I was sitting at home watching tv. watching the debates between the presidential candidates. OO we are fked, aren’t there any better options. It’s like a damned if you do damned if you don’t kina situation. I wonder what happens if there is an exact 50 50. Do we   have a recount.

I hear the phone ringing and go to pick it up. As soon as I pick it up a beam of light encompasses me.

Me along with I don’t know how many people are standing in a perfect square formation.

"WELCOME HEROES. You were summoned here to be transported to the tutorial. Your world has been chosen too be part of the universal empire."

I hear murmurs in the crowd. I've read plenty of web novels where this is the plot. We are gonna get superpowers and this is gonna be awesome. I am in shock but I can’t help but let my imagination run wild.

I heard some karen at the front screaming at the lady doing the announcements.

I knew how this would go, this person would be like some deamon or a god and the karen would die to  be made an example of. The Karen pulls out a handgun.

Any moment now. This Karen is gonna realize the hell she unleashed upon herself.

The people at the front are not happy that she pulled out a weapon.

And in the ensuing panic she opens fire. There are screams the crowd scatters . 

What the fuck is happening.

The crowd from the front is like a  stampede. I just stand there along with many others and watch the unfolding chaos.

The lady who would have taken us to the tutorial is laying on a  platform with a pool of blood forming under her.

People are shoving people. Some are trying to conjure order in the chaos. Some are going ballistic. Some are enjoying the anarchy.

I look around. I see soldiers, Beggers, Docters, Moms, children, a swimmer. fat people . skinny people. old people. Basically anyone. The place we are in is like a large hall. There is a platform in the centre. All the walls are like a bright white and the ceiling seems to be illuminated by what seems to be one large light . The room is huge probably like 300 meters by 300 meters. We were thousands of people in there. probably over 10 000 maybe over 50 000 I don’t know but it was crazy.

We’ll probably get transported soon as my first thought so I tried to look around for a place with fewer people. the outside people started lining the walls. Many people were on the platforms. It hadn’t been seconds before I heard more gunfire.  It was absolute chaos. As we scattered away from the platform you could see the bodies of random people who got trampled in the stampede.

I saw a lady throwing up seeing the dead people.

I heard so so many children cry. The chaos kept being like that but after about an hour i found myself in the corner in a large group of people.

I had taken inventory. I had my jacket, and the tv remote. In the chaos i also snagged a pocket knife off of a stranger who got trampled in the stampede. No food no water. my shoes and my socks a jeans and an old white t shirt that should have already been in the washing.

I had just eaten before I got here, so I wasn’t hungry yet. I was in a large group and we kinda have split into smaller groups. The centre looked like a hellscape. So many people scattered. You could hear cries of agony. People who were seriously injured.

I saw a group of youngish like young working people huddled together. And thought fuk it lets make conversation.

They were already calmer and some were talking. Everyone was scared. THis scrawny guy with black hair and glasses was stating something: "I’ve seen this happen in movies and games, we just have to say system or status or some keyword and it will transport us to the tutorial, where we will have to face a goblin or another combatant or something." Some people were saying things like embarrassing phrases or skills, all those who know the trope. Hoping for some key way to initialize the tutorial that the woman was referring to. Some other fat guy was sitting with his legs crossed trying to sense the mana in this environment and saying that he will have an unfair advantage when this starts sure he can feel his core forming or some bs.

Some people were taking leading roles and others were thinking that people were crazy.

I saw this chick that looked average but was half listening to the crowd and decided to strike up some conversation.: "Crazy shit this huh?"

"yea .. "

"what were you doing before you came."

"I was doing some grocery shopping  "

"o shit you have food on you?"

"only what I was holding"

"better keep a tight lock on that don’t know what people would do if they found out."

"I’m still not certain this isn’t all just some fucked up dream."

I nod but cant help but think about the situation. How long will we be here? at least people have started to quiet down.

Then suddenly i smelled something revolting. A group of girls had acted as a barrier for another girl, they were sitting on side between corner 1 and 2 and they huddled around here blocking off the image from peering eyes. She was taking a shit and that smell wafted. Only like 3 metres from us. Word spread that she couldn’t hold it in. But as the hours passed more and more people went to the same area to take their own shits. First people were shitting in new locations but as the smell increased there became a dedicated shit zone. There were several groups scattered around the building. All the corners were stacked the centre had some people investigating. Some people were walking grom group to group.

It had been six hours according the Hendriks’s watch and i had learned a lot from the people of the group. we had moved away from corner 1 because a large group there had started demanding that everyone throw their food stuffs into a central pile where it would be evenly distributed between everyone.

FUck that.

plenty of us were not wanting that but some people moved there, and you could only join if you had food on you anyways. all people who seemed military and law enforcement. had now cleared out the platform. Everyone was kinda waiting. Some organised groups had set up zones where doctors were treating injured using the scarce available limited resources.

