Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The sound pulled him out of the void soft, steady, far away. Zaire's eyes snapped open.
Blackness.
He blinked, but the dark stayed. No sky. No lightbulb. No glow from a phone screen. Just pitch, absolute and suffocating. Cold air pressed against his skin, and the stone beneath him felt like ice.
He lay still, breath shallow, listening.
Drip.
Drip.
A slow chill ran down his back. He pushed himself up with shaky arms, fingers brushing across damp, uneven rock. His legs tingled with numbness, and when he finally managed to sit upright, his heart was pounding in his ears.
Where the hell am I?
His voice came out dry and hoarse, barely a whisper. He couldn't remember falling asleep. Couldn't remember getting here. The last thing he remembered was rain. Heavy, sudden. He'd stepped out of the corner store after grabbing chips and a soda then...
Blank.
No sirens. No voices. Just that dripping sound, somewhere in the distance.
He checked himself. No backpack. No phone. Just his jeans, sneakers, a hoodie—soaked, now half-dried—and his scratched old wristwatch, blinking with a dead screen. 00:00.
He forced himself to breathe slowly.
This is a dream, he thought. A lucid one. Gotta wake up.
Then the moss caught his eye.
A soft blue glow pulsed weakly along one cave wall. Bioluminescent, like something from a documentary. It didn't light up much, but it gave the room shape a low cavern with massive natural pillars, damp walls, and spiked rocks littering the floor.
And it was quiet.
So quiet it made his ears ache. No hum of power lines. No distant traffic. Not even the wind.
Just the sound of dripping water and his own heartbeat.
He stood slowly, legs weak. Every step echoed like thunder. One wrong move and he could fall, hit his head, never wake up.
Not dying like that. Not here. Move slow, think faster.
He followed the faint light until something caught his eye: a slab of stone, half-buried in the floor of the cave, covered in glowing glyphs.
It pulsed as he approached.
Somehow he could read it.
[Touch to Initiate System]Warning: Survival Conditions ActiveTime Elapsed: 00:06:12
"…What?" Zaire stared at it.
Words. Real words, in English, hovering over a carved stone. No screen. No keyboard.
System.Initiate.Touch.
His instincts screamed caution, but what choice did he have? He was alone, in a cave, without tools, without light and something wanted him to survive. Or maybe watch him try.
He reached out.
The moment his skin brushed the stone, a surge of sound and light erupted silent yet deafening. His head rang, and blue lines raced through the floor like veins of power, illuminating the entire room in an eerie web of light.
System Online.Initializing User Profile…
Name: Zaire OseiAge: 17Origin: Earth (Status: Disconnected)Status: SummonedCondition: Stable
Primary Directive: Survive. Adapt. Ascend.
Zaire staggered back.
His heart was pounding again this time harder. A ringing sound filled his ears, not painful but electric, like pressure shifting in his skull. Then came another screen, glowing in the air before him like a hologram.
New Trait Unlocked: Cave Instinct [Lv. 1]Your body begins adjusting to subterranean life.
Slight bonus to dark environment orientation
Reduced mental fatigue while underground
Quest Received: Prologue Objective — Light the DarknessCreate a functional light source.Reward: Basic Survival PackFailure: Increased System Difficulty Tier
Zaire swallowed. "A quest? A trait?"
The words stayed in the air like floating UI from a video game. He waved his hand through them they flickered, but didn't vanish until he mentally wished them away.
He was in a system.
In a real, living game. Or a world that thought like one.
His breathing slowed, even if his thoughts didn't. He forced himself to stay calm. If this was real, panicking would kill him faster than any monster.
Light the darkness.
He glanced back toward the glowing moss.
Maybe that was the key.
He crouched low, inspecting it. The moss grew on damp stone, pulsing faintly but steadily, like a heartbeat. He pulled off a strip using the edge of a sharp rock nearby and wrapped it in a piece of his hoodie sleeve, fashioning a rough handle.
It barely glowed, but the moment he held it aloft, a new screen appeared.
Crafting Success: Dim Mosslight TorchDuration: 20 minutesRadius: 2m
Reward Unlocked: [Basic Survival Pack] added to Inventory
A shimmer of light appeared to his right. When he turned, a small, glowing crate now sat against the wall metallic, mechanical, and absolutely out of place in the stone cave.
He opened it with trembling hands.
Inside:
One canteen (full)
Two protein bars
A folding knife
A flint striker
A compact sleeping cloth
A stone compass with strange runes
No explanation, no welcome. Just tools. Tools for surviving.
Zaire sat down slowly, back against the cave wall, mosslight torch in one hand, knife in the other.
The silence returned but now, it didn't feel quite as heavy.
Not safe.
Not yet.
But survivable.
His mind raced with questions. Why him? Who sent him here? What did "Ascend" mean? And what was waiting in the deeper tunnels?
He didn't have answers.
But he had fire.
And a reason to keep moving.