Nick Warborn slumped back into the stiff dorm chair, balancing his laptop on one knee while a half-empty ramen cup cooled beside him. His younger brother filled the screen, talking animatedly about something Nick honestly wasn't even sure he understood anymore.
"…and then she said I should just switch majors. She doesn't even know what a major is!" his brother laughed, shaking his head.
Nick smiled despite himself. "You attract chaos, you know that?"
"Coming from you?" his brother shot back. "You're the definition of main-character energy."
Nick snorted. "In what world?"
This one, but he didn't know that yet.
They kept talking—mostly nonsense, the kind of rambling comfort only siblings could turn into a full conversation. Nick let himself relax for the first time all week. Assignments were piling up. Exams were creeping closer. His procrastination was catching up with him again, and the guilt pressed heavier than the textbooks stacked against his wall.
But hearing his brother's voice?
It made the world feel manageable.
"Yow, Nick… you good?" his brother asked suddenly.
Nick blinked. "Yeah. Why?"
"I dunno. Look like something's glowing in your—"
The screen glitched.
Once.
Twice.
Then the entire call stuttered into a mosaic of pixelated static.
"JJ?" Nick leaned forward. "You a breakup."
The audio devolved into a harsh, scraping distortion that made the hair on his arms rise. For a moment, the laptop speakers filled the room with a low hum—too deep, too resonant, like something was vibrating inside his bones.
"Nick… do you hear that—"
The screen went white.
The call died.
The room fell silent, but the hum continued, faint, almost too low to hear. Nick's heartbeat sped up.
"What the hell…?" he whispered.
Then something flickered in front of him.
A translucent window—floating in the air.
Nick froze, breath trapped in his chest.
[Origin… Det…cted.]
The words glitched, fracturing like cracked glass.
"What—" Nick reached out, as if touching it would explain anything.
The window violently distorted, dissolving into static before he could read more.
And then he felt it.
Heat.
Pressure.
A surge in his chest like someone had gripped his heart and squeezed.
Nick stumbled backward, hand clutching at his shirt. His blood felt too warm, rushing too fast, pulsing as though something inside him wanted out.
His vision blurred.
Just as abruptly as it began, the sensation faded.
"What the hell was that…?"
The power flickered.
The lights dimmed.
Then a sound tore through the dorm.
Not thunder.
Not machinery.
Not anything human.
It was ancient—like stone grinding against the cosmos, like the groan of a collapsing star.
The sound dropped Nick to one knee as he clasped his ears. His vision pulsed with white spots. The entire building shook.
And then the world fell silent.
A silence so complete it felt wrong.
Nick stood up slowly, chest tight. Something pulled him toward the window—some instinct, some primal pressure building in the air.
He moved the blinds aside.
And froze.
The night sky had split open.
A jagged crack of blinding white ran across the heavens like someone had taken a cosmic blade and slashed reality. The stars flickered. Space warped. Colors bled into one another like oil on water.
Nick couldn't breathe.
"What's happening?"
The air turned metallic, thick, like breathing through liquid iron. His tongue tasted of bitter ash. A static charge crawled along his skin. Gravity wavered for a heartbeat, making his stomach lurch as though the world briefly forgot how to hold him down.
Then the first shockwave hit.
The dorm windows shattered inward, glass exploding across the room. Nick threw his arms up, stumbling back as wind roared in—a hurricane blast of heat and pressure.
Screams erupted from the hallway outside.
Nick bolted out the door.
The hallway was chaos—students sprinting, alarms blaring and then dying mid-siren, lights flickering like dying fireflies.
"Move, move—!"
A deafening crack echoed overhead as part of the ceiling caved in. A student in front of him screamed, pinned under falling debris.
Nick lunged forward on instinct.
"I've got you—!"
He grabbed a chunk of broken plaster and pulled, muscles burning. Another slab dropped from above. Too fast.
"NO—!"
He reached—but he was too slow.
The debris crashed down, cutting off the scream.
Nick froze, breathing ragged, staring at the dust settling over the crushed hand sticking out from the rubble.
His fault.
If he had moved faster—
If he had reacted sooner—
If he wasn't so useless—
A low growl snapped him out of the spiral.
Nick turned just as something emerged from the shadows of the ruined hallway.
A campus security dog—but twisted, mutated. Bones bulged under its skin. Its jaw split too wide, teeth jutting outward like daggers. Its eyes glowed an unnatural crimson.
It snarled.
Nick backed up.
"Easy…" he whispered, though he knew the animal didn't understand anymore.
The creature lunged.
Nick's heart surged—an explosion of heat, instinct, and something else.
His body moved on its own.
He pivoted.
Stepped.
Struck.
His fist connected with the creature's skull.
There was a sickening crack.
The beast collapsed—neck broken, skull crushed.
Nick staggered backward, staring at his trembling hands.
"I… I didn't mean—"
His breath hitched. His pulse raced. His muscles felt wrong—too tight, too strong, too alive.
Another flicker appeared in front of him.
A system window.
But not like the simple "Status" screens he saw popping up around confused students nearby.
His window was deeper. Older. Etched with symbols he didn't recognize.
[System Interface Rebooting…]
[Origin Recognized.]
[Designation: Vanguard of—]
The text fractured before the word completed. The window shattered into shards of light and vanished.
Nick stared in shock. "Why… Why does mine look different?"
A scream outside pulled him forward.
He sprinted down the shattered hallway and out of the building. The campus courtyard was in ruins—lights dead, trees split, fires flickering under an unnatural wind that spiraled with blue static.
Then he looked up.
The crack in the sky widened, ripping through the atmosphere like a growing wound.
And through it—
just for a moment—
Nick saw something impossible.
A swirling ocean of blackness.
A horizon of eyes.
A shape too large to comprehend, coiled across the void between universes.
Watching.
Waiting.
Hungry.
Nick's breath caught in his throat.
"What… what was that?"
Light exploded across the sky.
The gamma burst hit.
The shockwave hurled him backward across the courtyard. His body slammed into the ground, air knocked from his lungs. His vision blurred into static and fire.
As consciousness slipped away, he heard a voice.
Not the System.
Not a person.
Not Earth.
Something older.
Something speaking directly into his blood.
"Rise, Child of the Slate."
Then everything went dark.
Nick Warborn's old world was gone.
And the new one had just begun.