Chapter 2: Tutorial for the Unchosen

The hidden instance closed behind Eli without a sound.

One heartbeat he stood in the stale, crowded dark of the Chicago Red Line platform with screaming strangers and the wet, animal noises rising from the tunnel. The next, the air changed. The world seemed to inhale and forget him.

The station was still the station, but wrong in the way a reflection was wrong. The fluorescent panels overhead no longer flickered white; they burned with a fixed, underwater blue that turned skin corpse-pale and made every metal surface look drowned. The advertisements along the wall had peeled into blank sheets. The tracks stretched into blackness on both ends, but there were no people now, no press of bodies, no crying child, no cop shouting into a dead radio. Only Eli, the rails, and a silence so complete it rang in his ears.

A yellow caution sign lay on its side near the stairs as if someone had kicked it over in a hurry. Beside it sat a maintenance cart loaded with a mop bucket, a coil of electrical cable, a toolbox, and a long-handled push broom.

Eli stared at it for a second too long because his brain still expected the crowd to be there when he looked back.

There was nobody.

Then the window came up.

TUTORIAL INSTANCE DETECTED.

Welcome, Candidate.

Please select your class to begin guided orientation.

ERROR: No valid class found.

Fallback route engaged.

Tutorial Type: Unsupported

Survival Parameters: Improvised

Objective: Remain alive.

Time Limit: 00:19:59

The timer began counting down at once, red numerals pulsing at the edge of his vision.

“Improvised,” Eli said aloud. His own voice came back thin and small off the tile. “That’s comforting.”

His mouth tasted like old pennies. His hands were shaking so hard that when he wiped them on his jeans he missed the pocket and scraped his knuckles on the seam.

Another window snapped open, jagged around the edges as if it had been cracked.

Recommended starter loadout unavailable.

Please utilize environmental resources.

Tip: Candidates with low survivability should avoid direct engagement.

“Great,” Eli muttered. “I’ll just avoid the things trying to eat me in the murder tutorial.”

He forced himself to move.

Panic wanted him rooted, staring, waiting for somebody older or bigger or classed to tell him what to do. Panic wanted him to remember every bad decision of his twenty-four years and curl up under them like they were blankets. Panic had always been fast. Eli had only ever survived by being faster.

He went to the maintenance cart first.

The toolbox was real. Heavy. Red metal, chipped at the corners, the latch sticky with rust. Inside were screwdrivers, a claw hammer, pliers, a utility knife with two spare blades, a half-empty roll of black electrical tape, and a can of fluorescent orange marking paint. Nothing magical. Nothing heroic. Just city equipment for fixing ugly things in uglier places.

He took the hammer and the utility knife. Hesitated. Then he grabbed the cable coil too and slung it over one shoulder. The push broom was aluminum with a thick threaded head. He twisted until it came free, leaving him with a six-foot pole. Better than bare hands.

His status window was still hovering in the corner of his sight, stubborn as a stain.

ELI MERCER

Level 0

Class: NONE

Status: Unassigned

None.

Like the system had looked through every category humanity had spent the last few frantic minutes worshipping—Tank, Mage, Healer, Ranger, names shouted like lifeboats by the blue windows erupting in the sky—and found no drawer to shove him into. Not even “failure.” Just blank space.

He hated how much that word fit.

A sound drifted through the tunnel to his left.

Scratch. Pause. Scratch-scrabble-scrape.

Eli’s head turned toward the dark.

The station lights didn’t reach far. Beyond the platform edge, the rails vanished into a throat of pitch-black concrete ribbed with cables and dripping water. Something moved there, low and fast, catching blue on wet eyes.

Then another pair of eyes. Then three.

The first beast came out at rail level, picking its way between the tracks with an ugly, swaying gait. It was the size of a German shepherd and built wrong all the way through. Its front legs were too long, its back legs too short, its shoulders hunched high like a hyena’s. Sparse gray hide stretched over sharp bones, and patches of black bristle rose along its spine in greasy clumps. Its head looked assembled from spare parts: rat teeth, fox muzzle, naked opossum ears, and tiny humanlike hands folded beneath the jaw where no hands should have been.

It lifted its face and sniffed.

The smell hit Eli a moment later—wet trash, blood, mildew, the sweet rot of a refrigerator emptied too late.

