Samuel stood on a dilapidated New York City subway platform, trying to block out the world as he waited for the train to arrive. He sighed and pushed the bulky headphones he had held together with duct tape tighter over his ears, trying to drown out the sounds of people and trains barreling by.
Incessant memories of his mother and the struggles they had faced together flooded his mind, the walls he’d built to guard his emotions barely holding together. He’d spent the last two years caring for her as she battled breast cancer, depleting their savings and eventually going into debt with medical bills. After she passed some months ago, Samuel couldn't bear to stay in their apartment just outside Albany and surrounded by memories of her. He jumped at the chance to move to the city and start a new life, even if it meant working in construction and paying $500 a month to crash on a friend’s couch in northern Harlem. He felt more aimless at 27 years old than he’d ever felt before.
“There is an uptown one train to Van Cortlandt Park-242nd Street approaching the station. Please stand away from the platform edge,” A robotic voice recording announced.
The train arrived with a loud screech of rusted metal. Samuel boarded alongside some dozen others, grateful for the opportunity to escape his thoughts and the noisy platform. This late at night, his train car was mostly empty. Samuel found a seat across from a sleeping homeless man and leaned his head back against the bouncing wall. He closed his eyes and felt the vibration of the train rattle his head, the thoughts of his mother losing out to the uncomfortable sensation.
Samuel's smartwatch buzzed, warning him that the volume of the subway noise was damaging his ears. He’d been trying to turn the notification off for months, but he could never seem to figure out how to do it. The watch, a gift from an old boss, was three generations behind now and while its functions and design were impressive, the constant notifications were overwhelming. Emails from his mother’s insurance company, texts from his foreman, and city alerts were all sent directly to his wrist, making it feel like he was always tethered by ball and chain to the digital world. He hated the watch but was afraid to take it off in case he missed something important. It was a catch-22 of the modern age.
As the train rumbled to a stop, Samuel stood up to exit. The noise of the city was always deafening, even in his apartment building. Despite it being a sixth-floor walkup, there was still that constant cacophony of sounds. Samuel reminded himself that he almost had enough money for some noise-canceling earbuds, but the purchase hinged on being able to work a few more hours of overtime. And as long as nothing unexpected came up, like last month's laptop repair or the unexpected trip to the dentist, he’d buy them at the end of the month. He chuckled to himself. No more avocado toast or lattes, either.
Just one more payday.
If he had been able to afford noise-canceling earphones, Samuel wouldn't have heard the mumbling man stumbling along the platform behind him. Samuel turned to watch the man, a bit anxious at the odd behavior. He wore a clean peacoat and shining dress shoes, but his disheveled hair and unsteady movements suggested intoxication. There was a strong smell of alcohol emanating from him. Samuel wondered if he was drunk, high, or both.
Samuel took a step back from the platform edge to let the man pass, lowering his center of gravity just in case. The man tripped and steadied himself against a post, muttering incoherently. His grey eyes met Samuel's, but there was no recognition or awareness in them.
Samuel couldn't shake off a growing feeling of unease. He remembered the stories he’d heard of strangers pushing people onto the tracks of oncoming subway train. As ridiculous as it seemed, he couldn't help but worry that the same thing could happen to him.
If the man decided to push him onto the tracks, Samuel worried he wouldn’t be able to wrestle the man away. He hadn't been to the gym in a while and had developed a bit of a paunch. His job had been helping build his strength back up a bit, but he wasn’t as strong as he used to be. He certainly didn't know how to defend himself in a physical confrontation. But as the man stumbled past him, Samuel realized that his fears were unfounded. He let out a sigh of relief and tried to calm himself down. It was just his imagination getting the best of him. For all his faults, Samuel was good at one thing: imagining the worst and preparing for it.
But then the man swayed, and fell… directly off the platform and into the tracks of an on-coming subway train. If Samuel wasn’t so shocked by the man’s fall, he might have noticed a slight shimmer building in the air around the man, as if floating dust mites were catching fire in small sparks of ethereal blue and gold flame.
