"Ugh!!!" I screamed while clawing at the ground of a new world I had suddenly been pulled into.
This only has to happen to me... Right?
My mother didn't have a better time to say that?
My eyes drifted up to look at the woman standing in front of me. Looking all smug with her arms folded and her eyebrows holding an expression I never wanted to see. She was infuriatingly happy for someone who kidnapped a minor to a place where the authorities didn't know me. So I can't file for a report either!
"You!" I pointed an accusatory finger at her direction.
"Don't blame me. You were the one who wanted a better version of your life. So here you are. I just did you a favor."
"What favor?! A woman like you must be some sort of witch!" I shouted back while scrambling to my feet and taking steps backward. Then looked down at my socks as soon as I felt cold metal. "Ah! Right!" I murmured under my breathe in frustruation.
I looked up at her with a tilt of my eyebrow. "If you were going to drag me here, then better had told me about shoes."
The woman rubbed the tips of her fingers in a snap as the word left my mouth.
As if on cue, a pair of sneakers fell right on my head from above and landed on the soles right there on the ground in front of me. Sigh... What an unfortunate day today is.
"And this woman's name is Avry, thank you." She added back with a sarcastic tone of voice.
I clicked my tongue, rolled my eyes and bent down to put them on.
"Just so you know, you are a candidate for an experiment." Avry announced. "And for being as stubborn as you are, you are also the last participant."
I blinked my eyes, twice, completely baffled. "Why—seriously?! An experiment... And the last one?!" My ears may have heard wrong... But what word could I have mistaken?
"Yes. You know the rule. The last is the first to leave."
"Yeah yeah!" I slowly stood up while dusting my clothes. I knew the meaning of it! Thinking of books I read about human experiments, this means I am about to—
"So I come back home from an awful experience at the passport office, feel uneasy and take a walk down the streets, return home and feel bored, answer the door to a strange woman, hear my mom say 'kill her or not, I don't care', then get pulled into this weird place where I can't report you... Now I am about to get crushed up into something I don't know and whether it fails or explodes, I can't change that because I am the last participant!" I complained to no one. "What next? Am I going to hear my best friend is in this too?"
Avry looked down at me with a smile and a slight furrow of her brows as she used her nail to scratch her cheek. "Technically... Yes."
My jaw almost hit the ground. "What?!" I asked back. "What do you mean 'technically'?! Is she or not?!"
"Yes."
Silence stretched out between us with a defeaning intensity. I could feel my soul leave my body once again, but this time, I was still under my skin.
"Alright so... What a day..." I laughed to myself awkwardly. As if my mom saying that wasn't enough... Now I am stuck in a world I never wanted to come to and getting pulled into an experiment that doesn't even guarantee I will live. What else could go worse?
Others reincarnate by a truck accident, and I am here through a strange woman who I can't even trust.
Without me knowing it, a drop of tear fell from my eyes, which Avry wiped away for me. I swatted her hand away and glared up at her face.
"If I am a participant right now... Lead me to the area I am to die. I am already the last... I can't keep the others waiting." I spoke with a low voice. The woman looked down at me with a sorrowful look, then let out a sigh and started walking. "Follow me..."
I took three small steps before picking up my usual pace. I won't lie, this world is beautiful.
On one side was a place that matched the same description of the Victorian Era. The other was pink, blue and purple of a cyberpunk city. The ground I was walking on was ordered in a symmetrical pattern in the following manner;
A pink metallic brick followed by an old cement brick.
If you looked from above. It would look like a perforated drawing of two worlds joined together. The cyberpunk city was glass buildings and drones flying around, while the Victorian setting was buzzing with people who greeted others with complicated languages. Both sides seemed interesting to her.
"If you are wondering, there is actually one more city." Avry suddenly punched inside my thoughts.
"What is it?" I asked, not letting her know that I was actually thinking of the same thing... What was the point?
She already knew.
"There is a Medieval setting, that is like how you often see in those colourful comics you read. Tall bricked buildings with noble people who ride carriages."
"Ah..." I flatly replied.
"That is called the Smod Empire."
"I thought so." I knew a bit of history, although it is not strong. I liked reading historical politics and drama, so I knew at least this from there.
As we walked, the city grew more vast and more interesting. Clock towers came to view, sky-scapers that reached past the grey clouds and on both sides, dews collected along the windows and dropped down.
A cool wind washed over my face, lifting the stress and shock away for a beautiful, peaceful while. The smell of rain hit my nose as if telling me 'this world might actually be something I end up loving'.
This was one reason I wasn't actually nervous. I shut my eyes for a brief moment, coming to a short stop to think.
