“Come on, come on, come on!” I muttered to myself as I forced my beaten up sneakers on my feet and rushed towards the door, barely managing to grasp my tacky keychain from the wall before I thrusted myself into the world, or rather, another miserable day of college life that I once again managed start much later than I should have. I already missed two classes, and the only reason I didn’t oversleep the last one of the day was that notification about a new chapter of Light Master,

Maybe if I hadn’t stayed up all night reading it, I would have woken up on time this time, but even as I criticize myself internally for that decision I know I would have done the same regardless. Especially considering that Nighty, the protagonist, finally caught a break after two-thousand chapters of near-intolerable torture. That puts a smile on my face, but only long enough to notice that both of the lifts are broken, again. The once magnificent steel doors, that are now much less so, stand idly closed with the little screen on top displaying the dreadful message “LIFT BROKEN”. 

“Just great.” escaped my lips, realizing that I have to take the stairs to get down ten floors and somehow do it within five minutes to be on time for my next class. “At least I live close.” I say, trying to brighten my mood slightly, but remembering how high the rent is quickly drives it back down. ‘They could at least use all that money to keep the lifts working consistently for fucks sake!’  

Luckily, playing basketball with Jack lately did help boost my stamina, so the stairs aren’t as much of a dreadful thought as they once were. A couple of months ago when I was all-in into my lazy couch potato phase I might as well have gone back to my room and slept for the rest of the day, but now I can somehow manage. Regardless, I still don’t enjoy it in any way. The seconds tick by much faster than they have any right to as I pass floor after floor, and with the knowledge that I am once again late and another ten minutes of my life lost I somehow make it out of the building. I even walked halfway to my destination before I noticed the first oddity.

At first I assumed that I must be absolutely crazy, I mean, there is no way in hell that what I am seeing could in any way be considered reality, right? But after giving my eyes several seconds to take in the scenery and even looking around for a good minute, which is just enough time to confirm whether I am delusional or not, I realize that it’s true. It’s not there.

“How do you lose a fucking building?” I wonder for a moment whether I somehow managed to get lost on a trip that is supposed to take three minutes or less once I am out of the door, but looking closely answers the question. The buildings surrounding it were exactly where I would expect them to be, just the one I needed to get to was gone for some reason. I immediately pull out my phone and check my university platform for any announcements regarding a complete sudden overnight remodeling project I somehow hadn’t heard of before, but find nothing relevant, with the most recent one still being the test scores of the Morphosyntax mid-term from the week prior. None of my friends had mentioned anything about it either, so I decided that investigating it closer would be just about the only thing I can do at this rate.

‘Not like I have anything else to do, now that I don’t know where my class is supposed to be held, especially considering that I have caught up to that dreadfully addicting web novel already.’

Whilst making my way towards it, or rather, the rubble that I now notice on the floor, I do realize that a remarkably small number of people seem to be interested in it, in fact, I haven’t seen anyone at all since I left my room, not even in the pizza place operating at the ground floor of my building, which strikes me as weird. ‘I wonder why they suddenly closed? I hope it’s just today, I was really looking forward to ordering a couple for the DnD session tomorrow.’

Looking through the rubble I find all kinds of things I recognize, including the favorite chair of my Literature professor being surprisingly intact with how decrepit everything else is. I also notice a number of trashed 8k flatscreen TVs that I remember being delivered sometime earlier in the semester, although I still have no idea what the actual purpose of them is nor have I ever seen where they placed them until now, but from their location I concluded that some of the professors enjoyed much larger privileges than I thought previously. “There goes my tuition I suppose…”

As I make my way through the rubble and find more and more oddities, I spot some weird blue light at the center of it all, whilst feeling a weird compulsion to investigate it that I would berate any fictional character for. “No one can resist the temptation of mysteries though!” Are the last words that leave my mouth as I raise the piece of rubble obscuring it, revealing a blue orb seemingly made from pure energy emitting the light. That is also the last thing I see before my vision fades to black.

[Welcome to The Games, customary of your Host, Cyrus. Enjoy if you dare!]

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