“Ah, dude,” Michael said, pulling out his phone, “I forgot to tell you. My brother just got this crazy Jet ski the other day.”

Dante glanced at Michael as he swiped through his photos, a smile forming on his face as he looked at his friend's infectious grin. Michael was shy around people he didn’t know too well, but when he was comfortable enough for a chat, he just couldn’t keep his mouth closed.

“Oh, what’s so crazy about a Jet ski?” Dante said, bumping into him. “Aren’t they just motorbikes, but on the water?”

“What?” Michael said, glancing at Dante like he had uttered the most foolish combination of words imaginable. “Jet skis are an experience, not something as meagre as an object. To compare one to some stupid motorbike is like calling the moon landing a road trip. All it does is make you look stupid and uncultured. In fact, next time someone brings up jet skis at a wedding or something, don’t say anything like that unless you want to go home looking like a clown.”

Michael showed him a picture of a blue jet ski. Dante had no idea about boats, and he knew even less about jet skis. “Under what version of reality am I going to discuss Jet skis at a wedding? I’ve only ever gone to one wedding in my life, and I was six.”

“Jet skis are classy machines, my friend. And mine is the... I don’t know. Someone who’s a really cool badass, but it’s my jet ski.”

As Dante continued to chat with his best friend, he looked around his neighbourhood. Two-story houses lined the streets on either side of them, only disappearing when they walked over a bridge to see the crystal blue canal below.

Living on a coastline had its benefits, mainly being that you could go to the beach or hang out on a boat whenever you wanted. Michael’s older brother even had four boats and now a Jet ski, apparently, which would make his upcoming summer holidays much more enjoyable. He secretly hoped to go on the ski, but he liked to tease his friend more.

“Alright, this is me,” Michael said, holding out his hand. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. It’s my dad’s birthday, so we’re going out to some swanky Thai restaurant tonight.”

“Tell him I said happy birthday,” Dante said, clasping his friend’s hand. “Also, tell me if the food is any good. I’ll ask my parents if we can go when they come back. Should be home next month.”

“Man,” Michael said, his expression sinking. “Don’t you get lonely? Both your brother and sister moved out already, haven’t they? I can’t believe your parents just up and leave you for months at a time. I would probably freak out after a week if my parents did that to me.”

Dante shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m used to it by now. Besides, I still go to school and see everyone, so it’s not like I sit alone all day with nothing to do but read the newspaper.”

“Okay,” Michael muttered, his eyes lingering on him as he began to walk up to his driveway. “Well, you can hit me up whenever if you need to talk.”

“I’m fine,” Dante said, smiling as he waved goodbye. “Thank you for the offer, though. I appreciate your concern.”

Michael opened the door to his house and waved goodbye before disappearing inside, leaving Dante to walk the rest of the way home. But Dante didn’t leave just yet. He waited there for a moment, still smiling as he watched Michael’s parents greet and hug him through their lounge room window. He felt a pang of something in his chest, but he kept a broad smile on his face as he turned and walked home by himself.

Five minutes later, Dante unlocked the front door of his house and walked through, hanging up his school hat and his smile on the hook by the door. The sore muscles in his cheeks sunk down, leaving nothing more than an empty, blank stare on his face. He looked at his reflection in a window only to realise that he didn’t recognise the person looking back, then locked the door and walked upstairs to his room.

Dante tossed his bag off his shoulder, leaving it to fall to the floor. He then slumped down onto his bed with a sigh that sounded like someone’s dying breath. The sheets were refreshingly cool, and his room was shrouded in comforting darkness, allowing him a rare moment of respite in his increasingly hectic life. But despite this rare comfort, he couldn’t close his eyes and fall asleep no matter how hard he tried.

His tired muscles unwound as the soft fabric embraced him, but his school uniform was too uncomfortable for him to drift off into sleep. The edge of his belt buckle dug into his hip, crappy leather shoes crushed his toes, and the tie around his neck felt like a fastened noose.

And yet, he didn’t move a muscle to take any of them off.

When he was in his room, he could forget everything else. The ever-present weight that bogged down his thoughts would be left by the door, and he could finally breathe without having to worry about every little detail in his life. It was his final bastion against the crushing reality that was life, and yet here he was, laying down on his soft bed without an ounce of strength in his body.

