"He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying."

Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher (1844 – 1900)

When Milly arrived at work that morning, the lobby had been in its usual state of utter disrepair. As drab and rundown as the rest of the Castle of Glass, its only unique feature—the tree at its center—had died long ago, its corpse a dumping ground of fractured glass, chewed gum, and shards of broken tile. Of the four retail spaces built into each corner, only Rain On My Parade dared to challenge the gloom and believe itself capable of survival in such a dreary place.

This was not the sight that greeted her when the elevator doors opened.

The lobby had been transformed into something wonderous. Cracked grey tile had been replaced by flawless black marble. Glass walls and ceiling, once dirty and cracked, were now composed of sparkling stained-glass that depicted fantastical battles against terrifying monsters.

The three vacant retail spaces were no longer empty and collecting dust. They had been transformed into beautiful storefronts that would fit in any city’s high-end shopping mall. The stores were closed, with ‘Coming Soon’ banners draped over their entrances.

Only Rain On My Parade remained unaltered, its doors firmly shut.

Floating instructional screens filled the rest of the lobby like paintings in an art exhibit, each screen covering a different topic.

“Using Your Inventory,” Xavier exclaimed, pointing at the screen directly ahead of them. The man was giddy with excitement. “The Basics of Magic. Your First Monster. Holy shit, this is really happening, Milly!”

She didn’t respond. She kept glancing over at Rain On My Parade, wondering about the young woman inside.

That poor barista. She’s all alone. She must be so scared.

“Xavier, we should go check on her,” she suggested, but he was too excited to listen.

“Milly, look at this one. ‘Leveling up: Your Path to Success’,” he gasped, dashing between screens like an overactive child in a toy store. “Come on! Let’s…!”

A pink-hair young woman popped into existence directly in front of him, causing him to stumble and fall to the marble floor.

Milly jumped back in surprise, slamming her head against the elevator doors.

“Damn it,” she muttered, rubbing the back of her head. “Wh-what the hell?”

The pink-haired woman wore a simple white sundress with flower embroidery. She was five feet tall, and her bubblegum pink hair was tied into twin ponytails that ran down to the small of her back. Her bright blue eyes were the same color of the floating instructional screens. She appeared around Milly’s age, yet her eyes held a depth of knowledge far beyond any mortal.

“Welcome players!” the woman cheered, as rainbow sparkles appeared around her like fireworks. “Welcome to the God Contest, where fantastical rewards and nightmarish death await you beyond these glass walls!”

Her exuberant joy was unrelenting, with ‘nightmarish death’ said with as much cheer as ‘fantastical rewards.’

“I am your personal guide to the God Contest World. You may call me Tutoria,” Tutoria said with a final flourish, as the sparks shot towards the ceiling and cascaded out in a display of magnificent light.

They stared at the woman, speechless. Tutoria’s chest heaved as if she were out of breath from the effort, and she looked proudly at the pair, as if waiting for their applause.

This woman is nuts!

“That’s it?” Xavier finally said after he’d conquered his shock and reapplied his aloof façade. “Pretty pathetic welcoming ceremony.”

Tutoria looked like she wanted to strangle the man but was forbidden from doing so. Instead, she turned expectantly to Milly.

“It was…nice?” she offered, struggling to pull together any semblance of a rational response.

None of this makes any sense. I feel like Alice, fallen down the rabbit hole. The only thing that’s normal is…is Xavier being an abrasive asshole.

In desperation, she focused on Xavier and used him to anchor her thoughts. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her pounding heart.

“I’m sorry for my friend,” she added apologetically. “He doesn’t mean any harm. He’s just a bit…um…blunt.”

Tutoria’s annoyance disappeared so suddenly that Milly took another step back, only to bang her head into the elevator door again.

“Yes, he’s a jackass. But that’s why he’s favored to survive a long time in the God Contest. His callous nature is an asset. You, on the other hand…”

Tutoria bounced away before she finished the thought, spinning clumsily through the projected tutorial screens. Oblivious to the mountain of anxiety that was building inside Milly.

Me? Me what! What’s that supposed to mean?

