At first, I felt nothing but disappointment. But the feeling didn’t last long.

  I was holding a literal floating card that supposedly granted time-freezing powers. How could I not be excited about that?

  Sure, I wasn’t jumping around or losing my mind over it. But inside, I was hopping around and screaming at the top of my lungs.

  I had a reputation to maintain. A beautiful darling such as myself couldn’t afford to look basic.

  Josh eyed my card. “Clock stuff? Time powers? Damn, good choice.”

  Valina nodded. “It’s an okay choice. Not too bad.”

  Then she grinned. “I’m fucking with you. That’s hella cool.”

  Yasin raised his hand for a high five.

  All that praise quickly broke my resolve, and I fought the smile creeping onto my face.

  Ah, fuck it.

  I slapped his hand with all my strength. “Fuck yeah!”

  Yasin’s eyes widened before he shouted back, “Hell yeah!”

  For a moment we went back and forth.

  “Fuck yeah!”

  “Hell yeah!”

  Josh finally stepped in. “Okay, okay, guys. Let’s not be too noisy—”

  Before he could finish, Valina struck a dramatic pose and slapped her wrist.

  “Transform!”

  We all turned to stare at her.

  She held the exaggerated pose for several seconds, clearly waiting for something to happen.

  Nothing did.

  She stayed frozen there, repeating, “Transform,” as if sheer determination might activate it. As the seconds passed, her irritation grew more obvious.

  “Fuck,” she muttered. “We’ve got no system, and we can’t even use our damn powers.”

  “We must have some kind of system,” I said. “The president guy asked for our levels, remember? So… yeah. Maybe you just got bad luck.”

  Valina’s eyes snapped open.

  “Bad luck? Me?”

  I ignored the question and said, “Time Freeze.”

  I actually expected it to work.

  Not because I was lucky—far from it. My luck in life had mostly been garbage. But it still wasn’t as bad as Valina’s. She often seemed genuinely cursed.

  When nothing happened, I frowned.

  “Why isn’t anything happening?”

  “Dumbass,” Valina said.

  “Witch.”

  Josh cut into our bickering. “Honestly, we probably need to gain levels or something before we can use them.”

  He paused for a moment, thinking, then materialized a black card.

  “Maybe this thing explains it.”

  I frowned. “Dark cards usually mean bad luck.”

  Yasin shrugged. “People say the same thing about black cats.”

  I knew what point he was making, but my mind immediately drifted to my dead cat, Neller.

  Josh activated the card somehow. It expanded in front of his face like a massive page.

  “What does it say?” I asked.

  He scanned the text, glanced at me, then went back to reading.

  “Don’t know. The ‘evil’ card must be affecting me.”

  “Fuck off,” I muttered, summoning my own black card.

  When I thought work, the card expanded just like his. White text appeared across its surface.

  It was written like… a guide.

  The first paragraph explained that I was a Reality Defender and outlined my task. One line stood out to me in particular:

  You are a defender, not a hero. You are not required to save people or do good. Your duty is to defend the world and ensure humanity does not become extinct.

  That wording stuck with me.

  Was defending reality so difficult that being a hero was simply unrealistic? Was the system basically telling us to do the bare minimum?

  Or worse—did it not care if people lived or died, so long as the world itself didn’t collapse?

  Putting that aside, another section caught my attention. The card suggested obtaining a Status skill to improve perception and maintain a connection with fellow defenders.

  Josh spoke first.

  “So we can just summon another card?”

  “I guess,” I said. “Or maybe we start with a status card already.”

  Josh thought about it. “Yeah. Something like that.”

  I mentally asked for a Status card.

  A glowing silver card appeared in front of me. Its icon showed multiple eyes without irises.

  “Status?” I said.

  My vision flashed white.

  Text and icons appeared along the edges of my sight.

  Source Cards

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Energy Points

  Skills

  “Uhhh…” I started.

  Valina beat me to it.

  “We’ve got a gaming HUD!”

  “Think we’re in a video game?” I asked.

  Yasin shook his head. “Doubt it. If this were a game, we’d be fighting a goblin or something by now.”

  I kind of agreed with that logic.

  Whenever I played single-player games—which wasn’t often—I always got thrown into a fight almost immediately. I couldn’t imagine playing a game where I just talked to people and listened to world-building for minutes straight.

  I didn’t sign up for a damn movie.

  Valina leaned closer. “Try using your skill again. Something weird pops up.”

