Bedsheets swished and turned while an alarm was ringing. The person underneath unwilling to leave the warm comfort of the bed reached out a hand and searched around with it until he stopped his ringing phone.

"AaaaaHHHHH." A deep groan was heard before the bedsheet was thrown to the side hitting a closet.

A young man was left on his bed with hands and feet stretched apart staring into the ceiling. He did so until the last of his dreams left his gaze and shook his head. With that he rolled till he was on the edge of his bed and stood up from there.

A headache at the back of his head welcomed him to a new morning.

"This is going to be a day." He said. His voice deep, not from the maturity that usually gave it but by the torturous monotony of life that sipped away at that youthful vigour.

He wore his glasses and the routine begun. Pyjamas off revealing his average body with some bones visible here and there. He was on the skinnier side. He wore his clothes, black trousers with a suit top both with certain red engravings. It was his and like many others uniform of Noxpolis University.

He heated up the before night prepared breakfast, a meaty sandwich, and got to eating. Meanwhile with his other hand he fished out his phone from his trousers and pressed play for a message he had.

"Good morning sweetie." He couldn't help but smile. Not the usual slight smile he had on throughout the day when dealing with everything. Instead, this one was a genuine one, a smile only a mother can bring.

"We know you have a lot of studying and you can't see us every weekend. So, we decided to go visit you next month. Can't have you becoming lazy, you have to clean yourself, clean your room and clean don't forget that, Andy. Else you'll be living in a dump. Not to mention..."

'And she goes on and on.' Adrian's smile got helpless from the overbearing love.

He skipped to the end of the fifteen-minute message before he responded.

"Yeah, thanks mom. I'll be expecting you and don't worry I'll take care of myself." He sent it, finished his meal, took his textbooks into a bag and off he went.

Before departing, right as he was opening the door, he looked into a full length mirror opposite a footstool.

There he stood clothed and ready. An exemplary student, a good son, a hopeful dreamer in a world full of grey shades trying to dirty him.

Yet this wasn't what he saw instead there was something. Something that shouldn't be there yet is. The source of his headache perhaps.

[Adrain Greyhound]

[Physical:80

Intelligence: 120

Charisma:50

Looks:78 (type: Twink)

Comment: There’re few women that would like you. Unassuming and ordinary. You have nothing going except your intelligence and your good heart.

Maybe take a chance and go the femboy route.]

“Look who decided to show up again.” He said.

The empty room responding to him in kind by a negligible echo of his new living space.

A text was looking at him in the mirror. He closed the door and jumped. It floated there no matter how he looked and moved in front of the mirror it still was there. Waiting for him.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

He furrowed his eyebrows. His eyes went over the text scanning it. The more and more he read, the more his brows furrowed. Until.

"A Twink?!"

"Who's a fucking twink. Look at this chiselled body." He uncovered his faintly visible one, two, three and four abs. In the next moment he flexed them and hit them with his fist as to show their strength.

Looking back at the mirror he scoffed and continued reading.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm not the most handsome looking fellow I kn-you motherfucker." He swung at it, then stopped, his fist hovering an inch away from his reflection. Paced around swung again and stopped. Muttering and cursing all the while under his breath, cursing out the whole lineage of mirrors right from sand.

But the text wasn't going anywhere. It still was in the mirror. He already broke a mirror when he was younger trying to scare this screen away. It did nothing other than getting his parents wrath.

'In the mirror, again.' His pupils contracted because of the realisation. He sprinted. Into his bathroom where he grabbed at a sink and with his head down stared for a moment nowhere. His eyes searching around as he was deep in thought before he stopped his hand hovering over a bottle of prescribed pills.

With one deep breath he forced himself to calm down and take the situation as it is. It doesn't matter if it's there or not. What's it there for? No, that doesn't matter too. He told himself.

He lifted up his head and looked into a mirror above the sink. The text was still there, yet now he was impassive. He reached out and tapped at it.

Nothing did happen as always. It was there. He was there. Five minutes later, going nuts over some text that called him gay. What a life. And now he is five minutes late for his subway to get to uni.

He grabbed his stuff, clothes, keys, notebook and everything else he'll need for classes and with one swift moment got out, locked the door, didn't wait for the now moving elevator and ran down the stairs. In less than a minute he was out. Cold air hit him right in the face.

He sighed. A breath of mist trailing behind him as he ran like the wind. A bus stop was a good seven-minute walk away from here and he doesn't give himself much of time leniency. Instead opting for more minutes of sleep.

He should've changed that habit at least for today and set up his alarm some few minutes earlier, but he didn't and now is risking being late for his first day.

He cut the last corner before the bus stop and it was there with its electric doors closing and the old bus’s puffing of exhaust was starting. Andrian ignored the pain in his side and ran ever faster. To himself he seemed like the fastest man on that planet.

He reached the bus in five seconds just as the doors were centimetres away from closing. He knocked on the plastered windows and with the glaring of the old driver the doors came open.

"Where?" The driver barked at him, taking out a fat cigar out of his mouth. Letting out the last puff out of his mouth.

"To Nox University Science faculty." A breath of cold air whizzed past Adrian's neck as the door got closed.

The driver only grunted as Adrian scanned his card.

"Get in the back."

"Thanks."

The driver grunted again, ignoring him and instead enjoying his cigar.

The bus started moving while Adrian was looking for a seat. There were a few open for him to sit in, every one of them though already having a person on the other seat. Three was a couple of girls, students like him that were looking at him with frowns on their faces.

Their looks came as no surprise to him as his face was pinkish like a pig's and his breathing hurried through his mouth as his nose was full. Thanks to this damn weather he thought.

He sat at a empty seat, next to an older gentleman with his hair as white as the newspapers his finger was tracing, speaking about the slowness with which he was enjoying his morning. Nice and slow. That can't be said about Adrian as he was catching his breath.

The gentleman looked and only moved his cane to make enough room for Adrian to sit which he right away took. Fortunate for Adrian the way went smoothly for him without even talking with anyone. Not that the gentleman was keen on conversing with him.

Five stops and they were at the University. All the students left, Adrian being in the midst of them. Going step by step down, careful not to fall, until his boots landed on the University grounds.

A massive University building stood before them. Ancient through and through, the stones themselves paving the way, old and decrepit, speaking about how many people walked this path before them. How many succeeded, how many failed.

So, this is the safe journey that I've secured myself. Adrian thought. And it's only the beginning.

He followed the group of students, blending in the middle as just another face in the crowd. They went into the building through the front door.

One by one they came in till it was Adrian's turn. He went in and as he looked into the slight reflective surface of the swinging doors, he saw something more.

More than the system.

[The beginning

Description: Unavailable

Reward: based on completion

Failure: ???

Accepted]

His mouth went slack, eyes wide and all he could do was to be swept inside as the people pushed against him. Inside, he turned around to see his reflection but there was too many people coming and going.

He shook his head and departed. His mind though in high gear and with one question.

Is this real? Is that damn thing finally doing something? Did I go crazy?