Everything shifted that day.
I was taking the subway as I always did. Line 9, a Tuesday morning without distinction, heading toward Pont de Sèvres. The air in the car was that familiar blend of stale coffee, damp clothes, and invisible exhaustion. I had my headphones pushed tight against my ears, the music serving as a rampart between me and the urban gloom. I stared at my reflection in the dark glass—the reflection of an ordinary man, Elias, whose only concern was arriving on time for a meeting no one would remember the next day.
But on that day, time would cease to be a simple sequence of minutes. It was about to become our executioner.
The crack happened between Alma-Marceau and Iéna stations. It wasn't the sound of a machine, not a derailment, nor an explosion. It was the sound of reality being torn apart, as if the very fabric of the universe had just given way under an impossible pressure. A shrill, piercing shriek—a frequency so violent it ripped the headphones from my ears and forced me to my knees, hands clamped over my temples.
The train groaned to a halt in a wail of tortured metal. Then, the emergency lights flickered once before dying completely, plunging the carriage into a sepulchral darkness. A deathly silence settled, interrupted only by the jagged breathing of the other passengers.
It was at that exact moment that the "System" manifested.
A window of blue light, translucent and icy, appeared before my eyes. It didn't move; it didn't flicker. It was fixed directly onto my retinas. Throughout the carriage, identical glows ignited, illuminating the terrified faces of the passengers like electronic ghosts.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION: THE HUNT OF ODIN]
[STATUS: EARTH INTEGRATION #814 COMPLETE]
Humans. Your grace period has expired. The era of complacency is over.
Earth is now an extension of the Labyrinth of the Nine Realms.
LAW #1: He who does not progress shall be recycled.
LAW #2: Strength is the only currency of exchange.
[PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE 14 DAYS]
[REWARD: ASCENSION OR OBLIVION]
A synthetic voice, devoid of all emotion, echoed directly inside my skull, bypassing my eardrums.
— "Time is now short. All of humanity must play. The cost of existence has been revised."
On my left hand, an excruciating pain made me scream. I looked at my palm: a black mark, resembling an ancient rune, was being seared into my flesh. Below it, a digital counter displayed: 0.000 Essence.
"What kind of joke is this?" stammered a man in a suit standing near the door. "Is this... an attack? A coup?"
He began pounding against the windows, but the tunnel behind the glass was no longer the same. The gray concrete of the Paris Metro had vanished. In its place, the walls pulsed with a violet glow. Giant roots, black and viscous, pierced through the tunnel ceiling, wrapping around the carriage like the fingers of a titan.
The metal of the subway began to groan, not from physical pressure, but as if it were mutating. The handrails became fibrous; the linoleum floor turned spongy.
[NOTIFICATION: ANALYZING PLAYERS...]
[PLAYER: ELIAS]
[RANK: 8,142,905,112 / 8,142,905,112]
[PROBABILITY OF SURVIVAL (14 DAYS): 0.0001%]
The number hit me like an insult. I was the last. The most insignificant of the eight billion humans thrown into this arena.
Suddenly, the carriage was rocked by a violent shock. The roof was literally torn away. A root, thick as a tree trunk, dived into the car and impaled the man in the suit. He didn't even have time to scream. His body was lifted into the air, and before our eyes, he dissolved into a luminous blue vapor.
[FIRST SACRIFICE COMPLETED]
[ESSENCE HARVESTED]
[LAW #2 ACTIVATED: THE SOLIDARITY TAX IS NOW IN EFFECT]
The blue Essence didn't vanish. It hovered for a few seconds before rushing into the body of a young woman standing nearby. She let out a cry of pain, then her eyes glowed with a golden light. Her muscles tightened; her skin became smoother, firmer. She had just "leveled up."
Panic—the real kind, the kind that turns men into beasts—erupted. People understood. Essence wasn't just in the roots; it was in us.
"Stay away from me!" a teenager screamed, pulling a pocketknife and staring at his neighbor with terrifying greed.
I backed away, my spine against the carriage's connecting door. The System had just turned my fellow humans into reservoirs of points. The 14 days of survival weren't going to be a struggle against legendary monsters, but a war of everyone against everyone.
"We have to get out of here," I whispered, my voice trembling with rage and fear.
I grabbed a fire extinguisher mounted on the wall. It was the only thing solid, the only thing real in this nightmare. The metal was cold, reassuring.
[WARNING: PURGE PHASE BEGINNING IN SECTOR 75-PARIS]
[THE GATES OF THE LABYRINTH ARE OPENING]
A growl echoed from the depths of the tunnel. It wasn't human. Something was coming, drawn by the scent of blood and fear. I knew that if I stayed in this carriage, I would either be throat-cut by a passenger seeking Essence or devoured by whatever was prowling outside.
I smashed the window with the fire extinguisher. Once. Twice. The glass, reinforced by the System, finally exploded into shards of light.
I threw myself into the black tunnel, leaving behind the chaos of the carriage. The countdown continued to scroll in my mind, every second pulling me further from my old life.
13 DAYS : 23 HOURS : 48 MINUTES.
The game had only just begun. And I fully intended to prove that the System's probabilities were nothing but numbers.