Xavier rose to his feet and cast an irritated glare at the woman.

“Isn’t this supposed to be a tutorial?” her spat, stepping in front of Milly. “Cut the scare tactics shit. Just tell us what we need to know or get out of our way.”

Tutoria’s exaggerated eyes flashed, and a broad grin stretched across her face.

“Very well, Xavier. Milly. We’ll start over here.”

The woman waved them over to a series of thirteen screens positioned along the eastern wall of the lobby. The heat of the Mediterranean sun warmed the tiles, and the soft sound of rolling waves could be heard in the distance. A crate filled with rusted, medieval-style weaponry lay beside the exit.

Xavier, without subtlety, reached in and plucked out a longsword, clutching it at his side.

“This is the God Contest,” Tutoria lectured, directing them to the first screen in the series. “The thirteenth God Contest of species Homosapien, to be precise. The previous twelve contests and their results are summarized on these screens.”

Milly read the first screen, and her mouth went dry.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

The First God Contest of Species Homosapien

Location: Babylon

Theme: The Hunt

Participants: 29,875

Survivors: 0

She felt the hair rise on the back of her neck.

I can almost feel the man’s terror in the image. I can almost hear his screams.

Xavier read the second screen. “Pompeii. Theme: Apocalyptic Survival. Participants: 10,102. Survivors: 0. This one has a picture of a woman burning in lava.”

Undeterred, he quickly moved to the next one.

“Machu Picchu. Theme: The Journey. Participants: 20,092. Survivors: 0. A child dying of the plague. Gross. Tutoria, why aren’t there any survivors? I thought this was a contest. Contests have victors.”

“Good question, grumpy man. You humans have proven completely inept at surviving your species’ final test. Most intelligent species in the universe only require one Contest to emerge victorious. A few needed two. The Golians of the forty-third cycle had four before a victor emerged. They were, until now, considered the dullards of the universe. Your species has failed twelve times. As you might imagine, this has caused the gods significant emotional and physical distress, so it would be wonderful if, this time, you didn’t die so quickly.”

“What…what’s the point of it all?” Milly asked, fixated on the eighth God Contest’s painting of a woman in a witch’s hat being burned at the stake. It was so realistic that she thought she could hear the woman’s final screams and feel the lick of flames on her skin.

A woman alone, tortured and burned. How is Xavier acting so calm? My heart is racing, and I can’t think straight. This feels like a nightmare.

“Right now? Your job is just to survive,” Tutoria grinned. “We don’t want to overwhelm you on day one, after all. You’ll find additional information sprinkled throughout the world as you explore.”

Milly retreated from the picture of the burning witch, sweat beading on her brow. She felt her anxiety building by the second—water dumped on the angry fire that was keeping her going.

Come on, Milly. Pull yourself together. Xavier called you a survivor. So be a survivor. Ask questions. Be curious. Be…just be something. Stop letting Xavier run the show.

“If every contest has a theme, what’s the theme for this one?” she asked, grasping for the first question that popped into her head.

“Yes, enough of this history crap,” Xavier jumped in, anxious for answers. “Tell us what we’re in for.”

Tutoria danced over to the final screen and angled it so they could read.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

The Thirteenth God Contest of Species Homosapien

Location: The Castle of Glass

Theme: Video Game

Participants: 807

Current Survivors: 807

“The architects of the God Contest designed the Thirteenth to mirror a recent human invention called a video game,” Tutoria explained. Her eyes twinkled knowingly at Xavier. “Perhaps you’ve heard of such things. The architects were particularly influenced by the fantasy RPG style of gameplay. World exploration. Magic and equipment. Player growth through leveling up. In short, you explore, you fight, and you try desperately to stay alive until you win.”

"Yes! I knew it!" he hollered, pulling up his player screen. “Tutoria, tell me how this works. What are the underlying mechanics? Show me the available talents. Is luck a manipulatable statistic? Tell me everything.”

He bombarded Tutoria with questions, each growing more detailed and complex. The rapid-fire conversation was like listening to one of his rants, only far more technical.

