Zach slouched in the cramped lecture hall, his posture a study in practiced indifference. His black hair fell in untamed strands over his eyes. He had chosen to seat near the back, where he could hear Professor Lang's lectures without being in the line of fire for unexpected questions.
The room buzzed faintly with the quiet noise of students typing on laptops or scratching notes into spiral-bound notebooks.
The professor's voice was punctuated by the occasional screech of dry-erase markers against the whiteboard. Equations and diagrams sprawled across the surface.
"Quantum tunneling," Professor Lang announced, underlining the phrase with an exaggerated flourish.
Zach's eyes narrowed slightly.
He had spent the better part of last night reading ahead, reading textbooks and online articles just in case Lang decided to target him for a curveball question. The man had a way of zeroing in on distracted students and lobbing unexpected inquiries their way. It wasn't fear that drove Zach to prepare; it was the thought of being caught off guard that he hated.
Physics appealed to him because of its predictability, its rules. Everything in the universe played by the same script. Zach liked solving problems. Yet, every so often, he couldn't resist entertaining the idea: what if the rules _could_ be bent? Or broken?
It was a childish thought, he knew, but it always lingered in the back of his mind.
Today, though, his curiosity was tempered by a subtle distraction.
A faint hum brushed the edges of his hearing, like the static that lingers after you've pulled the plug on an old radio. He glanced around the lecture hall, his gaze sweeping over rows of students. None of them seemed to notice. Heads were bowed, some over screens, others over notebooks. The professor's voice droned on, uninterrupted.
_Probably just my imagination,_ Zach thought. He had a habit of listening to music too loudly; maybe this was his ears' way of filing a protest.
He forced his attention back to the lecture. A hand shot up two rows ahead, and Professor Lang paused, fielding the student's question with the practiced ease of someone who had answered it a dozen times before. Zach caught snippets of the explanation, piecing it together with what he'd already read the night before.
Then the noise came again, louder this time.
It wasn't static anymore. It had shifted into something stranger, a faint whisper just beyond the edge of comprehension. The sound wasn't clear enough to form words, but it tugged at his focus.
He frowned, shaking his head as if to knock off the noise.
_Tired. That's all it is. You need more sleep, Zach._
The lecture wrapped up in a flurry of notebooks closing and backpacks zipping. Outside, the midday sun was bright and warm, spilling over the campus like molten gold. Zach joined the shuffle of students heading out of the building, slipping his notebook into his bag as he walked.
The noise hadn't stopped. It lingered like a persistent itch, barely audible yet impossible to ignore. He had been planning to meet up with his friends, but the thought of trying to concentrate on their chatter with the sound gnawing at him was unbearable.
Fishing out his phone, he sent a quick message to the group chat. '*Sorry guys. I feel sick so I'm heading* *home. Catch you guys later.*'
The decision to walk rather than take the bus came on a whim. Maybe fresh air would clear his head. The campus slowly gave way to familiar suburban streets lined with neat rows of houses. Oak trees arched overhead, their sprawling branches casting dappled shadows on the sidewalk.
Zach's apartment was fifteen minutes away—a route so well-trodden he could walk it on autopilot. And he nearly did, his thoughts drifting back to the equations and diagrams from class.
The sound grew louder.
It happened in an instant.
One moment, his foot hovered above a crack in the sidewalk. The next, the ground beneath him shifted. He stumbled, catching himself on uneven stone. The air changed, cool and damp, carrying the sharp tang of something acrid. His nose wrinkled at the smell, and his stomach churned faintly in response.
His foot slipped on loose gravel, and he hit the ground hard, his palms stinging from the impact.
"What the—?"
He scrambled upright, brushing dirt from his jeans and inspecting his scraped hands. The ache was sharp, grounding. But when he looked up, the familiar suburban streets were gone.
The world around him was alien and unsettling. The air was thick and damp, carrying a faint metallic tang. He stood in a cavern unlike anything he'd ever seen, its walls shimmering faintly as though veins of some crystalline material pulsed with a hidden energy. The dim light they emitted bathed everything in a surreal, bluish hue.
