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"Hold still, Zero, or I’ll take the finger with the hand," Jax sneered, his boot grinding into my wrist.
I didn't scream. Screaming was for people who still thought the world owed them something. I just glared up at him through a mess of grease and blood, my cheek pressed against the cold, oil-slicked floor of the scrap yard.
"You're wasting your breath, Jax," I spat, a glob of red hitting his polished boot. "The chip is fried. There's nothing left to scavenge."
Jax laughed, a sharp, grating sound. He leaned down, his face inches from mine. I could smell the expensive synthetic mint on his breath—the kind of luxury only High-Ranks could afford. He tightened his grip, and I felt the bone in my wrist groan.
"You think I believe you? You’ve been digging in the dead zones for three years. Nobody stays Level Zero by accident. You're hiding something. A glitch? A hidden stat? Give it up, and I might let you crawl away."
"I'm trash, remember?" I hissed. "Vat-grown waste. Level Zero. No augs, no rank, no future. Just like the System says."
He sneered and raised his fist. I braced for the impact, closing my eyes. But before he could swing, the world stopped.
Not just stopped. It froze.
A sound like a thousand glass windows shattering at once ripped through the air. A blinding, gold-white light erupted from the center of the city, tearing through the smog of Neon Harbor. The sky didn't just change; it broke.
"What the hell is that?" Jax yelled, his fist frozen mid-air.
I looked up. Floating in the air, written in shimmering, oppressive crimson letters that spanned the entire horizon, were words that made my heart stop:
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE. WELCOME TO THE GREAT GAME.]
[OBJECTIVE: LEVEL UP OR BE DELETED.]
"The hell is a game?" Jax muttered, his eyes wide.
Suddenly, a blue holographic screen snapped open in front of every single person in the yard. I saw Jax’s screen first.
[NAME: Jaxen Thorne] [CLASS: Vanguard (Rank E)] [LEVEL: 1]
He looked at his screen and grinned, a predatory look crossing his face. "Vanguard. I’m a damn tank!"
I waited. I held my breath, my chest aching. My screen flickered. It didn't snap open with a clean chime. It stuttered. It glitched. Static hissed across my vision like a dying television.
[NAME: Jett Quinn] [CLASS: ERROR] [LEVEL: 0]
I stared at it. Level Zero. Even in a world-ending apocalypse, I was still the bottom of the barrel.
"Let's see what the trash got," Jax mocked, reaching for my shoulder.
I shoved him. I didn't think; I just reacted. To my shock, he didn't just stumble—he flew. He hit a stack of rusted girders with a metallic clang that echoed through the yard.
"What the—" Jax scrambled up, his face twisting. "You little bitch!"
He lunged at me, but as he did, the air around me shimmered. I felt a strange, cold vibration in my marrow. I didn't feel stronger, but I felt... faster. Like the world was lagging and I was the only one playing in real-time.
I stepped aside, a simple pivot, and caught his wrist. I twisted it—hard.
*Crack.*
Jax howled, dropping to one knee. "You... you’ve got a hidden class! What is it? Assassin? Shadow? Tell me!"
"I don't know!" I yelled, my voice cracking. "It says Error! I'm still Level Zero!"
"Liar!" he screamed. He tried to tackle me again, but a new notification pinged in my vision, loud and aggressive.
[ALERT: LEVEL ZERO ENTITY DETECTED IN ACTIVE COMBAT ZONE.] [STATUS: TRASH.] [SENSORY OVERLOAD INITIATED.]
Suddenly, a wave of agony slammed into me. It wasn't physical—it was like a psychic scream. My vision turned red. The System wasn't helping me; it was mocking me. It was literally labeling me as garbage in real-time, pulsing the word *TRASH* in sync with the throbbing pain in my temples.
I collapsed to my knees, clutching my head. "Shut up... just shut the hell up!"
Jax saw his opening. He laughed, a cruel, triumphant sound. "Looks like the System agrees with me. You're nothing. Just a glitch in the dirt."
He raised his boot to stomp on my neck. I didn't even have time to move.
*CLANG.*
Something hit Jax. Not a person, but a blur of silver and black. He was launched twenty feet backward, slamming into a concrete wall with enough force to leave a crater. He didn't get up. He just slid down the wall, unconscious and bleeding from the ears.
I blinked, gasping for air, and looked up.
Standing over me was a man. Or something that looked like a man. He was tall, built like a weapon, wearing a sleek, charcoal-colored combat rig that looked like it belonged in a high-security military vault. His hair was dark, his eyes a piercing, unnatural electric blue that seemed to glow from within.
He didn't look at me with pity. He looked at me like I was a bug he was deciding whether to crush.
"Pathetic," he said. His voice was deep, vibrating in my chest, with a metallic edge that gave away his non-human nature. "The System is malfunctioning. It’s letting trash breathe when it should be scrubbing the streets."
I tried to scramble back, my palms sliding in the oil. "Who are you?"
He didn't answer. He reached down and grabbed the collar of my jacket, hoisting me up effortlessly. He pinned me against a rusted shipping container, his arm like an iron bar across my throat. I couldn't breathe. The smell of ozone and cold steel filled my senses.
"You're the glitch," he murmured, his face inches from mine. I could feel the heat radiating off his skin, a strange contrast to the coldness of his eyes. "The Level Zero who doesn't know how to die. Interesting."
I clawed at his arm, my nails digging into the synthetic fabric. "Let... go..."
"Not yet," he whispered. "I need a key. And you look like the kind of broken lock I can pick."
Just as he tightened his grip, a massive, blood-red icon snapped into existence directly above my head. It wasn't a blue screen. It was a skull. A jagged, leaking red skull that pulsed with a rhythmic, terrifying beat.
Underneath it, a countdown began to tick down in shimmering gold numbers.
[DELETION IN 71:59:59]
The man froze. He looked at the timer, then back at me, his eyes narrowing.
"Well," he said, a dark, dangerous smile curling his lips. "Looks like your clock just started. Now, do you want to die in three days, or do you want to do exactly what I tell you?"
I stared at the timer. Seventy-one hours.
"What happens when it hits zero?" I whispered.
He leaned in closer, his breath warm against my ear, his voice a lethal promise. "You stop existing. Completely."