As people started becoming hungry for the first time it very quickly dawned on people that the most valuable resource would be food and water. i read that you could survive weeks without food but without water you couldn’t make it 3 days or something. i don’t know. SO I suggested to my group. We were about 50, that we should move less to try and conserve our resources. someone in the group had been a gym freek and had one of those big 5 liter bottles. Now there wasn’t much water in left but he gave to some people after the group advised him it would paint a target on our backs. it was then that the military came from group to group and demanded all their weapons. Now i didn’t surrender my pocketknife, but some people with guns we forcefully made to hand them over to the military. At least there weren’t many firearms in this building. one of the military people of centre started using a megaphone and everyone listened.

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

My first thought who the fuck was the guy who spawned in with the megaphone xD.

"ladies and gentlemen if I could have your attention. THis is an unprecedented situation and we are aware that there was a level of chaos that there shouldn’t have been. We have confiscated all firearms so far there are 57 firearms. THis will be a last call If you are still in possession of a firearm by the end of this speech and are found to be in possession of one you will be made into a non threat for the peace within the cube. I want to further affirm that all law enforcement and military have formed a group and we will maintain order until some way is found in which the situation could be resolved."

Some people were not happy with the situation but others felt safer knowing that the weapons would lead to less loss of life being in the hands of the people who maintained authority. When the clocks said that it became night time almost no one was sleeping. And it dawned on most that these lights might not go off at night time. In fact they might not go off at all. The night was awful. It felt as if you couldn’t sleep cause of the blinding lights. i used my jacket at some point to try get in some sleep. our group was watching out for each other and we moved as a unit. There were people who tried intimidating others. And by 12 o clock the next day some people were resorting to absolute animalistic behaviour.

Some girl who looked like a cheerleader offered to let you do wild things to her if you have her something to drink. The thing that was bothering almost everyone was the idea that there was no privacy. The military had started constructing some building like thing out of clothing from the dead and dismantled weapons and mops and brooms. It was more like a divider but it did give the military on the platform the slightest bit of privacy. The amount of sexual assaults skyrocketed and by 3 o clock the military had hauled the offenders to the centre platform. The megaphone was yet again put on.

"Ladies and gentleman. The 3 individuals have not taken yesterdays warnings to heart and will be summarily executed."

There were gasps in the crowd , some people were outraged . Some claiming the military abused their power. But many were despondent. By now we all smelled of shit. Toilet paper was worth more than gold in the open trade. We were itchy , stinky, hungry dirty and thirsty. Not the ideal crowd. But we all still feared for our lives. They had the power and it wasn’t like the people they were persecuting were innocent. The 3 gunshot rang out one by one and the crowd was silent for hours.

Whilst the military had their own endeavours. Our group were initiating in trade. I traded out the remote without the batteries and a old McRonalds cup full of piss for a pack of playing cards, it took quite a bit of convincing that that cup of piss would become the most valuable thing the person owned in 2 or 3 days, not to mention a working cup. I had picked up the cup before they became valuable. It was slightly damaged but it hadn't started leaking. So i was playing cards with 2 other people. We were using shirt buttons as chips for playing some poker. Had great fun. People were talking . Some trader cell phones with full batteries and games on to the others. Everyone was looking for ways to get distracted from the hunger.  By the end of day 2 some people were openly fucking. The military tried to intervene but stopped doing so after receiving significant backlash. There were also rumours spreading that the military had their own food stockpile behind their now slightly better makeshift wall.

Another bright night had passed. I got woken up by the wailing of a mother who's child had suffered injuries during the stampede and the child had now succumbed to its injuries. it was now day 3 and there were many more crimes. If you had anything valuable you best not be alone. The military did another morning execution. But we weren’t given super clear details about what had happened. But the megaphone died. Think was my first opportunity to score big i thought. I told my group of my plan and had people watching over my last bit of very yellow piss in a cup , my pocket knife and my pack of playing cards. and I made my way past the groups of people on my way to the military encampment. I stood in the trade line. They were doing almost like a controlled safe trade place , where you could trade items for something of equal value. I got to the front and wanted to trade my batteries for some food. They laughed at me. The megaphone was actually something that needed to be plugged into a charger. And the best they could offer me was a piece of warm clothing. I declined the offer and made my way back to camp with my batteries. Not happy. 

