DEADLY GAME SYSTEM

The night air was damp and heavy, clinging to Ethan Cole’s hoodie like a second skin. His bicycle wobbled along the slick road, its chain squeaking in protest. The faint glow of campus lights shimmered in the distance, mocking him with the promise of comfort he could never afford.

  He peddled faster cause he wanted to go home and finish up his assignments.

The weight of the insulated delivery bag on his back pressed down harder than the rain. The smell of pizza—cheese, garlic, pepperoni—saturated his clothes until it felt like even his skin reeked of it. He hated that smell now. To others, it meant warmth, indulgence, maybe even happiness. To Ethan, it was poverty, humiliation, the taste of every corner he’d been forced to cut just to survive.

  His mates were in the dorm, waiting for their pizza while he was here with his torn clothes and worn out shoes, struggling to get them their pizza on time.

He muttered under his breath, voice lost in the patter of rain. 

“One more delivery, Ethan. Just one more.”

He was an A+ student, so he managed to get a scholarship admission to the university and he was lucky to get a dorm room.

He had no bed or curtains, just a blanket and a bucket.

The school didn't care neither did his professors when he dragged himself late into class after midnight shifts. His classmates didn’t care either—they only saw the pizza box in his hand and the cheap secondhand clothes on his back and laughed at him like he was a big joke.

The road curved sharply, taking him past the bright dormitories where laughter spilled from windows. Students with brighter futures, full stomachs, and spare cash. Ethan’s throat tightened. He’d chosen this college because he thought it would give him a chance, an escape from his life of scarcity. Instead, every day reminded him that he didn’t belong.

He parked his bike under a flickering lamp, took the pizza bag, and trudged up the steps to Dorm Building C. The hallway buzzed with noise even before he knocked. Music pulsed through the thin walls, underscored by drunken laughter.

He knocked anyway, forcing his voice steady. “Pizza delivery.”

The door swung open so suddenly he almost stumbled forward. A wave of sound, heat, and perfume-smoke air hit him. Inside, a group of students crowded around a giant flat-screen TV, cheering at whatever game blazed across it. Beer bottles littered the tables, chips spilled across the floor.

And there they were—faces he knew.

Marcus Hale . Tall, broad-shouldered, rich boy with a perfect smile and perfect grades, worshipped by half the campus. His friends, equally well-dressed, equally smug. 

Oliver Grant, a burly kid 

Sophia Kane a cheerleader and few other students 

People Ethan shared classes with, people who’d never once spoken to him except to sneer.

“Oh, look,” Marcus said, grinning like a wolf. “The pizza boy finally showed up.”

A ripple of laughter followed.

Ethan stiffened. “Large pepperoni, extra cheese. That’s fifteen bucks.” He kept his eyes on the receipt, as if avoiding their gazes could shield him.

Marcus sauntered forward, holding a crumpled bill between two fingers. He let it dangle in the air just long enough for Ethan to feel like a beggar before dropping it into his hand. “Keep the change, Delivery guy”.

Ethan’s jaw clenched. He wanted to walk out, wanted to throw the pizza in Marcus’s smug face, but he couldn’t. Not with his stomach grumbling form not eating since yesterday morning not with body shivering form the cold and he needed to get a bed. 

He sighed and He turned to leave.

“Wait.”

Marcus’s voice froze him. When Ethan looked back, the group had shifted, their attention no longer on the TV but on a sleek black headset one of them held. Smooth, glossy, futuristic. Not the cheap VR knockoffs Ethan had seen online. This was cutting-edge.

“Why don’t you give us a show?” Marcus said, gesturing with the headset.

Ethan blinked. “What?”

“You heard me. Put it on. Play a round with us. Let’s see if the pizza boy can survive in a real game.”

More laughter. One of the girls giggled and whispered something that made the others howl.

“I—I can’t,” Ethan stammered. “I have work. I—”

Two guys moved behind him, blocking the door. One spun an empty bottle in his hand like a weapon.

Marcus’s smile widened. “We’re not asking.”

The headset was shoved into Ethan’s chest. Heavy. Cold. The weight of it made his arms tremble. His pulse thundered in his ears. He could feel every mocking gaze pressing down on him, suffocating.

If he said no, they’d beat him. If he said yes… what was the worst that could happen?

His throat was dry as he lifted the headset.

“Do it, pizza boy,” Marcus jeered. “Entertain us.”

The world went dark as the visor slid over his eyes.

For a heartbeat, there was nothing but the sound of his own breath, ragged and uneven.

He pressed start

Then—

CRACK.

The dormitory shattered like glass.

Ethan’s body dropped through a void of endless black. Screams erupted around him—Marcus, the others, voices twisted in terror instead of laughter. The floor, the walls, the music, all of it splintered into fragments of light that dissolved into nothing.

Wind roared past him. He tried to scream but the sound tore from his throat soundless.

And then—silence.

A single blue flame hovered in the darkness. It pulsed, expanding into a screen of glowing text.

[Initializing System…]

Ethan’s breath hitched.

Player 382 detected.

Name: Ethan Cole.

Level: Beginner.

Points: 0.

Life Saves: 1.

The words burned themselves into his vision, inescapable no matter where he looked. His chest tightened as panic surged through him.

“What the hell is this?” His voice sounded small, swallowed by the void.

The screen flickered.

[Welcome, Player.]

[Objective: Survive.]

[Failure: Death.]

The void shuddered. A stone floor materialized beneath his feet, jagged and cracked, glowing faintly with veins of red. The horizon split open into a blood-red sky.

And then came the roar.

Deep. Inhuman. Shaking the air like thunder.

Ethan turned, his body trembling, as shadows twisted into monstrous forms in the distance. Shapes with too many limbs, too many eyes, crawling and shrieking.

His heart hammered. His stomach lurched.

What kind of virtual reality was this 

 He looked around and saw other people falling from the black hole like him.

 A monster grabbed a girl and bit her leg off, she screamed and blood sprayed all over the floor 

This wasn’t a game.

This was real.

The screen blinked one last time.

[Welcome, Ethan Cole. Your deadly game begins now.]

****