Authors note: English is not my first language, I never took a book writing course, I love LITRPG, it's National Novel Writing Month, I read several good books on Royal Road, so I decided to post my story here first. Let me know what you enjoy/dislike/love/hate/meh.

Sis was hiding. I had about 5 minutes spare before leaving my family for who knows how long. And on top of that my sister was hiding. She had always been the quietest about my decision, a spectator while my parents were alternating between screaming bouts and the silence treatment. I had no time for this. I would need my head in the game, literally, and I could not do it without her support.

As I ran around yelling for her, I saw grandma looking at me. Her eyes were a little moist, but the way she holds her head shows her pride in me. Something actually seems off about where she is looking at and I follow her stare to the ceiling. The roof hatch door! Our favorite hiding place from when we were little kids, Sis must be completely cramped up there.

I gave grandma a quick peck on her head, and walked silently towards our old hiding place. I opened up the space and saw Sis shivering and crying; eyes red, her hair a mess. She jumps at me from the opening, holds me tight. She said half crying, 'Stay here, please'. I doubted for a second, nobody had actually tried to ask me nicely. As she feels me regain my conviction she whispers, 'Fine, but you better not come back as a deadhead loser.' She looks at me one last time straight in the eyes and runs away again. It's all good, this was the best blessing I would get from her.

I would miss the people, not the place. A poor folks building; it had a sixty square room per person, sparse second hand furniture, and an ambiance of pointlessness. It was a building for people just wanted to live of their basic universal income, have kids, and die. No greatness, no challenges, no hopes for the future.

I took my jacket, left the house, and went for the elevators. As I pressed a faded button with a 'lobby' icon, I noticed that more elevators were out of order than usual. The first elevator that stopped on his floor was even worse, it was completely empty. When you saw an empty elevator, you were not lucky, you were simply risking your life. Those were the elevators who everybody knew would fail soon.

On the way down I felt like I had forgotten something. I had no luggage, no backpack, not even a wallet. Everything was going to be taken care of at the Sieve center, I just needed to be on time in the lobby.

Down in the lobby, there was the usual crowd; kids, trainers, traders, officials, and guilders. Lobbies had replaced the open spaces of old; they were parks, playgrounds, meeting points, food plaza's and so much more. The ceilings were enormous and had beautiful but fake sun rays shine into them.

I looked for a sign of the Reps. The Reps were representatives of the Sieve, they were supposed to come three days in advance to prep the Players. This called then for massive celebrations of course. My building did not have the resources for these celebrations. There was barely enough for keeping the generators, recyclers, and elevators maintained. Somehow this resulted in the Reps not getting us our three days of prepping. I didn't care, it was game time.

As I was scanning the crowd in the lobby, I saw a middle aged woman walk towards me. She looked puffy, scruffy, and miserable. "Alex?" she called out.

"Yes Madam".

"I almost left without you, you are wasting my time."

"I am sorry Madam, I had to get my head in the game."

"Just call me Abby. And you better have your head in the game, I can't take any more deadheads on my watch."

I nodded and started following her through a bunch of kids playing tag. "Deadheads, is what they called the Players who come back brain-dead. As far as the Sieve rumors went, these players went through such a traumatizing experience that their brain shut all incoming senses down. Even when the Player got transferred back into their body, they remained comatose. The Reps were responsible to find a home for these deadheads and pay for their care."

Waiting at the revolving doors were two more kids. A boy and girl, possibly brother and sister. He looked really muscled, possibly genetically enhanced or modded. She looked as if she did not want to be here, her hand resting on the boy's shoulder as if he could go off any minute now. I had never seen them before, nothing surprising given how many people lived in these buildings.

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The four of us now walked silently towards a gleaming chromed vehicle. It bore the Sieve symbol, a black circle with 1 tiny white dot in the center. The symbol represented the odds of success for the Players, only 1 was chosen at a time. This vehicle was a last generation maglev car, it provided a smooth ride at very high speeds. It also stood out in these streets and was drawing quite a bit of attention.

The car seemed to sense us and recognized Abby. It opened first the driver seat door for Abby and only then the other doors opened. "To the Sieve Center?" queried the car. "Yes".