Milly felt completely lost, and her own questions suddenly felt small and stupid next to his encyclopedic knowledge of the subject. It was like she was sitting in an advanced calculus class after flunking high school math.

You didn’t even flunk math, Milly. You dropped out of school before you ever took it.

Xavier, completely engrossed in his conversation, didn’t notice Milly and her building anxiety. She had become his third wheel, standing awkwardly in the lobby as the reality of their situation threatened to crush her.

She wandered away from Xavier and Tutoria, weaving her way between the instructional screens as if they were exhibits in a museum.

As she read a screen titled ‘You in a Nutshell,’ which had information on the four player attributes—strength, agility, toughness, and magic—her eyes darted to the elevator and the safety of the tenth floor.

I could go back upstairs. Hide in my cubicle and hope this all goes away.

She was terrified of the lobby. Terrified of the beauty beyond its stain-glass walls. Yet, despite her fear, she didn’t run.

Perhaps it was the utter absurdity of the situation—an absurdity so deep that her mind struggled to believe any of it was real. Or perhaps it was the singular, darkness-driven thought that sat at the forefront of her mind.

“It doesn’t matter if I die here,” she whispered morosely. “I never had a life worth living, and no one will care when it ends.”

“Well, that’s not a very positive outlook, is it?” exclaimed Tutoria as she popped into existence beside Milly.

This time, she did fall back, landing on her butt on the marble floor. Her heart was beating so fast it felt like it would explode.

“You should really adopt a more constructive approach to this situation, like your friend over there,” the woman encouraged. “He’s got the right idea. Embrace it, or The God Contest will crush you like a little, squishable bug.”

Tutoria drove her thumb into her palm to emphasize her point.

Milly gaped at Tutoria, stunned, then glanced over at Xavier. He was still there, bombarding the first Tutoria with endless questions.

“Why…why are there two of you?” she stammered as she slowly got to her feet. It felt like a dumb question, but her mind was still submerged in shock and darkness.

This was not the day to forget to take my anti-depressants.

“To ensure all players have equal access to the information they need to survive, every player is assigned their own Tutoria. There are eight hundred and seven players, so there are eight hundred and seven Tutorias. I am your Tutoria—Tutoria #788.”

“Why are you #788? Xavier and I were the first ones to arrive, weren’t we? Shouldn’t you be Tutoria #2?”

“We are assigned our number based on your likelihood of survival relative to your fellow players. The Director believes, out of eight-hundred-and-seven participants, you will exit the Contest in seven-hundred-and-eighty-eighth place. That is, the director predicts that you will be the nineteenth person to die. I guess I will get more time off than my sisters once you kick the bucket.”

The woman’s cavalier prediction of Milly’s demise should have been the nail in the coffin of her psyche. The final words that sent her into a depression spiral that she would never recover from. It had happened before—on the night she had given herself the scars on her wrists.

Only, this time, something inside her snapped. It was as if a switch inside her flipped—her tolerance for the cruelty of life finally exceeded.

The emotional war inside her ended, and it was not the darkness that emerged victorious.

It was the pure, unadulterated anger that had been building for years—no longer a smoldering fire, but a sudden, explosive inferno.

Fuck this. Fuck my job. Fuck my life. Fuck this God Contest. Fuck…everything!

“Oh, come on, Milly. Cheer up. After all, like you said,” Tutoria said with a playful, taunting grin. “It doesn’t matter if you die here. No one will ever care—”

Tutoria didn’t get a chance to finish. Her taunt was abruptly cut off as Milly’s fist collided with her nose and sent her sprawling to the marble tiles.

“You want me to cheer up?” she spat angrily at the woman lying prone on the lobby floor. “How about you and your Director fuck right off?!”

The Non-Canonical Aftermath:

"Just for the sake of wondering," the Author asks Tutoria. "How long would I last in the contest?"

"Oh...umm..." Tutoria mumbles. "Let's just say the Director wouldn't bother to assign you a Tutoria. It wouldn't be worth the effort."

"That seems harsh."

"Harsh but fair."

Character Art by Ayammbetutu (vgen.co/ayammbetutu)