He took an involuntary step back.

Enemy Detected: Scavenger Beast [Lesser]

Threat Assessment: Moderate

Suggested Strategy: Use class skills.

ERROR: No class skills found.

“Really earning your keep,” Eli whispered.

More shapes flowed from the tunnel. Four in all. They stayed on the tracks at first, twitching and circling, their slick noses testing the air. One climbed onto the opposite platform with a disturbingly human agility, long fingers splayed on the concrete lip before it hauled itself up.

They had found him.

He looked wildly around the station. Empty benches. Trash cans bolted down. Turnstiles above the stairs. The maintenance closet door tucked into the wall midway down the platform with a tiny square window.

The beasts spread. Herding.

Too smart for dogs, too hungry for caution.

Eli backed toward the closet, pole raised, hammer tucked into his belt. His sneakers squeaked on old grime. One of the scavengers chittered—a sound like forks rattling in a garbage disposal—and they came in low.

The first lunged from the tracks.

Eli jabbed with the pole on pure reflex. The aluminum end smacked the creature in the snout with a flat, meaty crack. It yelped and twisted, but a second one was already on the platform, nails skittering over tile.

He swung harder this time. The pole hit shoulder instead of head. The beast spun sideways, slammed into a bench, and recovered with terrifying speed.

Not enough.

They were too quick, too many—

The third one launched.

Eli dropped flat.

Hot, rancid air rushed over his scalp as the thing sailed where his throat had been. It hit the wall behind him with a fleshy thud and shrieked. Eli scrambled, half crawling, and jammed the pole upward as the fourth beast charged in. The shaft lodged between jaws that snapped shut inches from his face, yellow teeth grinding metal with a squeal.

Its saliva splashed his cheek. It smelled like sewer gas and meat left in summer sun.

“Get off!” Eli shouted, more furious than brave.

He yanked the utility knife free and stabbed at the thing’s neck. The blade punched through hide on the third try. The scavenger convulsed, the sound it made turning thin and whistling. Hot black-red blood sheeted over Eli’s hand. It tasted coppery in the air.

The beast kicked away from him and collapsed on the platform, thrashing in tight little circles.

A window flashed.

Scavenger Beast [Lesser] defeated.

Experience awarded.

No level. No fanfare. Just the body twitching less and less while the others screamed.

The wounded one by the bench barreled toward him with murder in its eyes. Eli rolled aside. Its claws raked his forearm through denim and skin together, opening a line of fire from wrist to elbow. He hit the closet door shoulder-first, pain exploding along his back, and somehow got his fingers around the knob.

Locked.

Of course it was locked.

The beast came again.

Eli tore the hammer from his belt and swung sideways with everything in his torso behind it. The claw side buried itself just above the creature’s eye. Bone gave with a sickening pop. Momentum dragged the thing half around before it slammed into him and both of them went down.

His head cracked against concrete. White stars burst behind his eyes.

Weight crushed his legs. Wet breath blasted his throat. The scavenger writhed and shrieked inches from his face, front claws slashing blindly as it tried to reach him past the hammer lodged in its skull. One hooked his collar and ripped through the fabric. Another carved a hot line across his jaw.

Eli grabbed the maintenance pole with both hands and drove the broken end up under the creature’s chin.

It spasmed.

He pushed harder, teeth bared. The aluminum shaft slid through gristle, then deeper, then all at once the scavenger sagged across him, shuddering.

He lay pinned for a breathless second, chest heaving under the dead weight, while the remaining two circled and hissed.

“Yeah,” he rasped to nobody. “Come on, then.”

It sounded insane. He supposed that meant he was adapting.

The beasts did not come on together this time. They had seen enough pain to learn caution. One stalked wide, keeping the platform edge to his left. The other crouched low near the stairs, lips peeled back from too many teeth.

Eli shoved the corpse off and staggered up with blood slicking his palms. His arm burned. His jaw dripped. The timer had somehow dropped to 00:17:04 already.

Two minutes felt like two seconds in here.

He looked at the stairs and then at the turnstile bank above them. Stainless steel bars. A narrow gate. A choke point.

That was something.

He snatched the cable coil from where he had dropped it and ran.

The scavengers shrieked and gave chase.