He hadn’t trained today, nor had he done anything strenuous over the last week, but the exhaustion coursed through his blood like a poison that sucked away every single ounce of his strength. It was so simple to take off his tie. All he had to do was reach up and pull, but it was too much for him.

Far, far too much.

That left him as he was now, staring up into the ceiling in silence. It was the fourth night in a row that he had done this, and he was getting hungry. But why should he bother? If he ignored the pain in his stomach for long enough, it would go away on its own.

Besides, he could eat tomorrow morning when he had to get up and do it all over again. And again. And again. And again. It was always the same thing. Wake up, go to school, then go home and get ready to restart it all over again. Eight hours of sleep followed by eight hours of work, and as a reward, you get eight hours to yourself.

Was this really all there was to life? Where was the grand adventure or the life-fulfilling purpose that so many people seemed to be aware of? Dante wasn’t blind, deaf, or dumb, and yet he seemed to be wholly incapable of perceiving this grand purpose that made up the entirety of some people’s lives.

A few ideas had been simmering in his mind for the last few months, but now they were crystallising into some kind of understanding. And it was that maybe… he just wasn’t meant to be someone important or impressive. He had no great purpose because there wasn’t one, at least for him. The chosen few had already been selected by the universe to carry out its machinations, but he, along with many others, had been left behind.

And that was… okay.

A sense of temporary relief flooded through him as he won tonight’s battle, allowing Dante to finally close his eyes. His mind soon drifted off to sleep, but before he could finish his nap, he was woken up by a melodious ringing. It sounded like a divine bell from the heavens, the vibrations piercing into his very core like a knife into unprotected flesh.

Dante sat up in a panic, his eyes blurry from all the sleep. He looked at his clock and watched as it ticked over to eight-o-clock, but there was a strange smudge covering half his vision, so he couldn’t be sure if he was right. He wiped his eyes and looked again, only to find a panel with some strange text floating within arm’s reach.

[Sub-System Integration… Complete]

[Talent evaluation… Complete]

[Planetary Scan… Initiated]

The screen followed his head as he moved, making him think there was something on his head. Was this some kind of Augmented Reality toy that tracked with his head? Dante felt around his ears and found nothing, but he had his suspicions that someone was playing a joke on him.

“What the fuck is going on, Michael? You’re not funny. How was dinner, by the way?”

No one answered him, but more text appeared on the screen, drawing his eyes to the screen floating in front of him.

[Exceptionally high population.]

[Surface is devoid of energy (Ungradable).]

[96% of the population is without an affinity.]

[Average talent grade: low.]

[Warning: Extreme technological dependence found. Planetary culling protocols have been added into Integration procedures.]

“What the fuck is this?” Dante muttered, looking around his room again for any clues. “Michael? Hello?”

[Welcome to the Multiverse, Child of the Ancients!]

[Your resident universe is the 487th to be integrated into the system, and as such, your world will be topographically altered and fundamentally enhanced to provide a more conducive environment for your growth.]

“If you’re going to prank me, at least make it believable.” Dante stood up and walked over to his bedroom door, but before he could grab the door handle, the world began to blur. He took a step back and looked around the room in a panic, only for his eyes to find their way to the interface as it followed the movement of his head.

[Congratulations! You have been deemed a Peak-grade talent. Unique, Elite-grade tutorial grounds will be allocated.]

[Teleportation process will begin in three seconds.]

Dante lunged at his bedroom door, but as his fingers brushed the handle, they went straight through the solid metal. It was almost like he was grasping at air. Then, before he could do anything else, the world became shrouded in darkness. There was nothing but emptiness all around him, followed by a light squeezing sensation across his body.

The sensation only lasted for an instant before he appeared near the middle of a large, dome-shaped cavern. Dante didn’t pay much attention to the cavern at first, glancing around the room in fear of being attacked or falling off a cliff since he had no idea how teleportation worked. But when his mind processed his surroundings, his jaw dropped at the ridiculousness of it all.

Dante’s parents had gone on a holiday across Europe a few years ago. Luckily for him, they actually decided to bring him along with his brother and sister. When they made it to the Vatican City, they went to St. Peter’s Basilica, the world’s largest cathedral. It was over a hundred and thirty meters tall, a magnificent example of human architecture.

