*alarm*

"Oh, damn it, just shut up!"

*crash*

"For god's sake, now I have to take another clock. It is what it is."

*alarm*

"Oh my god, okay, I'm up, now you are happy, where is that damn snooze button... found it.

Man, I stayed up again too much last night, and today I have a math test. I should stop my gaming sessions until 4a.m. when I have tests."

 After a few tries, I finally stood up, rubbed my eyes, and went to take a shower. It's 7a.m. on a Monday in New York. I am at a high school located in Lower Manhattan, close to the water.

Yes, it's nice that I am relatively close to the Empire State Building, but it would've been nicer if I could sleep more.

I'm staying alone, it's something I decided with my parents because I wanted to go to this school and it would've been too much for my parents to drive me here, so here I am, home alone, destroying myself by playing rpg games until 4a.m.  If the world had become a game, I would've put all my experience points into stamina.

My name is Andrew Shade, an introverted gamer who is not good but not bad at school, hitting Cs and Bs at everything. At popularity, I hit D because I have three friends, but the other classmates still make fun of me, at least at first, then they start to lose interest and ignore me.

After I finished my shower, I opened the fridge to see what to eat. Maybe I would make some scrambled eggs. When I opened the fridge, the only thing I saw was a carton of milk.

Of course I don't have eggs, why would I? I had to get home to pre-order the new console and steam that new game everyone talked about. Yes, I forgot, from time to time I am a streamer. It looks like I am a little popular if I'm not showing my face, so Shadow66 is trending with 2000 followers and viewers per stream. The money from it helps me with food and unexpected expenses like a new game or console.

So milk it is; please have some cereals here somewhere. I opened all the cabinets to find the cereals and finally found them. Nice, and at least this day isn't completely messed up.

[Crunchy cereals that will make your day a tad swetter.]

Yea, sure. Why? Because I will not starve today. After I finished eating, I started to look for my uniform and began changing while I brushed my teeth. The phone started ringing. It was one of my friends, Michael.

"Hello, what's up?"

"Are you really brushing your teeth?"

"Yes, is it a problem? I'm also changing; don't worry, I won't be late."

"That's not the issue; we have that math test and also that thing."

"Oh, that thing, yes, I understand, was it today? I genunely forgot about it."

"You're the one who wouldn't stop talking about it, and now you forgot."

"It happens. Anyway, I'll hang up now; we'll talk at school."

"Fine,fine, just come."

After I hung up and put on the uniform, I took my bag, my coat, and the sneakers. Now to the elevator we go.

I'm standing on the eighth floor of a shitty block, that's it, I couldn't afford more.

When I got out of the building, I started running to the station to catch the bus.

I almost missed it, but everything is calculated. I took a seat in the back of the bus, put on my headphones, and played the playlist on my phone.

After 20 minutes, we finally arrived at the school.

I was a little later than I expected, almost everyone was in class, so I tried to enter without attracting attention.

"You can't be sneaky if you enter using the front door; anyway, hello, Andrew."

"Hey, Kate, it's not my fault they didn't build a back door, but as I said, I will build one myself."

"You said that last year, but you didn't build it; I'm curious how you didn't manage to do it."

"I know you're sarcastic now, but I am curious why you've been talking to me for a year; you are the exact opposite of me."

"*ckuckle* You know what they say, opposites attract."

"I'm neither good nor bad, so there are no opposites."

"That's what I like about you, your mysterious self."

"You are giving me too much credit, there's nothing interesting about me, but anyway, good luck at the test, even though you probably don't need it."

"Same to you."

I got to my seat, the back seat near the window, and waited for the class to start.

So this unusual conversation before—well,  it's been happening for a year now, so it's pretty common— it was with Kate, the prettiest and most popular girl in our class. I don't know how I attracted her interest, but now she talks with me every day.

As I sat in my seat with my head on the desk, I felt an intense gaze on me. I already know this; everyone is looking at me after I speak with Kate, it's like I'm not allowed to speak or something, but more interesting is that the most intense gaze is from her, for whatever reason. Thank God that the homeroom teacher hasn't changed our places and made me stay with her, my head would burn from the stares of everyone.

So, the first class started, it was English, and we talked about Shakespeare and the classic Romeo and Juliet. The teacher talked about a play about it and asked if there was someone who wanted to go to the auditions next week.

Cut me out; I don't want anything to do with this, so as long as I don't offer for a role and go to the auditions, I will not play, simple.

It seemed Kate wanted the Juliet role, so she will most definitely get it, she is the star of the class, so no problems.

"So because this is a scheduled play and on short notice as well, we will not hold auditions, and I would also like to hear who Kate would like to play Romeo."

Interesting decision, but I don't care 'cause there is absolutely no way I—"

"I would like Andrew to play Romeo."

*choke*

W-What, me? Okay,  don't panic; this was unexpected, but I just have to turn it down.