Up the steps two at a time, breath tearing in his lungs, Eli reached the mezzanine and almost slipped on old gum embedded in the concrete. The turnstiles stood in a row beneath dead card readers, each narrow enough to force one body through at a time. Beyond them was the station entrance and a wall of blue static where the exit to the street should have been, like reality had been painted over and not allowed to dry.

No escape. Fine.

He looped the cable through one turnstile arm, then another, fingers fumbling. The beasts’ nails clicked on the stairs. He wound the thick cord around the bars, around the center spindle, yanked, threaded, pulled. Not enough time for neatness. Enough for obstruction.

The first scavenger bounded onto the mezzanine just as Eli dragged the mop bucket over and kicked it into the gap. Dirty water sloshed over the floor, black and reeking. The second beast hit the top stair a half-second later.

Eli ripped the cap off the orange marking paint with his teeth and sprayed a blinding fluorescent sheet across the wet tiles in front of the turnstiles.

“Come on,” he said. “Come on, you ugly sewer goblins.”

The lead beast came.

It lunged through the brightest patch and lost traction instantly. Its paws shot forward. Its body folded sideways with a yowl and smashed into the turnstile assembly. The cable snapped tight around its neck and forelegs, tangling it in steel bars and black cord. The second scavenger leapt over its packmate and almost made it—then its hind legs hit the same slick paint-water film and skidded into the jam.

For one glorious second both monsters were trapped in a writhing knot of snapping teeth and twisted cable.

Eli moved.

He slammed the mop bucket down over the first beast’s head, trapping it blind, then brought the hammer down on the exposed spine where neck met shoulder. Once. Twice. A third time until the plastic bucket jumped and cracked. The scavenger convulsed under it.

The second one tore half free with a shriek and swiped. Its claws caught Eli high on the thigh. Pain flared white and immediate. His leg nearly buckled.

It was stronger than the others. Bigger too, now that it had room to unfold. A ridge of black spines rose from its shoulders like knife handles. One ear was torn away. Its eyes were cloudy blue instead of yellow, and there was a scar down its muzzle where something had once tried—and failed—to split its face open.

Enemy Detected: Scavenger Beast [Lesser Alpha]

Threat Assessment: High

“You could have mentioned that sooner,” Eli hissed.

The alpha hurled itself at him.

He barely got the pole up. Jaws clamped down on aluminum, shearing the end flat. The beast’s weight drove him backward into the card reader post hard enough to rattle his teeth. It let go of the pole, dropped low, and feinted left.

Eli bit on the fake and shifted. The alpha went right, all muscle and whip-fast hunger, and tore into his already bleeding arm. Its teeth punched through denim. Pain exploded. Eli screamed and hammered down with his free hand. The claw side glanced off bone. The beast shook him like a toy.

Something in his shoulder popped. His vision spotted black.

Not here. Not because the universe couldn’t sort me correctly. Not like this.

He let the hammer fall.

With his good hand, Eli snatched the can of orange paint off the floor and jammed the nozzle straight into the alpha’s face.

He held it down.

Chemical spray blasted into one eye, up the nostrils, into the open mouth still latched on his arm. The beast recoiled violently, gagging, shrieking, clawing at its own muzzle. Eli tore free, leaving blood and fabric between its teeth, and kicked the cable knot at its feet.

The alpha stumbled into the turnstile bars.

Eli seized the loose end of the electrical cable and looped it around the creature’s neck as it thrashed. Once. Twice. He braced a sneaker against the steel frame and pulled with everything he had.

The cable bit in.

The alpha’s claws raked sparks from the tile. It bucked and twisted, muscles standing out under hide like braided rope. Eli was not stronger. He was just desperate, and leverage was the only fair thing in the room.

The beast lunged sideways. The cable snapped taut across the turnstile spindle and wrenched it half around. One steel bar punched between the alpha’s forelegs and pinned it crooked for a fraction of a second.

Enough.

Eli drove the utility knife under its jaw and up into the soft place behind the tongue.

The alpha went still in pieces.

Its hind legs kicked. Its chest convulsed. Hot blood pumped over Eli’s hand in heavy, slowing bursts. The cloudy blue eye found his face, and in it he saw not intelligence exactly, but accusation. A scavenger’s outrage at being denied its meal.

Then the light in the eye broke apart.