The cavern dwarfed it many times over, likely reaching upwards of over half a kilometre in height. Although it was natural while the cathedral was man-made, the dome of the cavern was covered in a haze of rainbow mist after about three hundred metres up, blocking his sight of the roof itself.

For all he knew, it might even go up for over a kilometre.

Dante had no idea what could be causing the strange mists, but when a glimmer caught his eye, he realised that every inch of the circular wall was covered in different coloured crystals. They were obviously natural as they were rough and randomly scattered across the walls, but that was unimportant compared to the sheer quantity. He could see no grey rock on the circular walls as it was entirely covered in crystals of every shade imaginable.

Thousands of square meters of this enormous, dome-roofed cavern were covered in clusters of these crystals.

Dante looked around and immediately found a tree-sized pillar of crystal stabbing out of the ground behind him. There were hundreds of similar crystals scattered around him, each a few meters apart and each one giving off a different coloured glow from its core. Dante stared at the pillar of crystal behind him, and to his surprise, it slowly shifted from a vibrant orange into a crimson red that made him feel like he was in an ocean of blood.

Had he really been teleported?

Dante was about to pinch his leg to see if he could feel pain when the cavern shuddered. The rocky floor heaved beneath his feet, almost throwing him to the ground, but when the cavern filled with hundreds of terrifying avian screeches, he dove underneath a tilted brown crystal out of fear.

A second later, the screeches were replaced by the sound of the air being beaten by hundreds of wings. A noticeable breeze sprung up around the cavern, and as the cool air began to dance across his skin, he saw thousands of massive birds flying around the roof.

Dante’s curiosity overcame his fear, and in the most cautious manner he could, he peeked out from underneath the earthen-brown crystal to get a look at his visitors. The one he spotted had a wingspan larger than a car, making Dante’s eyes almost fall out of his head. Its feathers were also a golden brown, and its talons were as long as his forearms.

Although they looked like hawks since they had hooked beaks and thick, feathery legs, he was sure that he had spotted some scales. Most of the hawks he could see appeared to have scales around their faces or beaks, but some of the larger beasts seemed to also have a cluster on their chests.

Dante wasn’t into birds or anything like that, but even he knew that hawks didn’t have scales on their chests.

More importantly, why the fuck was he here? Didn’t the screen say he was in some kind of tutorial? If so, then why wasn’t he in a starter village or something? Even his magic screen was gone now.

With nothing left to do, Dante remained hidden under the tree-sized crystal. But after about a few minutes with nothing to do, he began to peek out from underneath, soon noticing that many of the hawks were hovering in place. He wondered what they were doing when he saw a hawk fly up into the haze of mist lingering around the ceiling.

After another few minutes, he realised that roughly one hawk every second or so would fly up through the mist. However, theya weren’t disappearing up there. A never-ending stream of hawks descended from the mists, disappearing on the other side of the enormous cavern and likely flying out of an exit.

Strangely enough, the ones flying up were flapping their wings and making a big show of it while the hawks flying down looked tired and worn out.

If they really were leaving through an exit, what were they all doing inside the mists? They flew in, disappeared for a few minutes, then flew out. It was painfully obvious that something was going on up there, making him wonder if this was some kind of set-up designed by this ‘system’.

It just seemed too perfect. He teleported into a cavern, then a minute later, a flock of hawks entered to do their secret business meeting up in the mists.

The more he thought about it, the more obvious it was that someone or something had crafted this scenario or at least had a hand in setting it up. However, he could do nothing, so he just sat there and waited until all of the hawks flew out of the mist and disappeared.

After he was sure that the last one had left, Dante peeked out from underneath the crystal and looked around. Even though he knew they were gone, seeing thousands of people-sized hawks flock around the ceiling made his arms and legs turn into noodles. They felt utterly limp, unable to gather even an ounce of strength in.

It took Dante a while to process his thoughts, but once he realised that his only chance at life was to search for an exit, he crawled out from under the crystal and was about to go exploring when he heard someone speak behind him.

“Ah, you’re still alive! You wouldn’t believe how many people die right at the start.”