Prologue - The Night that Changed Everything
The end came faster than anyone expected.
No virus. No war. No warning.
Just a global tremor… and then, the sky cracked open like glass.
At 11:47 PM, the world as we knew it ended.
By 11:48, monsters were already feeding on the living.
Kael Draven never saw it coming.
He was asleep on the rooftop of an old apartment building, wrapped in a thin blanket, surrounded by the distant hum of sirens and smoke. In the silence before disaster, he had learned to find a kind of peace—half-starved, but alive.
Then came the Notification.
> [SYSTEM INITIATED]
Tutorial Begins: Survive the Night.
Welcome, Player. Good luck.
Every phone vibrated. Every screen lit up.
Then silence—eerie and absolute—before screams erupted like wildfire through the streets below. A voice, cold and synthetic, echoed not from speakers, but within their minds.
Kael didn't understand it.
No one did.
Until the world started bleeding.
---
Flames erupted across the skyline. A glass tower crumbled like paper, sending debris scattering in every direction. And then the first monsters appeared—twisted parodies of animals, all fang and limb and muscle.
A hound with metal ribs burst from a parking garage, dragging a screaming man in its jaws. A spider the size of a hatchback dropped from a streetlight, skewering victims mid-sprint. Others simply dissolved—erased, as if the world had no space left for them.
Kael ran. No plan, no gear, just survival.
He didn't make it more than five blocks before a thing—part centipede, part ape, all nightmare—slammed into him from a broken window.
He barely saw its eyes.
It didn't speak. It just killed.
Claws tore through his chest. Bone cracked. Blood sprayed across the pavement like ink spilled on a map.
Everything went dark.
---
When Kael came to, he was coughing. Bleeding.
Alone.
He'd crawled under a crashed van, face slick with ash, body trembling from the pain. He had no clue how long he'd been unconscious, or how he was even still alive. But he was breathing. Somehow.
He looked up through the shattered window and saw the skyline still burning.
Same sirens. Same chaos.
His chest throbbed. His hands shook.
But he was alive.
He dragged himself into an alley and hid, teeth clenched against the pain, trying to stay silent as shadows passed nearby—shadows that sniffed the air and clicked against the concrete.
He stayed there until dawn.
---
He died again that day.
Once. Maybe twice. He couldn't remember.
Not literally—just figuratively.
A kind of death that didn't stop your heart, but shredded your soul.
Each time, he woke up somewhere darker. Each time, the world felt a little less familiar. A little more... programmed.
The system didn't explain itself. It didn't hold his hand. All it gave was cold lines of data:
> [Zone: Downtown – Sector 9]
Threat Level: Moderate
Objective: Survive. Learn. Adapt.
The monsters didn't care who he was.
They just attacked. Always.
By the end of the second night, Kael had bruises on bruises, and a rusted crowbar with two kills to its name. He had found a pair of scavenged shoes, a half-melted can of food, and a place to hide beneath the bones of an old subway station.
There were others, he learned.
Other survivors. Other "players."
Some fought. Some fled. Some cried and begged the sky to stop.
Some went quiet after the first hour, never to rise again.
And some started to adapt.
Kael watched. Learned. Followed from a distance.
He didn't have a class like the others did. Not yet. He hadn't reached the requirements, whatever they were. No powers. No flashy weapons. No party.
Just instinct. Pain. And a growing understanding that the world wasn't the same.
---
People had stats now—he could see them float near others like transparent readouts:
Health. Stamina. Combat Level.
He saw someone shoot a flame from their palm—someone else summon a wall of light. The System was real. Tangible. Brutal.
Classes unlocked when a person survived long enough.
The lucky ones gained Fighter, Scout, Scorcher.
Kael hadn't lasted long enough yet.
But he would.
Every fight showed him more.
Monsters weren't just beasts—they had types. Patterns. Weak points.
Some even adapted. A goblin he encountered one night had thicker armor than the one before. The system called it an "Evolved Variant."
Kael barely escaped with his life. He still bore the scar across his ribs where its claws scraped too close to his spine.
He never forgot it.
He wouldn't.
---
By day three, Kael stood alone in the ruins of East Sector 9.
Behind him was a trail of ash and broken glass. Ahead, a collapsed overpass where something big had made a nest. He wasn't going toward it. Not yet.
Not until he was ready.
His cloak—once a curtain from a burned-out apartment—whipped against the wind. His crowbar was chipped. His boots were too big. But he stood. Still breathing. Still moving.
And that was enough.
A low clicking echoed across the alley.
He turned.
Something was there. Bigger. Smarter. Eyes gleaming in the dark.
It wasn't like the others. It wasn't wandering. It was hunting.
> [New Threat Detected – Analysis Incomplete]
Proximity Warning: 42 Meters
Recommendation: Escape or Engage with Caution
Kael's fingers curled around the handle of his weapon.
He exhaled slowly.
His heartbeat was loud—but steady.
Not this time, he told himself.
This time, I won't run.
---
The system didn't care.
The monsters didn't hesitate.
The world didn't pause.
But Kael did.
Just for a second, he stood his ground—not as a hero. Not even as a warrior.
Just a survivor.
> [Tutorial Status: ONGOING]
Next Objective: UNKNOWN
New Reward Available Upon Class Eligibility
Kael squared his stance. No one else would save him.
There were no retries. No second lives. No magical resets.
Only choices.
Only grit.
Only survival.
He lifted his weapon.
And moved.