- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Carl's alarm exploded like the soundtrack of a disaster movie.
"WUAAGHHH!"
He flailed in bed, limbs tangled in his blanket like a man being eaten alive by a cotton boa constrictor. His bleary eyes squinted toward the glowing screen of his phone, which blinked menacingly with one cruel number:
7:00 AM.
A pause.
A long, frozen, mentally rebooting pause.
Then—
"OH, SH—"
He launched out of bed like a missile, landing half-on, half-off the floor. His knee slammed into the desk leg. The desk rattled. His dignity did not survive.
[Good morning, Carl! You look well-rested! Except you're also extremely late. How unfortunate.]
Carl, who was currently hopping on one foot while trying to yank his pants up, groaned out loud.
"Not now, system!" he hissed.
[I'm just saying, if you hadn't stayed up until almost 2 AM writing that tragically average essay, maybe you'd have had time to do something about your bed hair. You look like you lost a fight with a blender.]
He froze mid-shirt yank.
Right. The essay.
Flashback Time.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1:37 AM.
The room was quiet… except for the aggressive sound of keys being pounded like a personal vendetta.
Carl was hunched over his laptop, eyes red-rimmed, hair in chaos, muttering things like, "The hypothalamus regulates homeostasis…" like he was reciting a prayer.
[Are you sure you're writing the correct information? Seems kind of… basic.]
Carl's eye twitched. "Shut up."
[Ooooh, testy. Just saying, 'The heart pumps blood' is a little first-grade, don't you think?]
Carl grit his teeth and, with great vengeance, rewrote the paragraph with more medical terms than he understood.
"There. Happy?"
[Not particularly. But you might pass now. Maybe. 60%. Give or take. Mostly take.]
Carl flipped the laptop shut and collapsed into bed with the kind of sigh a man makes after surviving a war.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Back to Present - 7:05 AM.
He jammed his shoes on, backpack half-zipped, water bottle wedged awkwardly under his arm. "Okay. Okay. You can still make it. Just move fast. Pretend you're in an anime opening."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Sprint of the Damned
Carl sprinted out the door, flapping like a broken paper kite down the sidewalk.
His hair whipped in the wind, his lungs screamed betrayal, and every step he took felt like a challenge to the gods of punctuality.
He checked his phone again mid-run.
7:20 AM.
Ten minutes to class. Fifteen minutes away.
Math was not on his side.
By the time he reached campus, he looked like someone had thrown him into a washing machine.
But—he made it.
He stumbled into the lecture hall right as the professor stepped through the door. The timing was so cinematic he half-expected background music.
Then came… the silence.
And the staring.
Carl blinked. "What?"
A murmur rippled through the room. Some students nudged each other. One guy pointed straight at him like he was a newly discovered species.
Then came a voice from the back.
"Did he… grow?"
Carl's brain paused.
…Oh.
Oh, right.
He'd forgotten he had magically grown four inches cause of his skill Basic Adaptability. His once-boyish frame now looked like he had a protein shake subscription and a modeling contract.
Carl inwardly screamed.
Jerome, lounging like he'd been waiting for this moment all morning, raised a hand lazily. "Bro. I already knew about the height thing. But like… how?"
Carl offered a weak smile. "Growth spurt?"
A girl squinted at him. "In three days?"
Carl doubled down. "Yeah. I've been… drinking milk. Uh. Genetics."
A silence fell over the classroom like a heavy, awkward blanket.
Then the professor sighed deeply. "Carl."
Carl straightened. "Yes, sir?"
"Where were you yesterday?"
Panic. Internal screaming. Definitely couldn't say 'Sorry, got isekai'd to another world where I learned how to use Appraisal magic and almost died.'
"Uh… food poisoning. Bad sushi," he said with the kind of confidence reserved for liars and people bluffing in Uno.
The professor squinted, clearly debating if it was worth the trouble to question that.
"…Fine. Where's your essay?"
Carl yanked out his laptop and passed it forward with both hands like a sacred offering.
The professor gave it a quick glance, nodded, and moved on.
Crisis averted.
Carl let out a shaky breath. "Thank God."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
But Something Was Wrong.
As the class droned on, Carl's attention drifted to the windows.
That weird feeling in his chest—the anxiety, the itch beneath the skin—it wasn't going away. If anything, it was getting worse.
He stared at the sky. Everything looked normal. Sunny. Peaceful. Birds chirping.
And yet, every cell in his body screamed, Something is coming.
His eyes flicked to the clock.
8:43 AM.
Only a few minutes left in class.
Carl adjusted in his seat. Maybe it was just leftover stress from being late. Or nearly failing. Or almost being murdered in another dimension.
Then—
RUMBLE.
The entire floor trembled. A low, gut-deep vibration.
Carl froze.
Was that…?
RUMBLE-RUMBLE.
Nope. Not in his head.
A jolt ran through the building. Desks shook. A student yelped.
"Is that an earthquake?" someone whispered.
The shaking intensified. Ceiling tiles rattled. The projector screen fell with a loud BANG.
The Professor screamed, "UNDER THE DESKS!"
Carl didn't even get the chance to move—Jerome yanked him down like a sack of potatoes.
Dust showered from the ceiling. The windows shivered dangerously.
Carl's heart pounded like a drum in his ears.
This wasn't a regular quake.
It was too long. Too violent. Too loud.
He squeezed his eyes shut as the world roared.
And then—
Silence.
Just like that.
No more shaking. No screaming. No movement.
Only the distant sound of car alarms and the beep of emergency notifications.
Carl's phone buzzed. Then another. And another.
He shakily pulled it out. The screen was filled with red banners.
BREAKING NEWS: MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE DETECTED WORLDWIDE. STRANGE SINKHOLES APPEARING ACROSS MULTIPLE REGIONS. AUTHORITIES ADVISE REMAINING INDOORS.
"…Worldwide?" Carl croaked.
Jerome looked at his phone, then looked at him. "What the hell is happening?"
People murmured around them. Some cried. Others watched videos already flooding social media.
Giant craters in the middle of cities. Black, jagged pits stretching deep underground.
One clip showed something rising out of the darkness. A structure.
Something like a… Dungeon.
Carl felt his blood run cold. His thoughts raced.
Massive tremors. Dungeon-like sinkholes.
This wasn't natural. This was too familiar.
It was just like the anime. Just like the isekai stories.
What if…
What if those sinkholes weren't just geological disasters?
What if they were portals…? A gateway to that world…
His chest tightened. He wanted to say no. To call himself paranoid.
But every instinct screamed otherwise.
[New Notification: "Event Triggered – Earth's Awakening."]
Carl's phone screen flickered.
Then the system chimed in—calm, cold, and with an edge that made the air around him feel too still.
[Congratulations, Carl. You've survived the tutorial.]
[Welcome to the Main Game.]
Carl stared at the message, blood draining from his face.
"…Oh, no."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To Be Continued…