Zach turned in a slow circle, his breath coming faster as he tried to take in his surroundings. His sneakers crunched softly on the uneven ground, which glistened like wet stone under the faint glow of bioluminescent moss clinging to the walls. Above him, jagged rock formations stretched upward, their sharp edges like the fangs of a colossal beast waiting to snap shut.
"This isn't real," Zach muttered, his voice trembling. The words seemed to hang in the heavy air, repeating themselves as an eerie echo that distorted and warped as it bounced off the cavern walls. He rubbed his eyes, half-expecting to wake up in his bed, the faint hum of his ceiling fan spinning overhead.
But the figurative weight of the cavern remained.
A soft chime froze Zach in place. His chest tightened as a translucent screen materialized before him, glowing faintly against the gloom. The letters forming across its surface were crisp and unnaturally bright, their edges faintly pulsing as though alive.
[Welcome, User. System Initialization Complete]
Zach took a hesitant step back, his foot slipping slightly on the slick ground. The screen followed him, hovering in midair like an apparition.
"What... the hell is this?" he whispered, his voice hoarse.
He raised a hand toward the screen, his fingers brushing its surface. They passed through as though it were smoke, leaving no resistance, no sensation. The text shimmered and shifted in response.
[Name: Zach]
[Level: 1]
[Class: Scientist]
[Skills: None]
"Okay, no. This is... this is insane. Where am I? What is going on?"
The screen didn't respond to his questions, its glowing letters indifferent to his growing unease. Instead, it dissolved into wisps of light, leaving the cavern darker than before.
Zach turned slowly, scanning the space for any sign of an exit. The walls seemed to press in closer now, their crystalline veins casting strange, shifting shadows. A faint breeze stirred his hair, bringing with it a sound—a faint, almost imperceptible scuttling noise.
He strained his ears, turning toward the source of the sound. The noise grew louder, the rhythmic clicks echoing off the cavern walls.
From the shadows ahead, a shape crawled into the faint light. Its legs—long, jagged, and unnaturally sharp—moved with eerie precision, the black surface of its body glistening like polished obsidian. Eight bulbous eyes reflected the faint blue glow of the moss.
The creature stepped closer, its movements unnervingly smooth. As it neared, the full scale of it became apparent: its body was the size of a car tire, its fangs long and curved, dripping with a viscous, glistening fluid.
"Oh no," Zach whispered, his voice barely audible. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, though he had no idea what he could possibly do against something like this.
The spider lunged.
Instinct kicked in. Zach dived to the side, his shoulder slamming into the cavern wall. Pain flared, sharp and immediate, but it was drowned out by the high-pitched hiss that followed. The sound was piercing, grating against his nerves like nails on a chalkboard.
He scrambled backward, his eyes darting around the cavern in desperation. The spider advanced, its legs clicking against the stone in a horrifying rhythm.
His hand brushed something cold and jagged. A rock.
Without thinking, he grabbed it, the rough surface biting into his palm. As the spider lunged again, Zach swung at it.
The rock connected with a sickening crunch, the impact reverberating through his arm. The spider recoiled, its legs twitching erratically as a dark fluid oozed from the wound.
But it wasn't finished.
It hissed again, more feral this time, and lunged once more. Zach swung again, his movements frantic. The second blow struck the creature's head, and it crumpled to the ground, its legs curling inward in a grotesque spasm.
He staggered back, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The rock slipped from his trembling fingers, landing with a dull thud beside the spider's lifeless body.
Then, that chime again.
[Congratulations! You have defeated: Cave Spider (Level 1)]
[Experience gained]
[Level up! You are now Level 2.]
Zach stared at the glowing text, baffled.
[New Skill Unlocked: Chemical Mixture]
[Skill Description: Conjure chemical mixtures based on the ingredients absorbed]
"What is this, some kind of RPG?" He then smiled. Just how different is this world?