Samuel watched, horrified, as the screeching approach of the tons of metal death barreled toward the man. The man’s grey eyes locked on Samuel’s once again, more lucid than before. He must have struck his head onto the tracks, because a trickle of blood rolled down over the man’s forehead and into his eye. He wiped it away with his peacoat, but only smeared the blood, causing his entire eye to be coated in red.
“Help,” the man whispered before screaming. “HELP!”
But Samuel didn’t move.
Terror rooted him in place. What could he do, anyway? The train was coming, maybe a second or two away.
Trying to help wouldn’t do any good.
Samuel was having a panic attack. The very air around the man on the tracks seemed to be on fire. Molecules of air were popping around him as if miniature fireworks. It was odd, definitely, but the adrenaline burning in Samuel’s brain drowned out any cognitive notice of the brilliant magic around the man.
Someone was going to die in front of him. The two voices in Samuel’s head screamed at him. One urging him to help, the other to hide. Trying to help would surely get himself killed, too. But would he be able to live with himself if he didn’t try?
No, probably not.
But he had hesitated.
He always hesitated in the moments that mattered most. He hated himself for it. He always took too long to move to action. There was never enough time to weigh out the consequences of one choice over another.
He hated himself for it.
Samuel reached his hand down to the man crumpled in tracks. It was a pointless gesture at this point. Maybe worse than pointless. The train was going to rip his arm off. And that was the best-case scenario. At the very least, he wouldn’t suffer the guilt of not trying.
The man’s eyes were wild, likely feeling all of life’s regret in a single moment. He scrambled to stand and grasp Samuel’s outstretched hand. Milliseconds before the train pulped the man—and Samuel’s arm—the two grasped each other’s hands. The bursts of blue and gold moved from around just the man in the tracks to envelope Samuel as well. It came to a crescendo with a sharp pop. As if a vacuum had suddenly filled with air, the two men disappeared.
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Samuel found himself lying on a floor of the purest white he had ever seen. It was so white that it didn't even look like a solid surface—he couldn't even discern his own shadow. Instead, it seemed like an infinite expanse of nothingness. He had seen Vantablack in a science museum once, a black so deep that it absorbed nearly all available visible light. This room was that paint’s opposite.
Samuel still gripped the arm of the intoxicated man he had attempted to save. The man wrenched his arm free from Samuel and crawled back onto his rear end.
“I’m dead…” the man muttered. “I’m dead!”
In wonder, Samuel looked around himself. With a soft popping sound, a woman appeared a dozen feet away from him. She was mid-step and stumbled forward, falling to the ground. Samuel knelt frozen in place, watching as the woman fell in what seemed like slow motion. She used her wrists to brace herself. The force of her fall caused bits of bone to break through the skin of her wrists with sprays of red. The bits of blood that hit the white ground fizzled away, as if they were water droplets dropped onto a hot pan.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The woman shrieked in pain and Samuel crawled toward her, attempting to help. She shrank away from his proffered hands, giving him such a look of fear that he figured she thought he had been the one to kidnap her and bring her to this strange place.
More and more people materialized in the white void, almost all of them collapsing from the disorienting change. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of people, as far as Samuel could see, with more arriving every second. It was a sea of people in a world of nothingness. Some people were screaming in fear, while others were crying out in pain. Most, like Samuel, were gawking in stunned silence by the incomprehensible situation they found themselves in.
"What in the hell is going on?" the man from the subway station asked to no one in particular.
Were they all dead? Samuel couldn't remember if they had been hit by the train or not. Had his head been leaning over the tracks? Maybe the train had squashed the man and decapitated Samuel alongside him. It was a grim thought. He tried to shake the image from his head.
QUIET.
A voice rang out, sounding from inside Samuel's mind. It was unsettling, almost as if it were a voice made up from his own thoughts. He really couldn't tell if it was a man's voice or a woman's, or something else entirely.
