"Another day in hell," I muttered under my breath, staring at the same gray cubicle walls that had been my prison for the past two years.
I pressed the keys on my keyboard, barely registering the words on the screen. My mind was elsewhere—probably in the same place it always was: dreaming of a life that wasn't this. Of something more than just chasing deadlines, managing spreadsheets, and pretending that every meeting held some kind of meaning that meant something to me.
I glanced at the clock. 3:15 PM. Just a few more hours until I could go home to the small, one-bedroom apartment that was more of a storage unit for my belongings than a place I could truly call home.
"Li Xian, get those reports on my desk by five," came the voice of my manager, Li Wei, a man whose soul seemed as empty as the office coffee pot that always ran dry when you needed the damn thing the most.
It wasn't always like this, of course. We used to live in a world that was almost like the one in the old books, before the Great Collapse. But that was when the mages first emerged, bringing their power and their mystic arts with them. They promised order, structure, and safety in exchange for control. And just like that, the world shifted. The old governments fell. The people were restructured into sectors, groups that were assigned after graduation from college, where they would work under the mages' rule.
If you weren't born into the mage families, you were just a tool. An expendable tool meant to serve the system that we lived in.
I had finished college a few years ago, and like everyone else, I was assigned to a corporate sector. A sector that fed information, resources, and labor directly into the mages' hands. I was just a number now, one of millions working in the corporate machine. I was lucky to even have a job, considering how many people were struggling just to survive.
People hated them, but no one dared to voice it. If you ever said something against the mages, you would… well, disappear.
They had brought a new order with them, but the most chilling one was the Beast Games. The Beast Games were a twisted tradition. Every ten years, the mages selected a handful of people from around the faction to be thrust into a brutal competition.
A game where only one rule mattered: survive. Contestants had to tame legendary beasts, battle other players, and try to reach the end. The winners earned the right to return to the real world, but… that was the catch.
No one ever returned.
The mages had a way of making sure that the losers didn't come back. If you failed in the games, you were disposed of—vanished. And if you won… well, you were rewarded with a life of comfort, wealth, and status, a position high above the masses. You were free to live without the oppressive restrictions of the corporate world, but no one ever came back.
As far as the games went, there were two ways to be chosen. Either you were selected, pulled from your life against your will, or you were one of the fools who applied. But no one in their right mind would apply. Who would willingly enter a game where the stakes were life and death?
The mages might have made the Beast Games sound like an opportunity, but the truth was, no one came back. Not a single person who entered the games had ever returned to tell the tale.
I shook my head, trying to shake off the thoughts that had plagued me for so long. I wasn't stupid. I wasn't going to apply. I'd seen the posters and advertisements—they were everywhere. "Apply Now! Become a part of history!" they'd say, with images of smiling contestants and their tamed beasts standing proud. We saw the images, but no one had ever seen a contestant return.
"Li Xian," Wei's voice interrupted my thoughts again, this time much closer. He was back, his face now flushed with irritation.
"Li Wei, I've got it covered," I said, not even looking up. My fingers continued typing without a second thought. Another report. Another deadline. The same routine, day in and day out.
I didn't need to look at his face to know he wasn't satisfied. He never was. But what did he expect from me? I wasn't a top performer. I wasn't a rising star in the company. And at this point, I'd stopped caring about climbing the corporate ladder. Being a top performer only put you in the spotlights of the mages. They selected people who were top of their sectors, so I didn't try to stand out. The last thing I wanted was to be picked by them.
The times were drawing near again. It had been ten years since the last game, and now it was time for another. The posters were out again. The mages' servants trying to draw people in, but what I was most concerned about was the selection: They would pick people by tomorrow, and those people would vanish.
That was how you knew who was chosen. They would vanish from this world and be taken to another world, as the books said. I had only witnessed the selection once, and I was 15 years old at the time when my father disappeared along with the others. And now, who knew who might be next?
I forced myself to focus, trying to ignore the growing dread creeping up my spine. I tapped away at the keyboard, trying to finish the report.
Then, suddenly, a strange hum filled the air, vibrating through the glass windows. It started low, a distant sound, then gradually grew louder, like the deep-throated growl of a beast in the distance. I frowned and looked up, my hands freezing above the keyboard.
The mages always had a peculiar way of announcing things each time and I could only guess that this was for the beast games.
The window shook slightly and the humming stopped just as a bright beam of light shot up. The light split the clouds like lightning, leaving a trail of shimmering arcane symbols in its wake. My breath caught in my throat.
It was a magical announcement.
The mages had sent their signal.
The light flickered again, and the words appeared in mid-air, glowing in luminous blue:
"By noon tomorrow, the Selection will be completed. All sectors are now closed for the day. Remain indoors. Obey the order."
I stared at the empty space where the words had been. Tomorrow.
Tomorrow, people would vanish.
The selection had begun.