  When I tried to freeze time, a line of text appeared in my vision.

  You lack the required skill points to purchase Time Freeze. Note: This card is still bound to you.

  I frowned. “We’ve got to pay for skills too. Maybe we really are stuck in some lame-ass video game.”

  Yasin rubbed his chin.

  Then his skin began bubbling.

  Everyone in the room stared at him in horror.

  It was a slow, disgusting process. Flesh pushed through the slits in his clothes, merging together before forming the shape of a man. Gradually, it began to resemble him, growing thick twists of long hair.

  The creature stood about six foot three, built with solid muscle, though a layer of stomach fat hid any real definition. The long medical scar down the center of his abdomen was impossible to miss.

  I had honestly forgotten he’d needed emergency surgery for stomach ulcers.

  More importantly, the thing was completely naked.

  Schlong on display. Hairy ass waiting for an audience.

  A disgraceful sight.

  Valina chuckled. “Why is your dick so small?”

  Yasin took a slow breath. “You should know by now your rage bait doesn’t work on me.”

  She held an eerie smile. “That therapy is really working, huh.”

  “Yes…” He suddenly looked suspicious.

  “Yeah. Working good, ain’t it? Real good?”

  His face scrunched up. “What the fuck are you saying?”

  “I’m just happy for you.”

  He blinked rapidly before turning to Josh. “Tell your friend to stop or I’ll choke her.”

  “Wow,” Valina said, pretending to be offended. “So we ain’t friends? Fucker.”

  He sighed.

  Valina shrugged and added, “Just fucking with you. Your balls aren’t that small.”

  “You’re so…” He sighed again. “Anyway. I can make this Dumb Clone after paying skill points for it. Only cost like three.”

  “You can actually use it?” I asked. “It tells me I can’t afford mine.”

  Yasin smiled.

  “Oh?”

  He didn’t say anything else, but the smugness behind that single word said enough.

  Apparently, his choice had been wise, and mine had been stupid.

  “What can it do?” I asked.

  His smugness faded as he turned away. The clone was simply wandering around like a brainless NPC.

  Josh squinted at it. “When you said it was dumb, you meant that literally. Can it fight?”

  Yasin didn’t answer.

  Josh walked up to the clone and punched it straight in the chin. The clone staggered backward, but instead of fighting, it simply resumed walking.

  “Holy useless,” Josh muttered.

  Yasin groaned. “Come on. You— you— You know what, bro? Why don’t you show us your mist.”

  Josh froze.

  Before he could respond, our attention shifted to the sound of cracking bones.

  Valina was shrinking.

  Her body twisted and folded in an ugly, painful-looking transformation until she became a tiny creature. When it was over, she disappeared into the pile of clothes she’d been wearing.

  “What the hell…?”

  Something small stumbled out from beneath the fabric.

  It was a little green cat with metallic spikes for fur.

  Honestly, it looked kind of cool. Cute, even.

  But it was hard to find it adorable when she clearly had almost no control over her body.

  The way she staggered around reminded me of Uncle Joe, who had a degenerative nervous system disease. Funny how the smallest things could bring back memories from years ago.

  Behind us, Yasin’s clone suddenly stopped walking.

  Then it collapsed into a sludge of flesh before dissolving into nothing.

  Good.

  No one deserved to have their eyes burned by that thing any longer. Yasin wasn’t even ugly, but that didn’t make the sight any less disturbing.

  Josh knelt in front of cat-Valina.

  “How long can you stay like that?”

  The cat’s body bobbled up and down as she tried to stay upright. It looked like it took all her effort just to stand. I imagined it probably took the same amount of effort for her to meow at him.

  “You think she’s roleplaying?” I asked Josh. “Like, meowing because she’s a cat?”

  “She’d definitely do that,” he said.

  I thought about all the co-op RPGs we’d played together and immediately agreed.

  I didn’t game with Valina and Yasin nearly as much as I did with Josh, but the few times I had were memorable enough to burn themselves into my mind.

  I walked over to her.

  “Talk.”

  She ignored me completely and just kept meowing at Josh while stumbling toward him.

  Josh picked her up by the armpits.

  “Can you understand what we’re saying?”

  She meowed again.

  “Blink twice for yes,” I said. “Blink three times for no.”

  Josh tried next. “Can you speak?”

  She blinked three times.

  We all frowned. Asking Valina that question had been a mistake.

  “Josh,” I said, “make her tell the truth.”