"Andrew, do you mean Andrew Shade?"

"Is there another Andrew in our class?"

"You are right, but why him?"

Yes, why me? I am the worst decision ever.

"He isn't the most sociable, but I think a play will take away his anxiety and everyone will see his true talent."

Did you eat something wrong? It will make it worse, and what talent, My only talent is at battle royale games, where I won last night 20 matches straight, but apart from that, I'm useless."

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"Okay, Mr. Shade, can you please respond to this proposal?"

I got up prepared to refuse everything.

"Yes... Ms. Blake I don't know what Kate saw, but I'm not good at acting, so to not ruin the play, I will refuse."

"Why do you think you are bad if you don't try it?"

"How can I perform in front of so many people if I don't even speak that much with my classmates?"

"You can't know if you don't try; maybe you are a diamond in the rough."

"I am a graphite in the rough."

"You can sit; today after class, you two come to the auditorium to begin the rehearsals."

I am going to end my life, but I won't go; she can't do anything to me.

"And don't think about running away because you will not pass this class."

Hey, that's illegal, she can't do that. I will call the police, she can't force me to do something I don't want.

The bell rang and the teacher left, and the next class is math with the test, but that is the least of my problems right now.

As I was lost between wanting to end my life or end my dignity, Michael came to me."

"Oh, what is our future actor doing?"

"Shut up, or you can say goodbye to the coop tonight, but if you help me, I will help you become rank S. What do you say?"

"It's a tempting offer, but there's nothing I can do; you can't back down from this."

"It is, as a wise man once said, if there is no way out, go through the wall."

"No one said that."

"I said it, so I just have to find the wall and break it."

"You mean the teacher?"

"I can burn the auditorium."

"You don't have the face to burn things."

"I will come up with something."

After the break, we started the math test. It wasn't very hard, but I didn't know all the answers, so I think I scored a B, so I'm good.

After the test, we had our lunch break, the biggest break, so I took my meal and went to the roof of the school. Apparently you can go here, and almost nobody knows,apart from the school's cat, who sleeps here.

I sat near the cat, leaning my head on the railing from behind, and opened my phone.

Michael was here too because today will be the launch of "Oath of Orion", a new mobile RPG game that will launch in 5 minutes. I was excited about it because I was able to play the beta version, and the graphics were incredible for a mobile game, so I said that I would download it when they released it.

I stayed there, waiting for the timer to go to zero, while I was petting the cat.

"Are you sure this game is good? I mean it was only 666 MB."What an odd number."

"You'll see what I'm talking about when you play it, and be careful when you pick your class because you can't reset."

"I think I played some games to know this."

In the moment the timer got to zero, I pressed start.

[Please choose your class.]

[Swordsman]

[Farmer]

[Assassin]

[Viking]

[Archer]

[Random]

I played with all of them in the beta, so I know what other classes are out there, so I tested my luck and pressed random. This could go either way, I could get something unique or useless; it depends on luck, but no risk, no gain."

[ You have selected the [Random] choice.]

[ Are you sure?]

[Yes]              [No]

I pressed yes, and the options began circling around my eyes.

[You have got an unique class [Hybrid]. We will roll two times to decide the two classes that you will receive.]

Oh my god, there is no way I got hybrid. Now let's hope we get something good.

[Your first class is the epic [Samurai]]

Samurai, nice, that means I get the skill [ Swift slash] and I can summon a katana. The better the mastery, the better the blade. Now let's see the second one.

[ Your second class is.... unique rarity [Hacker]]

Huh, what's that, hacker? It sounds interesting, but I've never heard of it; maybe it was put in after the update, so what now? I can glich players or what.

[Extra reward incoming]

Huh, what reward?

[ You have received the unique rarity [???] class]

Huh, what the hell is this? Is this something secret? This is getting very interesting: first the hacker, now this.

[Please type in your real name and your player name]

Okay, that's pretty understandable. I typed my name, and then I typed Shadow66 as my username and pressed enter.

[Sorry, we don't accept usernames that have nubers in them.]

Huh, this is so old-fashioned, but I can't do anything about it.

I typed just Shadow and then it worked. It seemed like no one took this name. Well, it's a mobile game after all, I thought to myself.

[We're all set; now good luck in finding the last treasure of Orion]

After the last message, the screen went white, then black, and after that, the most insane thing in my entire life just popped up before my eyes.

It was a stats bar. With character info, skills, and all. It wasn't some high-tech hollogram from my phone; it was legitimately from thin air. Still in shock, I pressed exit, and then another bar popped up.

[First scenario— Oath of faith]

[ You need to take the life of a living thing that you care about]

[Time limit: 1 hour]

[ Reward: 5000 coins/200 orions]

[Failure: death]

When I finally understood what happened and saw the same thing in front of Michael's face, I said only one thing:

"No. Fucking. Way."