Chapter 1.2: Universe's Challenge

A large bedroom sat with its light on as a girl scrolled on her phone. She was laying in bed with her face scrunched up. She wore bunny print pajamas with her hair put in tiny afro balls. Whatever she was reading consumed her as her eyes widened. Her jaw dropped and she reread the last paragraph of the text three more times.

"No!" A scream left the teenager's mouth as she rolled out of bed and shook her phone. "Nooooo…"

She looked at her phone in disbelief. For the past thirty-six hours, she had been captivated. Her friends had sent her a new story they found. It was popular enough with fifty thousand reads by the time she looked at it.

There were hundreds of reviews praising the author's grammar, editing, and characterization. It even ranked number six for that week's top stories. All of this made the teen give the book a chance and she was sucked in.

Now, she was pissed off. The author had updated the newest chapter of volume six and had dropped a bomb. Her favorite character, second to the main antagonist of volume three, was dead. She knew death was on the table for anyone as the story was labeled grimdark. However, she didn't expect such a vapid character association to happen. In just thirty chapters, one of the main characters' love interests had been turned into a childish brat.

Cleo was a proud woman who came from a family of seductresses. They used poison to kill their prey and were born with immunity to venom. The main character encountered her in chapter six and had fallen for her.

The two were a dynamic duo, with Cleo having side stories and dedicated chapters in multiple volumes. This all changed when volume six began and a new character was made. With a passion, Cleo hated her and the MC was devoted to this random common woman. And now, the teenager had to read the main character laughing at Cleo's execution.

It was confusing and she saw multiple comments on how it made no sense. How the hell would a trained assassin fail at killing a weak-willed maid? It was like the author got sick of Cleo's character and killed her off to show how unhinged the prince was. It made her sick, it pissed her off so much that she saw red. Angrily, she went back to her previous review and clicked the post's edit icon.

'I'm warning you that the story nosedives at Volume 6,' She wrote with her legs crossed as she detailed every part of the book that angered her. 'The author kills off arguably the female lead for a big-breasted bimbo. The story devolves into one big wish fulfillment story.'

'The prince becomes a stereotypical hare protagonist with zero backbone. And the other concubines either are identified by their ass size or their submissive personalities.' She rolled her eyes as she remembered how every woman suddenly wanted to join the Harem.

With a click of the submit button, the five-star review went down to a one-point-five.

She had written three new paragraphs above the previous review. It described every plot beat of volume six, spoiling it entirely. Readers had come in expecting a dark fantasy story with romance. Instead, they were thrown into a Harem story with historical inaccuracies. And the dark elements were random women as slaves who the prince later would marry.

"Blegh, what a waste of time." The teenager bemoaned as fell back onto her bed. Her stuffed animals cushioned her fall as she laid back down.

She was going to go back to sleep and text her friends about the story tomorrow. Everyone else was still on volume five and she'd enjoy saving them from disappointment.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

She moved her arms upward and clasped her hands together. Her back cracked and she let out a loud yawn. It was well past midnight and she had school soon. Whatever books she planned to read next would have to wait. Sleep was more important as she rubbed her red eyes.

The teen put her phone down and curled up. She closed her eyes, yawning again as exhaustion finally won the battle in her mind. She cuddled close to a few of her stuffed toys and held them close to her chest. Tomorrow hopefully the review would get some likes and the author would take the critique well.

With that last thought the teenager soon fell asleep with snores leaving her open mouth.

Or so, that's what would have happened if her phone hadn't started shaking. The girl jumped as she felt her entire bed shake from her phone's vibrations. The scream was lit up with multiple colors to the point it was hard to decipher which one it was after a while.

She flung her body onto the floor, her hand covering her mouth as she stared in shock. What the hell was happening? Was her phone about to explode? Had the battery finally gone and died?

None of these possibilities were given an answer as the teenager felt the ground under her disappear. And with it so did the pink walls of her bedroom and the roof above her head. Everything solid disintegrated into nothing, vanishing before into the vacant blackness around her.

Somehow she was able to stand on the black emptiness as she stared. A part of her wondered if this was some sort of weird nightmare. But she knew she hadn't even gotten to close her eyes when everything happened.

No, this was real and reality was just gone. In a blink of an eye, she had become the only thing in existence. Shaking, she fell to her knees and tried not to hyperventilate. People didn't just disappear and if they did they had family who looked after them.

This comforted her a tad bit but still, she felt her chest get tight as her panic ran wild. Not even ten minutes before she had been on her phone and now it didn't even exist. She put her hands out and touched the ground only to feel the air.

"What the fuck?!" The teenager screamed as she tried to touch the ground again. And again.

"Please, stop screaming." A hand tapped her shoulder and she instinctively went to punch whoever it was. She was on guard, startled by the loud voice that came from every side of the room.

Her fist was caught by someone. The person's face was covered by a mask that reminded her of old dolls used in stage plays. Every inch of skin was covered by a black outfit that looked like it was thin as paper. The person was like a ghost, with no feet planted on the ground and no visible features. The hair on her arms stood up as the stranger let her go and began to speak.

"We have seen your protest and answered your call." They spoke in multiple voices. Young, old, feminine, and masculine tones mixed and overlapped as they stared at her. "The counterattack you wish for will be granted for your eternal soul."

"What are you talking about? My soul? I never asked you for anything that gives you that!" The teenager was lost as the entity shook what looked to be its head and silenced her.

"Your soul will stay in your possession. But its body will be that of the person you wish to avenge. Like one, you shall merge with them and deliver the counterattack you desire." The entity waved its hand and a screen appeared in front of it.

The screen flickered as the creature typed away ignoring the attempts of protest the girl made. A picture of herself popped up just a few days ago. It was the exact one she had taken for that year's yearbook. Her stomach dropped as other pictures from as far back as preschool came up. Symbols and letters she'd never seen in her life sat on the screen's keyboard as they continued.

"You, Leila Hernandez spoke of a female character being used as cannon fodder. Now you will take her place for your counterattack to be fulfilled." The entity finished typing and the screen vanished as if it had never been there.

"What? No wait please, I don't want to!" Leila shook her head and begged. "I'm sorry for the review, I'll take it down! I don't want to go into some book and get beheaded!"

The ground beneath her started to fall apart and her stomach dropped. Under them sat the prison cell Cleo had been in. She recognized every detail having spent hours reading the cursed book. She couldn't believe this was happening.

This was something that only happened in fiction not reality. Desperately she looked at the entity only to see it vanish. She felt a tugging at her feet that turned into a yank. She was being pulled into the story one way or another. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.