasm. "We know you are all probably very confused right now. You are wondering where your houses went and why you are standing in an endless waiting room. Please do not worry yourselves over those tiny details. Your old lives on your old planet have officially concluded. You have all been randomly selected to participate in a much more exciting endeavor."
Dustin stared up at the featureless white ceiling.
"Old lives concluded?" Dustin whispered to himself. "Did my apartment building finally collapse from water damage?"
The crowd around him erupted into furious shouts. The panicked whispers rapidly turned into angry demands. People wanted to know who was speaking and how they could safely get back to their homes.
The Announcer completely ignored the rising anger of the crowd. The cheerful voice smoothly talked over the thousands of shouting humans as if they were nothing more than a minor background distraction.
"We have some truly wonderful events planned for you all," the Announcer declared happily. "But before we can get to the fun parts we need to finalize your basic registration. You simply cannot participate in the upcoming survival trials without the proper equipment. The system will now distribute your identification bands. Please remain entirely still during the attachment process."
A man violently pushed his way through the dense crowd near Dustin.
He was a tall and heavily muscled individual with sharp features and a highly commanding presence. He wore a dark leather jacket and carried himself like someone who was entirely used to being in charge of a room. Dustin watched the man step into a small pocket of open space and glare directly up at the glowing white sky.
"You need to stop talking in riddles and explain exactly what is going on here," the muscular man shouted with absolute authority. "My name is Sung jin and I demand to know who brought us to this place against our will. We are not participating in any kind of television show or twisted survival game. You will return us to our city immediately."
Sung jin spoke with perfect clarity and natural confidence. His deep voice carried surprisingly far across the quieted crowd. Several people nodded in hopeful agreement and muttered their support for the brave man standing up to the invisible kidnapper.
Dustin simply watched the man with a critical eye.
'He looks exactly like a protagonist from those action web novels I read,' Dustin thought cynically. 'Usually the guys who yell first end up dying first just to prove a point to the rest of the group.'
The Announcer let out a bright and synthetic chuckle. The sound echoed pleasantly across the white void. It was a warm laugh that contained absolutely zero empathy or human understanding.
"Oh the participants are always so lively during the first few minutes," the Announcer replied cheerfully. "That fiery spirit will be very entertaining to watch once the blood starts flowing. We really do love a participant who thinks they are in control of the situation."
Sung jin narrowed his eyes furiously and opened his mouth to shout another strict demand.
He never got the chance to speak.
A sudden flash of blinding blue light materialized directly over the left wrist of Sung jin. A thick band of dark grey metal snapped shut around his arm with a heavy mechanical click.
"Gah," Sung jin gasped loudly. He stumbled backward as he frantically grabbed at the strange device on his arm.
At that exact same moment Dustin felt a sharp and burning pain flare up on his own left wrist.
"What the hell is this?" Dustin cursed out loud.
He looked down and watched as a glowing blue ring of light formed over his skin. The light solidified instantly into cold and heavy metal. The band clamped down onto his flesh with brutal force. It was uncomfortably tight and the inner edges bit sharply into his skin. Dustin winced and instinctively tried to pull his arm away but the device was completely immovable. It felt like it had been permanently welded directly to his bones.
A massive wave of fresh screams washed over the white void once again.
Every single person in the endless crowd was currently grabbing their left arm in sudden pain and confusion. Thousands of identical metal bands had appeared simultaneously. The sound of thousands of mechanical locks clicking shut echoed like a strange metallic rainstorm.
Dustin aggressively pulled at the dark grey metal on his wrist. He dug his fingernails under the edge of the thick band and tried to pry it apart. The metal was entirely seamless. There were no buttons and no hinges and no visible locking mechanisms. The device was cold to the touch and incredibly heavy.
A small digital screen suddenly flickered to life on the surface of his metal band. Red glowing numbers appeared on the display.
Physical Synchronization Rate Eight Percent.
Dustin glanced over at the athletic man wearing the gym clothes. The screen on the wrist of the athlete displayed a synchronization rate of forty two percent. Dustin realized immediately that the system was already judging his terribly lazy lifestyle.
"Please refrain from attempting to remove your identification bands," the Announcer instructed brightly. "Any attempt to forcefully detach the device will result in immediate and catastrophic physical termination. We want all of our players to enter the tutorial in one piece."
Dustin immediately stopped pulling at the cold metal. He slowly lowered his hands to his sides.
'Catastrophic physical termination,' Dustin repeated in his mind. 'That definitely means instant bloody death. Nope. I am not testing that rule today.'
He recognized the terrifying tone of a system that did not bluff. He had played enough ruthless digital survival games to know that ignoring the rules of the game master usually resulted in a very quick game over. He took a deep breath and tried to slow his racing heart. This was no longer a hallucination or a bizarre fever dream. The heavy weight on his arm and the stinging pain in his skin were undeniably real.
"Excellent compliance from everyone," the Announcer praised happily. "Now that you are all properly tagged and registered we can move on to the most exciting part of the orientation. It is time to determine how you will survive the upcoming trials. The system is currently scanning your physical and mental attributes. Please stand by for your official class assignments."
Dustin looked down at his wrist again. The dark grey metal of the band was suddenly beginning to glow with a faint blue light. A small hum vibrated from the device and sent a strange tingling sensation all the way up his arm and into his shoulder.
He let out a long and frustrated sigh. He closed his eyes and mentally prepared himself for the absolute worst possible outcome. He just wanted to go back to his lumpy mattress and sleep.
"Just give me something easy," Dustin pleaded quietly to the glowing white sky. "Give me a backline healer or a creature summoner. Anything that lets me sit down while other people do the actual work."