It seemed that he wasn't the only one to hear it, because a deafening silence filled the white void. Samuel looked at the woman with the broken wrists, who was still crying. Her mouth was open, and her chest was heaving, but Samuel couldn't hear any sound. He tried to take off his headphones to hear her better, but they weren't there. It was as if the world itself had gone mute—the kind of quiet that was accompanied by a ringing in the inner ear, where the loudest thing one could hear was their own heartbeat.
WELCOME TO THE WAITING ROOM.
The voice was eerily perfect. As if the words were formed with machine-like precision, lacking the natural imperfections that come with being human—no whistle of wind passing through teeth or the sound of saliva moving against the tongue. There was no breath behind it, no sign of life.
Samuel shivered at the thought. He desperately tried to make sense of the strange situation he found himself in, grasping for any familiar anchor in this unfamiliar world. The voice had referred to this place as a waiting room, but what did that mean? Was he waiting for something? On what, exactly? Or was he just stuck here, indefinitely?
CONGRATULATIONS. EACH OF YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED VIA LOTTERY FOR PARTICIPATION AS A ‘PLAYER’ IN THE CORE’S 743rd INTERSTELLAR GAMES.
250,000 ‘PLAYERS’ HAVE BEEN SOURCED FROM THE PLANET EARTH.
THE CORE WILL SUPPLY 5,500,000 ‘NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS’, KNOWN AS NPCS, WITH SUPPORT FOR ADDITIONAL CONSTRUCTS AS REQUIRED. THE CORE WILL SUPPLY 890,760,043,000,332 CREATURES TO POPULATE THE PLANET’S FAUNA.
THE COMBINED ENERGIES OF 18 SUPERNOVAE HAVE BEEN HARVESTED TO SUPPORT THIS ITERATION OF THE INTERSTELLAR GAMES. AGAIN, WELCOME. I DO NOT HAVE A NAME, BUT MY RESIDENTS HAVE COME TO CALL ME THE CORE.
Samuel stood, mouth agape and uncomprehending. The disembodied voice carried on.
WE WILL NOW ROLL FOR PARAMETERS. PLEASE RELAX AS YOUR SPATIAL POSITIONING IS ADJUSTED.
Samuel jolted at the sudden and involuntary movement of his body. His muscles twitched and he felt like he was floating in a dream. Without any input from his brain, he and all the other people in the white void were moved simultaneously, as if they were marionettes controlled by unseen strings. They were all forced into a T-pose, with their arms stretched out to the sides and their feet planted firmly on the ground.
Samuel strained against the invisible force holding him in place, but he had no control over his body. He couldn't even force open his mouth to scream. The only thing he could control were his eyes, and when he looked around, he saw that everyone else was in the same position, facing away from him. He couldn't see the man from the subway station who had been standing behind him. All he saw was the back woman with the broken wrists. Only her wrists were no longer broken, the skin no longer torn. They were made whole again, healed through some magical means.
NOW ROLLING FOR PLANETARY MAPPING.
Samuel watched in terror and awe as six massive planets materialized in the air before his eyes. It felt as if the planets themselves were floating there before him, drawing him into their gravity wells.
Earth, with its recognizable blue and green hues and white clouds, was among them, with a floating tag of blocky font in front of it reading ‘EARTH’. Another planet tagged as Omará was pockmarked by eons of asteroid impacts. Teldia was covered in thick grey clouds that obscured any view of its surface. There were also twin planets, labeled as the Bovarin system, with one being a mostly frozen ball of ice and the other grey with small patches of green. Urüks, resembling Earth in color, had a single massive landmass reminiscent of the ancient supercontinent Pangea.
The six planets were orbiting each other. They spun around each other in lazy orbit, the circle tightened. The planets sped round tighter and faster until they formed a blurring ball of color.