Did my destiny want me to turn things around and fix it? Because I had never felt this quiet and peaceful for so long... I am not even having to hear my parents' constant yelling about not being useful.
If I could ever go back, I would answer them this;
"At least an experiment thought I was useful. Unlike you all... You kept me in relentless torture."
But that wasn't possible, was it?
"Aefia? Are you alright?"
I immediately opened my eyes again. "Oh... I am fine." How she knew my name... Wasn't my problem at all. All that mattered, was that I—
... Nevermind.
I continued to walk the paces I had missed. Slowly enough, my mind circulated around things that would matter more to me from now on, like;
"If I stay in this world, what calendar should I use? Don't ask me to simply assume this is the first of January."
Avry turned around to face me, pausing her steps for a while. "You could say that whatever you just blurted out, was the truth."
"So it is the first of January?"
"Not quiet... We are in the fifth of January. Exactly like on Earth."
"..."
It reminded me of something. But I won't bother recalling, I won't be needing that here.
"Alright. That is all I wanted to ask." I replied while breathing out. After all that I had heard and saw today, I don't think I have the energy left to take anymore shock. And to avoid that, is to shut one's mouth. I prefer the peace I have been finally given, let's not ruin it stupidly.
"Aren't you going to ask what kind of experiment this is?" The woman tilted her head to the side while turning around to continue walking.
"I guess... Yes."
"As an Earth human, you know about the 'Great Yearly Catastrophe'."
"Of course."
"You could say... This is related to that." She answered with a grave tone of voice. "You will be associated to that."
I had suspected enough. Afterall, if you get pulled into another world all of a sudden and that is related to the book you read years ago... You are to expect that you would get threaded to some sort of problem that involves blood splatter and dying.
What I mean is... This 'Great Yearly Catastrophe' is actually a series of dungoens appearing out of nowhere on Earth where monsters and beasts claw their way out from cracks on surfaces that are dungoens which appear as glass-cracks, and has glittery background on the inside. And this happened every year, unnoticed, in different countries. Targeting ones suffering from poverty first. It has been exactly fifteen years since it begun.
I know cause I lived in South-Asia, and I was only a toddler when that happened. Still, my memories are vivid.
Those creatures were always called paranormal for a reason. Humans were barely walking out alive when one appeared. Although researchers haven't found a single evidence as to why that was happening, they say that the scenarios placed inside modern-day 'system' genre novels, are somehow coming alive because someone's child must have wished for that before blowing their birthday candles.
I truly lived in a world where people brought up excuses to just get rid of the work they are being assigned. Like, an astronomer said that the stars aligned the wrong way, so that is the reason the Catastrophe begun.
Regardless of the fact, I think the only thing I need to worry about, is to understand what this experiment will make me do.
Whether it will tear my head off my shoulders or whether it will turn me into a monster who appears back on Earth to destroy it.
"Hah!... Why does death has more ways than living? A newborn child has a possibility of dying within the age of five... What a brutal universe." I sighed out lightly, trying to just whisper to myself, but it was louder than I anticipated.
Avry turned around to look at me, raising an eyebrow.
"It seems you let your mother's words get to your head more than she did."
I stared at the woman, partially glaring at her remark. "Well? I am still a teenager... What do you expect if you suddenly hear your own mother who raised you, sell you off to die."
"Well it is harsh to hear. However..." The woman looked down at me with a smirk. "You know that your body is frozen in time because you aren't from here. And unless you understand the real way you die here, don't do that stupid thing in our backyard."
She was speaking like she knew me.
"Ha... Don't mind me. I am not like that." I shoved past her shoulders to walk myself to the destination since the woman wouldn't. "And I know the value of life. Maybe—just maybe—I will somehow find a loophole in your experiment and get myself and the other participants out of here."
"You don't even know what this experiment is about." Avry folded her arms before walking towards me.
"Though I must warn you that I don't take things for granted, especially if I say it with my own mouth." I tilted my head towards her. "Besides, I wonder what this entire thing is about. Is it a competition? Or is it a labor facility?"
Avry walked up to where I was standing. "You could say this is a competition."
"What is the name of the competition than?" I asked with an irritated look on my face.
"I am not certain. You get to call it whatever you want as the honor of the 'last joining participant'. What you say, is what the rest of us calls it." She offered a sweet smile while stepping up to where I was standing.
I looked down at the bricks below my shoe soles. After all that, at least she gave me this. The honor of being the last joining participant who names something. Even if that makes no sense, it makes many sane meanings to me. So if I were given the choice to name what this institute will be called from now on...
"Call it..." I spoke, my voice raising an octave as I looked at the person right beside me.
"Competition Unknown."
*********
First Draft: 23.10.2025
Rewritten: 9.08.2026