The darkness didn't just fall. It ate the room.
Chris blinked, but the afterimage of the Risk board, plastic armies, spilled soda, and Sidney's knuckles white against the table was gone. The chair beneath him vanished. Gravity released its hold, leaving him drifting in a white void that smelled of ozone and cotton candy.
No sound. No wind. Just an oppressive, blinding white that stretched forever in every direction.
"Okay," Jordan's voice cut through the silence, sharp and far too loud. "Who drugged the pizza?"
Chris twisted his body, or tried to. His limbs responded, but there was nothing to push against. He floated a few feet away from Jordan, who was paddling the air like a drowning swimmer. Sidney, Kenyon, and Taylor drifted nearby, their bodies pivoting in slow, aimless circles.
"This isn't a drug." Kenyon's voice was tight. He wasn't paddling. He was curled tight, knees to chest, eyes scanning the nothingness. "Drugs don't delete walls."
"We're dead," Taylor whispered. She clutched her cardigan closed at the neck, her face pale. "The streetlight blew out. Maybe it was a gas leak. Maybe the house exploded."
"We aren't dead." Chris forced his breathing to slow. Panic was a variable he couldn't afford. He looked at his hands. Solid. Warm. He pinched the skin of his forearm. Pain. "Dead people don't feel pinches. And they definitely don't hallucinate the same white room together."
"Not a room," Sidney grunted, finally finding her center of gravity and crossing her arms in mid-air. "A box. Or a cage."
"Close!"
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It bounced off non-existent walls, bright and chirpy, like a game show host announcing a new car.
A figure popped into existence in the center of their floating circle.
He looked twelve. Maybe thirteen. He wore a suit that defied optics—a violent clash of neon plaid, polka dots, and stripes that seemed to move on the fabric. A top hat sat askew on messy blond hair, and he twirled a cane made of pure, shifting glass.
"Welcome!" The boy spread his arms. The cane spun between his fingers, a blur of light. "You guys were so loud. 'Bored, bored, bored.' I could hear you complaining from three dimensions away. It was getting depressing."
Sidney drifted closer, fists clenching. "Who are you?"
"I go by many names." The boy winked. "The Grand Arbiter. The High Roller. But you can call me the Administrator. Or a God. God is fine. It's catchy."
"God," Kenyon repeated flatly. "You're a kid in a bad suit."
"And you're a mechanic who spends his Friday nights conquering fake continents because he's too afraid to ask for a promotion." The boy's smile didn't waver, but the air around them grew heavy. "Let's not get hung up on appearances, Kenyon. I picked this form because it makes you comfortable. Would you prefer a burning wheel of eyes? I can do eyes."
Taylor whimpered.
"Kid in a suit is fine," Chris said quickly. He moved himself between Taylor and the entity. "Why are we here?"
The boy clapped his hands. The sound rang like a gunshot. "Because you asked for it! You wanted stakes. You wanted a challenge. You wanted—what was it?—something that makes you feel alive." He pointed the cane at Chris. "You said the game had no weight. So I built one that does."
"You built a game," Jordan said. She wasn't scared anymore. She was staring at the boy's cane with greedy fascination. "For us?"
"For me," the boy corrected. "I get bored too. Eternity is long. Netflix only has so many seasons. So I make my own entertainment."
He snapped his fingers.
The white void beneath them dissolved. In its place, a massive, three-dimensional map unfurled like a hologram. It was a world of jagged continents, swirling oceans, and glowing leylines. Mountains pierced clouds. Cities burned. Massive beasts cast shadows over forests the size of nations.
"Five players," the boy said, his voice dropping an octave. "One world. The goal is simple: Total domination. You conquer every nation, every dungeon, every soul on this map. Last one standing wins."
Chris looked down at the map. It wasn't plastic. He could see weather patterns moving. He could see armies clashing in the mud. "And if we refuse?"