  His voice dropped slightly.

  “Valina. I’m serious.”

  Valina started meowing louder—far louder—and far more aggressively than before.

  I folded my arms.

  “I think she’s mad.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  Then Valina’s body began expanding again, and the sounds of cracking bones and stretching flesh filled the room.

  I quickly turned away from the swelling mass and covered my ears.

  When I finally looked back, Josh was holding her naked body up by the armpits.

  Her eyes looked spaced out, like she hadn’t slept in a full day.

  Josh asked, “You okay?”

  “Yeah… my mind just feels empty.”

  “You’re naked too. I can see… everything.”

  She looked at him, then down at her body. “What a shitty power.”

  “You can stand on your own? You look a little disoriented.”

  “Let me check.”

  She tried walking while Josh still held her steady.

  “Yep. Perfect.”

  He released her, and she quickly pulled on her jeans and red shirt, the one covered in endless little stars.

  While she was dressing, I asked, “Why did you turn into a weird cat? Out of all of us, your skill card is the most vague.”

  “It was too vague,” she said. “Since I couldn’t afford the full card, I could switch it to something similar. The status thing gave me suggestions I could actually pay for, so I went with the metallic cat card.”

  I frowned.

  I hadn’t gotten any skill suggestions at all.

  The realization hit me almost immediately.

  There probably weren’t any time skills I could afford.

  I had fucked up.

  Josh released a faint cloud of mist from his hands. It barely obscured anything.

  “Same thing happened to me,” he said.

  Then he turned toward me. “Your skill is super specific though. So you can use it, right?”

  I hesitated.

  “…No.”

  “Why?”

  “…Time skills seem to require a lot of skill points.”

  Just saying those words felt like a piece of my ego was dying.

  Everyone stared at me.

  Josh smirked. “So it’s a good thing we didn’t listen to you, huh?”

  “Well, all of you got useless skills,” I shot back.

  “We still got super poweeeers,” Valina sang. “You got nada.”

  I briefly considered strangling her.

  They kept experimenting with their abilities for a bit, despite how useless they currently were.

  They got bored quickly.

  It only took about two minutes.

  Josh eventually flopped onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling.

  “We’re really in another world.”

  I looked over at him and nodded. “Feels kinda unreal.”

  Valina, who was now resting on top of Josh, agreed. “Yeah. Now that I’m actually thinking about it, it’s really… well… unreal.”

  I asked, “You think the bed sheets are clean?”

  Both of them immediately looked at me.

  Josh answered first. “I mean… they should be clean. Why wouldn’t they be?”

  “Why would they be?” I said. “It’s not like they expected us. And they called this place Defender’s Quarters. I haven’t seen anyone else here, so I’m assuming we’re the only ones. And they didn’t act like we’re exactly common.”

  Valina suddenly jumped off the bed and dragged Josh up with her.

  “We’ll ask them for fresh sheets when we see them again.”

  I nodded in agreement, then looked around.

  “Where’s Yasin?”

  “Probably exploring,” Josh said. “Outside, I mean.”

  He paused.

  “…I kinda want to do that too.”

  Strangely enough, I suddenly felt the same urge. I even wondered why I hadn’t felt it earlier.

  Valina asked, “Which one? The house or outside? I vote house first, then outside.”

  I agreed with that, but Josh voted for outside.

  “He’s probably out there already,” Josh said. “I don’t want him wandering around in a strange world by himself.”

  Babysitting a grown man irritated me.

  But at the same time, if something happened to him, we’d probably blame ourselves for not stopping it earlier. So it was better to take the initiative.

  I asked, “Which way is outside?”

  “Only one way to find out,” Valina said.

  She marched into the hallway, looked down one direction, then the other, and chose a path.

  We followed.

  “I haven’t seen a single light switch,” I said. “Think they have sensors under the tiles or something?”

  “Probably,” Valina replied.

  We passed a room swallowed in shadows, but I could still make out cabinets and a sink against the wall.

  Then the light from the hallway vanished.

  A soft slithering sound followed.

  Everyone stopped walking.

  Slowly, we looked up.

  At that moment, I was very glad my bladder was empty.

  Glad I’d watched that TikTok my aunt Mea sent about the dangers of holding in your pee.

  And glad I’d actually followed the advice.

  Seeing glowing yellow snakes effortlessly slithering across the ceiling toward the kitchen probably would’ve made me wet myself.

  Instead, I screamed.

  Well…

  We all did.