If there was one thing I was happy about it was being slightly overweight. All the super model skinny people would die early and I would live to see it happen. I just needed some supply of liquids. Everyone was more hungry. People were depressed but some help hope. You could hear some praying . One kid still meditating . By now he was completely naked trying to fund his inner self. Then as it was getting to night time the wildest shit happened. All the lights went off. I was busy in a game of cards when all of a sudden the lights went off. Now usually people would be happy. And many were who didn’t have the ability to get a decent nights rest because of the lights. But there wasn’t a single source of light. One guy in our group actually had a flashlight and now I was happy I didn’t get to sell the batteries. We saw plenty of flashlights and event some leftover phone lights go on. Some people were trying to get sleep immediately. But the chaos almost immediately started. We hear gunfire at central. Then more . Then more. The gunfire turned into a full blow firefight. The last of the children were screaming . and about 5 hours into the night there were no gunshots. Our group got into braws with other groups trying to steal our shit.

come morning the lights didn’t come on. People fell asleep from exhaustion. Some to never wake up again. The fourth day was hell. I barely got sleep. And when I did I was usually woken up crazy yelling. All that was the last bit of peace was gone. Our group had banded together with a few other groups in corner one. Rumours that cannibalism was practiced openly in corner 3 got to us but like hell we would make the journey there to confirm the theory. Our group lost 2 people. An old man and a young man who succumbed to a blow to the head in a brawl. The new formed group was now 200 people large, but it was a group formed for safety. The little that i did sleep was filled with nightmares and hunger pains.

The lady whose child had died was still lactating and negotiated the last bit of water from the group in exchange for giving the group some of the milk. Only the leaders ever saw it as she dried up before anything else. Some people tried providing her more food and bartering from other groups so she could produce more but I knew it was a futile effort. In the dark the people also more easily game into their sexual desires and whoring became one of the most popular if not the most popular profession. on the seventh night I was awoken. The lights had come back on. And the world I saw was horrible. Cannibalism was not only openly being practiced in corner 3 but I’m pretty sure they were arranging human bones into structures of some sort or an altar.

Everything was a fight for survival.

The military were all dead. In the firefight that broke out some violent people have had enough. There was no ammo in any guns. or if there was no one had fired a shot in over 36 hours. As a group one of the people who just died from lack of water we decided that we need to survive and we would have little to other choices. And when our companions were rotten the cannibals would come for our group. So we slowly resorted to their ways. The bodies from the first day were rotting and some were brought to me. Where i had to carve weapons for our group using the pocket knife. I was using femurs as pikes or spears. By the 10th day i was the official weapon smith and people brought me items. There were other people with knives. But the speed and versatility that i was producing weapons at made me the main smith. Our group had grown to 300. Even while losing many people. Along with making weapons. I hollowed out the thicker bones and skulls of some bodies and made a makeshift distilling station. In it we boiled the blood of people extract the water. The to tops of skills were affixed to each other and we had hollowed out bones and dismantled weapon barrels . The device acted as a water source for the leadership and I am proud that it was my idea. Otherwise we would have gotton kidney failure. Like some of the cannibal tribes were succumbing to . Our group of 320 had now actively started hunting people and we made 3 more distilling skulls. We were burning them over dried out bones and fat, a lot with clothing. We had a constant flame going. we also were also drying meat so it wouldn’t rot. we didn’t have salt , but the boiled blood started having a salty layer after some time. Coating the meat in ash and boiled blood seemed to preserve it somewhat.

most of the people who I had seen on day one had left us by now. by our estimates we were close to 60 000 people at the start of this hell. By now at the end of day 13 we were barely 2000. Everyone was busy. We were making clothing piles bone maces , bone structures, cooking meat , getting water, cutting up and drying bodies. The lights might go off at any time and we would be prepared. Corner 4 had taken over most of the 3-4 wall and no one in corner 2 seems to be living. This way of living became the norm. We had war with other tribes as we called ourselves. And then when we reached 100 days there were only 100 people left. People had to keep dying so others could live and so many people died to disease it was crazy. our group was 59 people. And we led negotiations. There would be peace and we would see how long we could survive. We gathered up what we could. There was little to no clothing to burn. We were all skinny as hell but we all knew each other by name. Every time one of us fell over all the others would spring into action processing their body for every drop of water we could manage and then we would equally distribute. We all knew we were going to die so we just lived in peace. Playing cards and eating dried meat waiting for our own times. on day 113 we were 4 people left. 1 woman and 3 men. Luzel,  Kraton  and Dennis and I. Craton and Luzel were fucking one last time before they would follow through on their suicide packs and me and Dennis just watched and played cards. being so dehydrated exercise was like a death sentence so they decided to go out with a bang. She stopped being responsive and then Dennis laughed at Kraton.

“Now your a necro ahahah”

 "fuck you"

and we all 3 laughed. We didn’t even start processing Luzel’s body. We were waiting for death. playing poker using pieces of jerky as the chips. we were all thirsty as can be.

the lights went off and we al 3 decided to have a good nights rest. Kraton never woe up. And me and Dennis lay next to each other. Dennis asked me is a parched voice:

"do you even think there was a tutorial?"

I just laid there . Not knowing what to answer him.

"maybe"

and with that the lights went on.

I looked over and dennis was already dead.