"Then I send you back." The boy shrugged. "Back to the pizza. Back to the job you hate. Back to the Friday nights that bleed into Saturday mornings without a single memory worth keeping. You can go back to being safe. And bored. Forever."
Silence stretched.
Sidney looked at the map. Her eyes tracked a massive fortress nestled in a mountain range of black iron. "What happens to us there? Do we just... play?"
"You live," the boy said. "You become. I'll strip you out of these soft, squishy Earth bodies and pour your consciousness into vessels worthy of the game. Magic. Monsters. Swords that cut time. You want power? I'll give you enough to crack the planet."
"Magic," Kenyon said. "You're talking about a fantasy world."
"I'm talking about a reality where physics is a suggestion and will is the only law."
"What about the people?" Taylor asked. Her voice shook, but she didn't look away. "The ones living there. If we conquer them... if we fight wars..."
"They aren't real," the boy said smoothly. "NPCs. Non-Player Characters. Constructs of mana and code. They bleed, they cry, they beg, but there's no soul behind the eyes. You can burn a kingdom to ash, and you won't be killing anyone. It's a simulation. A playground."
Chris narrowed his eyes. "That sounds convenient."
"It's a game, Chris. In Grand Theft Auto, do you mourn the pedestrians?" The boy floated closer, tilting his head. "You're the analyst. Look at the data. High reward. Zero moral cost. Infinite power."
"And time?" Chris asked. "If we spend years conquering this place, what happens here? We have families. Jobs."
"Time is relative." The boy spun his cane again. "You could spend a century down there. Build an empire. Raise a dynasty. Die of old age. When you win, or when you lose, you'll wake up on that couch before the soda fizz settles. Not a second will have passed on Earth."
Jordan laughed. It was a sharp, jagged sound. "So it's a dream. A lucid dream."
"A dream with teeth," the boy said. "You will feel pain. You will feel fear. You will struggle. If it wasn't hard, it wouldn't be fun, would it?"
He drifted back, spreading his arms wide. Five glowing cards materialized in the air before them. They hovered, pulsing with different colored lights.
"So?" The boy's grin widened, showing too many teeth. "Do you want to go back to your spreadsheets and your broken cars? Or do you want to play?"
Sidney didn't hesitate. She reached out and grabbed the card nearest to her—a heavy, iron-grey rectangle that smoked in her grip. "I'm in."
"Sid," Taylor warned.
"No, he's right," Sidney said. She held the card up. "I'm tired of safe. I want to hit something and feel it break."
Jordan grabbed a card that flickered with orange flame. "Beat you there."
Kenyon sighed, looking at his grease-stained hands, then at the map below. "Better than Monday morning." He took a card that swirled with pale blue wind.
Taylor looked at Chris. She was trembling. "Chris?"
Chris looked at the map. He saw the intricate systems. The economies. The wars. It was a puzzle. A puzzle with infinite pieces and no safety rails. His heart hammered against his ribs with a rhythm he hadn't felt in years.
"We do it," Chris said.
He reached out. His hand closed around a card that felt like dry bone. Cold. Ancient.
Taylor let out a breath and took the last one. It glowed with a soft, white light.
"Excellent!" The boy clapped again. The white void began to crack. Fissures of darkness spiderwebbed across the nothingness. "One last thing. The rules."
"There are rules?" Jordan asked.
"Just one." The boy leaned in, his neon eyes burning. "Winner takes all. When you defeat another player, you don't just beat them. You own them. Their power, their armies, their loyalty. They become yours."
Chris gripped his card tighter. "Slavery."
"Hierarchy," the boy corrected. "This isn't a team sport, Chris. Only one person gets to rule the world."
The floor shattered.
Gravity returned with a vengeance. The white room exploded into starlight, and the five of them fell, screaming, into the map below.
"Good luck!" The God of Games called after them, his voice fading into the rushing wind. "Try not to die and get eliminated too fast!"