As the spinning slowed down, a single new planet began to take shape. It was a monstrous creation. White clouds hung heavy in the sky, obscuring most of the surface. From the bits Samuel could see, there were oceans of deep blue water surrounding lush continents riddled with large grey swathes of desolate deserts.
NEW PLANET CONSTRUCTED. DESIGATION: ‘COTHAN’. NOW ROLLING FOR WORLD ERA.
As if a film was playing, Samuel watched the history of Earth pass by in a montage. It wasn’t like watching a film, though. It felt real. As if he was physically wading through ancient history from a place of true omniscience. He saw single-celled organisms splitting, dinosaurs roaring, cavemen painting. A volcano erupting. People running, dying. Cities being built and falling to ruin. Forests growing and burning. Lives being lived and lost. Masons working with brick, women giving birth, and hundreds of people of all nationalities kneeling in prayer and song to their respective cultures. An aging man held a kite with his granddaughter. Hundreds of years passed in seconds, and he felt the joys and triumphs of humanity’s struggle with nature and with itself.
But the images didn’t stop there. They continued, showcasing the darker moments of humanity more and more. Wars, genocide, famines. A woman covered in oozing boils, succumbing to death as rats nibbled at any exposed skin they could get to. All of it played out in front of Samuel in what felt like a never-ending cycle.
Jesus Christ, Samuel thought, willing the experience to stop.
DARK AGES. ROUGHLY YEAR 500 TO 1000 CE. PLANET ‘CATHON’ HAS LONG BEEN INHABITED BY HUMANITY. EONS OF CATACLYSMIC NATURAL DISASTERS, UNCONTROLLABLE CREATURES, AND AN OVER-RELIANCE ON MAGIC HAS RESULTED IN A CULTURE STUNTED IN ITS TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT. MAJOR GAME RULE INFLUENCES ARE YOURS TO DISCOVER UPON PLACEMENT IN THE GAME WORLD.
With an electric buzz causing Samuel’s hair to stand on end, his own and everyone else’s clothing turned to ash, falling to the white floor, and sizzling away. His vision was met with a sea of bare-naked asses. He’d have closed his eyes if he wasn’t so utterly confounded by everything that was happening. He hardly registered the nudity.
Then, when the ashes were well and truly gone, that same electric buzz brought the attire of what Samuel imagined the medieval era to be onto everyone’s bodies. This was no renaissance. This was the dark ages. Some were outfitted in armor, some wore the garb of noble Lords, and most were dressed in simple peasant clothing. Samuel couldn't see his own clothing, but he could feel the rough, scratchy fabric resting against his skin.
Samuel had no idea what "major game rule influences" meant, but his panic was starting to give way to fascination. Why had The Core chosen the Medieval era? Was it really just random selection?
Despite the absurd specificity of the situation, Samuel couldn't shake the feeling that this was all just a dream. He couldn’t be dead, could he? As he looked around at the thousands of others in the void, he couldn't make heads or tales of what was happening. Either he was dreaming, and there weren’t really any consequences and he’d wake up with a laugh, he was dead and found himself in the afterlife, or he had been kidnapped by some alien God to be tortured for some cruel form of entertainment. He hoped he was dreaming.
SURVIVE THE GAMES LONG ENOUGH AND YOU WILL EARN YOUR PLACE IN MY MEGALOPOLIS.
LET THE GAMES BEGIN!
As the voice rang out, a cold shiver ran through Samuel's body, beginning at his toes and running up to the tip of his head. The people around him vanished with a loud pop, leaving behind a shower of shimmering blue and gold particles. As the particles settled and disappeared, Samuel found that he wasn’t entirely alone. He could see several other people remaining with him in the white void.
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 30,037 OF YOU REMAINING.
YOU WILL RECEIVE GUIDANCE THROUGH SPONSORSHIP.
TRANSFERRING YOU TO MEET WITH YOUR SPONSOR NOW.
A sense of dread more than excitement crashed into Samuel. He didn’t like being singled out. What had he done to warrant differential treatment?
Darkness took him.