NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1: The Glitch in Reality
The world wasn't ending.
It was just lagging.
Hard.
From the relatively safe doorway of a coffee shop, Michael Arcana watched reality tear itself a new one right in the middle of Times Square.
He'd only ducked in to buy an overpriced latte, a small, petty act of rebellion designed specifically to annoy his pathologically stingy dad.
He hadn't planned on getting a front-row seat to the apocalypse's daytime show.
A glowing purple crack had torn through the sky about fifty feet above the street, like the universe tried to shut a window and crashed instead.
A Gate.
Another one.
They were starting to feel less like a sign of the world ending and more like an aggressively annoying pop-up ad you just couldn't close.
Great, Michael thought, pulling the hood of his gray sweatshirt lower over his face.
Another public event I didn't RSVP to.
High-pitched screams echoed off the massive digital billboards, which were no longer playing soda ads or Broadway promos...instead, they now showed the glowing, cosmic rip in the sky.
Well, at least the marketing was on point.
Police sirens, which were basically the city's standard background music, now mixed with the sharp whine of Hunter scanners, turning the chaos into a wild, noisy mess.
The DGC – Department of Gate Control – showed up in their big armored trucks, all serious and scary, with agents who looked like they hadn't smiled in years.
Then came the real rockstars.
Hunters, dressed in tactical gear that faintly glowed with mana, were already on the scene and ready to move.
They barked orders into their comms, striking heroic poses for the news drones that swarmed the air like a flock of metallic vultures.
They were probably making sure their good side was facing the camera.
Heroes.
The word felt like ash in his mouth.
His father used to be one of them.
Marcus Arcana, the S-Rank legend, the Broken Blade, the name people still whispered with awe in old forum posts.
Now he was just Marcus, a man who jumped at loud noises and sometimes spent hours staring at nothing on the kitchen wall.
A man whose only rule for Michael was absolute, soul-crushing, mind-numbing normalcy.
"It's a life of ghosts, kid," his father's hollow voice echoed in his memory, a familiar and unwanted ghost in his own head.
"You fight monsters until you become one."
From the violet tear in the sky, things began to spill out.
Gutterfangs.
They were nasty, dog-sized creatures covered in oily black fur, with way too many joints in their legs, making them move with a jerky, creepy, bug-like movement.
They slammed onto the pavement like heavy bags of meat, then scrambled off into the mess of empty yellow cabs and old tourist buses.
Chaos erupted into a familiar dance of flashing emergency lights, panicked screams, and the deep, percussive booms of Hunter abilities.
A Hunter in gleaming silver armor, probably sponsored by some tech company, summoned a massive wall of fire that incinerated a half-dozen of the creatures in a single, spectacular whoosh.
The crowd, even as they fled for their lives, let out ragged, star-struck cheers.
Michael just felt tired.
He was supposed to be at the library, cramming for a calculus midterm that now felt cosmically and wonderfully insignificant.
Knowing Professor Davies, he'd probably still expect the homework to be handed in on time.
"An apocalyptic monster invasion is no excuse for failing to derive a function, Mr. Arcana."
He started to back away, trying to melt into the tide of terrified civilians flowing down the street.
His father's mantra was a shield in his head, the only piece of armor he owned.
Stay away.
Don't get involved.
You are not one of them.
Be invisible.
Be an NPC.
Then he saw her.
A little girl, no older than seven, clutching a bright pink unicorn backpack.
She'd stumbled and landed hard behind a hot dog stand, hidden from the crossfire, but far from safe.
One of the Gutterfangs had split from the pack, its eyes locking onto her.
Its jagged claws tore into the pavement with each step, leaving deep scars in the concrete.
It barreled toward her with terrifying speed, every movement filled with deadly purpose,there would be no time to run, no chance to scream.
This one was bigger than the others, its fur matted with something dark and wet, its eyes glowing with a predatory, intelligent light.
An Alpha.
Oh, for crying out loud, Michael's internal monologue groaned with the weight of a thousand clichés.
Of course.
The one unescorted child NPC in the entire starting zone.
Classic.
No one else saw them.
The heroes were too busy with the main swarm, generating primo footage for their highlight reels and sponsorship deals.
The police were a wall of bodies and barricades, focused on containment.
His feet froze to the pavement.
The sensible part of his brain, the part that sounded exactly like his father, screamed at him to run.
To live.
To be normal.
It's not my problem.
One of the shiny heroes will get her eventually.
That's what they're paid for.
He physically turned to go, forcing his body to obey the logic of survival.
He made it two whole steps.
But he glanced back.
He shouldn't have glanced back.
The Gutterfang lowered its head, thick saliva dripping from its rapidly clicking mandibles.
The little girl whimpered, trying to press herself into the cold metal of the hot dog cart, making herself as small as possible.
Something inside Michael snapped.
It wasn't courage.
It wasn't a sudden surge of heroism.
It was a hot spike of pure, undiluted annoyance.
He was annoyed at the monsters for ruining his afternoon.
He was annoyed at the indifferent heroes posing for their next action figure deal.
He was annoyed at the suffocating, crippling fear that had hollowed out his father and was trying its damnedest to do the same to him.
"Dammit."
He moved before he could talk himself out of it, his body acting on that single, explosive emotion.
