When Zack regained his consciousness, the sterile smell of antiseptic was replaced by something metallic and sharp. The hospital room was gone. Instead, he was lying on a smooth, cold surface that glimmered faintly under shifting lights above.

"Olivia!" he called out, his voice hoarse and cracking. He tried to stand, but his body felt strangely light, almost like the pain from his injuries had been erased.

Frantically, he searched the strange expanse for any signs of Olivia. The last thing he remembered was gripping her hand at the stairwell. Now, she was gone, and he was alone.

A faint beeping sound interrupted his thoughts, and a sharp sting behind his ear made him wince. He touched the spot, feeling a small ridge of raised skin—like something had been implanted.

"What the hell is this?"

Suddenly, a projection flashed before him, bright and unnervingly clear, like it was imprinted directly into his brain:

[Welcome to the System, Survivors.]

"Survivors?" he whispered, a chill running down his spine. "Wai — what? — how?"

No one answered. No one was around.

Zack fell on the floor, unable to comprehend what is happening. He tried to slap himself lightly as if waking himself up from a nightmare.

'Come on, Zack. Wake up,' he whispered to himself, tension rising up, as if fate itself was playing a cruel joke at him.

He had always dismissed the asteroid rumors as nothing more than online hysteria and sensational news.

But that day, everything changed.

—

Zack had not even finished drinking his coffee when his phone started buzzing. When he read the message, it was from one of the Nurses from the hospital where he worked. It was a hospital-wide alert.

[Nurse Alessandra Oh]

"Multiple trauma victims inbound. Possible large-scale incident. All available personnel report to the ER ASAP."

He is a resident trauma doctor, and he was used to seeing people with life-threatening injuries. Femurs shattered into fragments, bones pierced into the skin, third-degree burns, and many other more. His stomach tightened, a chill running down his spine. Despite all the cases he has handled, "large-scale incidents" was a phrase that always set him on edge.

He grabbed his keys, automatically checking his bag for his stethoscope and other essentials. The familiar mantra echoed in his mind: "Prepare for the worst and hope for the best." He quickly glanced at the morning news on the TV about unusual atmospheric disturbances. He turned the TV off, brushed it off, and bolted out the door. The hospital was only a few minutes from his apartment, but he knew every second counts in such situations.

Zack pressed harder on the gas pedal, weaving through the thinning morning traffic. The dim sky and the fleeing birds were unsettling, like a scene from an apocalypse movie. He tried to rationalize it – maybe it was just a strange weather pattern, a localized phenomenon. But the image of the text message kept flashing in his mind: "Large-scale incident." That wasn't the weather. That was something far worse. He glanced at the rearview mirror. Even the cars behind him seemed to be moving with a newfound urgency, headlights blazing despite the dim daylight. A knot tightened in his stomach. This wasn't just a bad day; something was profoundly wrong.

He pulled into the Northwood Medical Center's parking lot, tires screeching. He quickly grabbed his ID and ran to the ER. While putting on his PPE, he heard a siren, and three ambulances pulled over at the Emergency Department Entrance.

A middle-aged man with a metal pierced through his chest, blood soaking his shirt, was on a stretcher, wheeled in first.

A pregnant woman, unconscious, her face pale.

And finally, a child… Zack's heart sank. It reminded him of his brother. 

After seeing the child, he was stiff for a second. He forced the memory down. Not now. This child needed him.

He blinked it away, forcing himself back into the present. He pushed past the initial shock and moved toward the child, his professional instincts kicking in. The cries of the paramedics snapped him back to attention, "His BP is dropping; he lost a lot of blood!" while on top of the child doing the CPR.

"We need a crash cart!" Zack yelled. He pushed the gurney with the child in it and hurried up to the Resuscitating Room of the ER.

A nurse showed up pushing the crash cart while catching her breath.

"Nurse, switch with the paramedic and continue the CPR," he told the nurse, and she immediately did.

"How many cycles of CPR have you done? And how much epinephrine did you give him?" He asked the paramedic while beginning bag-mask ventilation.

"This was the first cycle. He was fine when we found him, but he was already disoriented, and on the way here, his blood pressure started dropping, and he was not responding, so we started CPR," the paramedic said in between breaths.

The other nurse attached him to the defibrillator, waiting for a heart rhythm. "He is on V-fib," she said.

"Stop CPR and charge to 60; everybody clear?" Zack yelled at the team.

"Clear!" everybody replied. The shock was given. The nurse checked for a heartbeat and looked at the monitor.

"We got a heartbeat!" the nurse exclaimed. A wave of relief washed over Zack, a brief respite in the storm. He quickly assessed the child, checking his pupils and breathing. "Good work, everyone. Let's get him stabilized." Keep monitoring his vitals. Please get me a pediatric surgeon, stat. And page the blood bank – we will need more O-negative."

He glanced around the crowded room, already overflowing with patients. Resources were stretched thin, and more were coming in every minute. He knew this was just the beginning of a long, grueling shift. The child's heartbeat was a victory but a fragile one. They still had a long way to go.

Even as they worked to secure the child's airway and insert an IV, another gurney was being wheeled into the resuscitating room. A young woman, covered in debris, her eyes wide with terror. "Doctor, she's got multiple lacerations and a possible head injury!" a paramedic shouted. Zack took a deep breath. The fight was far from over.

—

A mechanical voice rang out through the entire city, making Zack snap back to his consciousness.

[Trial One will commence in 1 minute]

[The Gauntlet of Instincts — 00:00:59…00:00:58…00:00:57]

[Objective: Reach the designated safe zone within 30 minutes.]

[Each participant will encounter obstacles, before reaching the safe zone.]

[Failure to reach the safe zone will result in immediate termination.]

[Goodluck.]