"WELCOME TO THE FIRST GAME."
The voice boomed in my ears as though it came from within my head, jolting me awake and forcing my senses into focus. The first thing I noticed was the unnatural whiteness of my surroundings.
I stood at one end of a large square room, roughly fifty meters in both length and width. The room was entirely smooth and white—walls, floor, and ceiling alike. The only feature breaking the monotony was a large, glass-like barrier dividing the room in half.
"YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO INSPECT YOUR POWERS. THE TIME STARTS NOW."
Powers? I thought, bewildered, as I sat down on the cold, smooth floor and tried to make sense of my situation. There wasn't much to take in.
It was then I realised I had no memory of myself. No past, no idea where I was. The only certainty was my name: Zarion.
I rose to my feet, my body aching, and stretched instinctively. That was when an image appeared in my mind, unbidden and clear as reality.
I saw myself from a third-person perspective. I was tall, fair-skinned, and lean, with short black hair and a muscular frame. I was naked, standing in an impossibly vast room surrounded by thousands of corridors.
In the image, every corridor was locked—except for one. As the projection of myself walked towards it, I noticed words written above the open pathway:
Path of the Hated.
I didn't understand their meaning. The strange sensation of existing simultaneously in the image and in the white room left me feeling unsteady.
Shaking it off, I returned my focus to the present and approached the glass-like material dividing the room. As I drew nearer, I noticed something peculiar.
On the opposite side of the barrier, a man sat motionless. Like me, he wore no shirt, just simple white trousers covering his lower half.
He was fair-skinned, like myself, but shorter and far less muscular.
"Hello!" I called, hoping to catch his attention. But he didn't react. Either he couldn't hear me, or he chose to ignore me.
"TWO AND A HALF MINUTES LEFT."
The timer startled me, reminding me of the voice's instructions. It had mentioned inspecting my powers, which I suspected had something to do with the image in my head.
Willing myself back into it, I once again stood in the enormous hall of corridors.
I approached the one open pathway and stepped inside.
The corridor led to another hall, though this one was smaller, with fewer corridors—perhaps a hundred instead of thousands. Once again, all but one were sealed.
I moved towards the open path, reading the words etched above it:
HateBlade.
Once again, the words meant nothing to me. Neither did anything else that seemed to exist in the strange reality. Yet still, the path felt as though it called out to me, so without hesitation, I entered.
As soon as my projection crossed the threshold, my physical surroundings began to shift.
A small vortex of energy swirled into existence before me, twisting and folding over itself again and again until it took shape.
A sword materialised in my hands.
It was not spectacular, but the sheer act of summoning it sent a chill through me.
The weapon was massive, designed to be wielded with two hands. Its blade was long, plain in design, save for the word HellBlade engraved on the steel. The name seemed far more imposing than the weapon itself.
What is this? Where am I?
I hefted the sword experimentally, its weight feeling oddly natural in my grip. I sliced it through the air, testing its balance.
Then, lowering the blade, I turned back to the glass barrier.
The man on the other side was now standing. He still held no weapon, but there was something different about him.
His hands, once as fair as mine, had turned an ashen black, as though scorched by fire. His gaze fixed on me, or rather on the sword I held.
"TIME IS UP!"
The voice thundered in my mind once more. The glass wall between us dissolved into nothing, vanishing like steam in the air.
"NOW, I WILL EXPLAIN THE RULES OF THE FIRST GAME."