The car had 3 separate back seats, the AI within the back seats connected to our mobile devices and retrieved the correct settings for the memory foam. Satisfaction guaranteed.

The car smoothly started hoovering and orienting itself towards the Sieve center as Abby's chair swiveled towards us. She searched and found resolve in herself and drew herself up, trying to project a sense of formality.

"Alex, Ronan, and Harley. You have chosen to become a Sieve Player on your sixteenth birthday. The law says I must explain to you what this means. You will be transported now to the Sieve Center and while your body will be stored in cryo freeze storage, your mind will be uploaded into the Sieve."

"The Sieve is a virtual reality, it tests for young adults with the right combination of grit, integrity, and compassion. It cannot be tricked, bribed, or corrupted. It will drive Players to their limit, and reward each Player according to their performance at the end of their Game."

"In the Sieve you will find the other Players with only one ultimate goal; beat level one hundred. You will only have one shot at that, and you will almost certainly fail. Your performance will dictate the rest of your life. You should at a minimum reach level twenty to make your families proud, at the very least don't come back as a deadhead."

Ronan tensed, his fingers digging into his seat and asked "How can we avoid that, how is this even possible, this test is supposed to find unique minds. Instead kids are returning like vegetables."

"We don't know, we suspect that the AI controlling the Sieve program has gotten too creative with simulating the demonic monsters, but nobody's really sure. Preventing brain-dead players is the number one priority for our scientists. All I can say with certainty is that no player making it past level thirty has ever become a deadhead. And that we have not found a better way to find top talent".

I looked outside, buildings were passing by at an incredibly fast speed. I didn't think i had ever traveled this fast before. Oddly enough the experience felt like just another passage before the real deal started.

She had not mentioned that most folks were evaluated and designated to be troops in the Interstellar Army, got shipped off to faraway planets to die in endless wars. Every year fewer and fewer people sent their children to the Sieve, only the desperate, the dreamers, and the very well prepared were still interested. Or, you could win. You could become a Monarch, ruler of star systems. It had been over a decade that someone had beat the Game, but somebody had to next.

Everybody became quiet in the car, until Harley finally spoke up. "We were supposed to be briefed for three days. Is there anything else we need to know?"

Abby cleared her throat, turning only a little red. "Yes. You should know that a lot of Players stay up for years in the Game. They grind the beginner levels extensively to assure higher survival odds in the deeper levels. Some Players grind each level for at least a month, squeezing every point of experience out of the monsters before descending another level."

"The Players also have formed guilds. Players in guilds share their finds, and provide equipment to player according to their role in the guild. Sometimes one guild will fight with another guild over dominance of certain levels or sections of levels, but that's rare since death by another player will also make you lose the game. But they all try kill loners on sight if they are sure to win. You pretty much have to sign up with a guild, I would propose you choose a guild related to your building."

Ronan started at Abby in disbelief, "That's all?". "Can you at least give us access to the wiki?" The wiki of the Sieve game was blocked for all non-Players, and returning Players never spoke about what happened there, this was supposed to keep every new Player at the same level.

"I can do you even better, I can give you access to the game now. There is a section of the game that can be accessed before entering the Sieve, it is called the Antechamber. Inside of it you can play with the different combinations of races, classes, and star signs. You can't die in there, so it is completely safe. From there you will also be able to access the wiki."

Abby tilted her head a little, and commanded 'Open Armrests'. Three armrests opened up, inside of them was a small space with a pair of Virtual Reality glasses. "These glasses are only a shadow of the true Sieve experience, but they will help you get familiar with the Sieve world. These glasses connect with your brains using magnetic waves, they both override your sensory inputs and cut you off from your body. They are rated for triple speed, which means that every hour you spend in the game will feel like three hours."

I did not wait for more explanation, I immediately took the glasses and put them on. I felt as if was slowly falling into an icy lake. I felt like I wanted to breathe, like my lungs were no longer cooperating with me. Then a blackness came over me, pushing me to fall asleep. My arms and legs were both freezing cold and burning hot, my blood circulation felt all messed up.

Seconds after blacking out completely I stood in a shadowy cavernous room. In the middle was a silvery glowing man-sized spinning disc, a Sieve symbol.