i shall win this game!

"I'm so bored," an obscured man said as he looked at the stars. Next to the shrouded man sat a girl in a nurse's outfit. The girl glanced at the man and spoke, "You want to have some fun, old man?"

The old man raised an eyebrow as he looked at the young girl. "Oh? What is it?"

"I'm thinking of kidnapping some humans for our fun."

The old man's smile contorted into something devilish. It was then that the old man's appearance could finally be analyzed: hundreds of tentacles sprawled from his face as if they were a living organism, four eyes on his forehead, and one triangular eye on his chin.

"Let's start then," she said, laughing like a lunatic. In the following moment, the girl's tender, human-like fingers touched the being's shoulder as they teleported to some unknown place. The hut they had been in turned serene.

On Earth

Serbia—A girl was on her way home from work. Bzzz. As she received a notification, she checked her phone and squinted her eyes to read it: (Your credit card has detected an intruder).

She started grumbling, "Of course, I have a mountain of work, and now a scammer tries to get into my credit card. What a day. These f***ing Indi..." She couldn't finish the last sentence as she suddenly vanished into thin air. The street was as empty as an old man's athleticism.

Belgium—In a rural village inside an ordinary house was a room with a sign that read Do Not Enter. Strange sounds came from beyond the door: "Ahhhh, ohhhhhh, aaaahhhh." If one opened the door, they would see a young man, no older than 16, lying down on his bed.

Holding something inappropriate, he was finishing his masterpiece when a voice resounded, "Ali, come down! Dinner's ready!"

Ali, the young man, panicked as he tossed the intricate device away and zipped his pants. As he was frantically cleaning the scene of the crime, he suddenly vanished, leaving behind only the sound of a whirl of wind.

Slovakia—In a countryside town, inside a normal house, a teenager was frantically clicking his mouse. It seemed like he was trying to win some sort of game. It was round 12, only one round away from a loss.

The boy said something to his teammates as he confidently moved to his position. Hiding behind a box, he thought, There's no way they'll find me. All I have to do is kill them from behind.

He waited for 30 seconds until somebody came to his position. As the opponent passed by, the boy grew ecstatic and started shooting at him. Tragically for the young man, he missed every shot. The opponent simply turned around and shot one bullet to the young man's head. It was over—they had lost.

The teenager began banging his table with full force. After a couple of hits, he calmed down and, in an emotionless voice, said, "10 back-to-back losses." He sighed and went to close the game, but he suddenly vanished, leaving behind only his loss streak.

Slovakia, in a rural village near the Košice region: inside a house, a young man sat in the living room, checking the time every 10 seconds as if he were waiting for the microwave to finish. However, he was actually waiting for the clock to strike 1 a.m. That was the time when the in-game shop refreshed, and for over a month, he had been hoping to get the cosmetic he desperately wanted for the Vandal, a weapon in the game.

"Oh, heavenly Lord, please give me the Prelude to Chaos Vandal," he prayed silently as the clock finally hit 1 a.m.

The boy bolted to his room, his parents watching him like he was a lunatic. Frantically, he opened the game and clicked on the shop tab. His eyes scanned everything in a matter of seconds, but to his dismay, he found nothing. It was probably one of the worst shops in the history of the game.

His eyes burned with rage as he screamed at his monitor, "I have been trying for a month to get this trash skin, and I still don't have it! The devs must be toying with me!"

And then, with a sudden "whoosh," he vanished just as he finished his sentence.

In a room with yellow walls occasionally marked by black spots, the girl woke up confused. As she tried to make sense of where she was, she spotted three people near the corners of the room. One thing the girl noticed was the seemingly blending gold-rimmed ancient clock and the radio, which was on top of the right corner of the room.

It's currently 11:59. The time when I was walking home was 11:54—five minutes have passed since I got transported here, she thought.

After some time, ding dong, the clock struck 12. The other people woke up from their slumber, and they, too, tried to make sense of where they were. Of course, a thought began to form in their heads: We have been kidnapped.

Five minutes passed after the alarm, and a voice resounded from the radio:

"Hello, contestants. It's me, your supervisor. I would love for you guys to get to know each other a little bit before we start."

Instantaneously, four chairs and a small table appeared in the middle of the room.

"Contestants, please sit in your chairs, and good luck getting to know each other," the supervisor said.

The contestants were, of course, quite suspicious of this, but nonetheless, they began to take slow steps toward the table.

The girl was the first one to sit down. The other boys quickly followed suit after seeing there was no apparent trap. Once everyone was seated, they looked at each other in pure awkwardness, wondering who would be the first to introduce themselves.

Someone on the right side of the table took a deep breath, and everyone turned to look at him. As he noticed their gazes, the guy with the loss streak said, "Dobrý, ja som Milan," in his language.

Everyone was confused except for another guy from Slovakia, who started laughing.

"I'll start. My name is Samuel. I'm from Slovakia, age 18," he said as he stood up and shook hands with everyone.

Milan turned red from embarrassment. As he took another deep breath, he properly introduced himself. "Hello, I'm Milan from Slovakia, age 18." He exhaled and shook hands with everyone after he said that.

The third one to speak up was Ali, the weirdo, if you will. "Hello, I'm Ali from Belgium, age 18."

The girl who was near him smelled something from him but couldn't quite identify it.

The girl was the last to speak up as she introduced herself. "Hello, I'm Ann from Serbia, age 24." After the girl shook hands with Ali, she looked at her hand and saw something sticky between her fingers.

Ann obviously knew what that was, so she immediately slapped him. "What the hell was that? Was that c*m?"

Ali tried to explain himself, "I'm sorry! I didn't know I had it on my hand, I swear."

The supervisor quickly said, "Contestant Ann, contestant Ali truly didn't know that, so I would like you to refrain from hitting him," the supervisor requested in a kind and caring voice.

"Fine, I'll stop, but if this weirdo does it one more time, I'm beating him up," she said.

Milan and Samuel simply watched from the side while glaring at Ali since nobody likes weirdos who act creepy around girls in public.