He didn't have a weapon.
He didn't have powers.
He had a backpack full of textbooks that probably weighed more than the child he was about to try and save.
"Hey!" he shouted, his voice cracking badly – a perfect, awkward squeak that barely masked the fear behind it.
"Bug-Face! How about you pick on someone your own difficulty setting?!"
Great, Michael.
Brilliant.
Just aggro the boss mob with a witty taunt.
Flawless strategy.
He ripped his calculus textbook from his backpack – all 800 pages of soul-crushing, weaponizable density – and hurled it with all his might at the creature's head.
"Finally, a practical application for advanced mathematics!"
The book struck with a surprisingly solid and deeply satisfying THUD.
The Gutterfang staggered, its multiple glowing eyes swiveling to fixate on him with a look of pure, murderous intent.
Holy crap, it worked.
"Run!" Michael screamed at the girl, not daring to look away from the monster.
He heard the frantic patter of her small sneakers on the asphalt behind him.
Good.
Now for the hard part.
The Gutterfang hissed, a sound like scraping metal, and charged.
Time seemed to warp, adrenaline turning his blood to ice water and making the world move in slow motion.
His father's lessons, absorbed not from training but from forbidden late-night viewings of old, unedited Hunter-cam footage, kicked in.
Hunter-cam clip #47.
Alpha Gutterfang.
Poor peripheral vision up close.
Weak spot is the soft tissue behind the jaw.
It lunged, its jaws snapping shut with a sound like a guillotine.
Michael didn't dodge away like a normal person.
He ducked under the attack.
He clenched the keys in his fist, the jagged metal of his apartment key biting into his palm, and punched upward with all his terrified strength, striking the soft spot he'd seen a dozen times on a flickering screen.
The monster let out a piercing, high-pitched screech.
He'd hurt it.
He'd actually hurt it.
The brief, insane surge of victory was cut brutally short as the enraged beast spun, a razor-sharp claw slashing through the air with impossible speed.
A burning, tearing pain ripped across his chest.
He looked down.
Oh.
"f*ck."
That's… a lot of blood.
My blood.
His legs gave out from under him, no longer receiving instructions from his brain.
The world seemed to tip sideways, and the bright neon lights of Times Square blurred together like a messy, glowing painting.
So this is how the run ends.
Sorry, Dad.
Guess I wasn't invisible enough.
The Gutterfang loomed over him, its monstrous jaws opening for the final, game-ending bite.
And then, his personal reality blue-screened.
[CRITICAL VITALITY DETECTED]
[HOST MEETS ACTIVATION REQUIREMENTS]
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING...]
Okay, so this is what dying looks like, he thought, a sense of detached, hysterical calm washing over him.
Blue error messages.
Didn't see that coming in the patch notes.
A translucent blue screen flickered into existence in his vision, a heads-up display only he could see.
[VERIFYING BLOODLINE: ARCANA... VERIFIED.]
[BINDING SOUL... PROCESS COMPLETE.]
[WELCOME, LAST SCION.]
The Gutterfang froze mid-lunge, its head cocked to the side as if it could sense the Wi-Fi password had just changed and it wasn't happy about it.
[FIRST QUEST GENERATED: SURVIVE]
[DESCRIPTION: A large, pointy creature is attempting to convert you into a fine paste. It is recommended that you prevent this.]
[REWARD: System Integration, 100 EXP]
[FAILURE: PERMANENT DELETION (DEATH).]
Well, points for being direct, Michael thought, his mind foggy and distant from the blood loss.
No unskippable cutscenes, just straight to the Game Over screen.
[NOVICE HEALTH POTION (F-RANK) ADDED TO INVENTORY.]
[CONSUME?]
[Y/N]
As his consciousness slipped away, it clung to the only word that mattered, forcing all its will toward the glowing letter 'Y'.
The screen flashed.
A small, corked vial filled with a glowing red liquid materialized in his hand with a soft, audible pop.
Don't think about where the magic sky-potion came from.
Just drink.
He fumbled with the cork, pulled it free with his teeth, and tipped the entire contents down his throat.
It tasted like cherries and static electricity.
A wave of incredible warmth spread from his chest, and the searing, world-ending pain just… stopped.
He pushed himself up onto one elbow, feeling weak but whole.
He touched his chest.
The gash, the blood, the ruined hoodie – all of it was gone.
The Gutterfang let out a frustrated, confused shriek, but it was too late.
A shadow fell over them both.
"Kid, get down!" a voice boomed with practiced authority.
The Hunter in the silver armor was there, a lance of pure, condensed light erupting from his palm, vaporizing the monster in a flash of blinding energy.
He knelt beside Michael, his helmet retracting with a hiss.
"You alright, kid? Are you hurt?"
Michael just stared, his mind a chaotic whirlwind of fight, flight, and baffling blue screens.
What just happened to me?
He caught a glimpse of his own wide, panicked eyes reflected in the shiny chrome of the empty hot dog stand.
And floating in front of his face, visible only to him, was a single, terrifyingly neutral line of blue text.
[QUEST COMPLETE. SURVIVAL: CONFIRMED.]
[SYSTEM TUTORIAL CONCLUDED. AWAITING USER INPUT.]