He hit the ground hard.
Sand exploded beneath him, rough and freezing against his bare skin. A dry, hollow sound echoed through the air as his body slid across the black dunes, finally coming to a stop face-down.
Lucas groaned.
Every nerve screamed. His lungs burned. The cold bit into him like teeth.
He rolled onto his side, coughing, blinking rapidly.
Above him, the sky stretched endlessly in shades of dark violet, like a living bruise across the heavens. Slow, pulsing clouds drifted across the sky, glowing faintly with veins of purple light. And there, hanging like a goddamn curse, was a black moon—massive, unnatural, and silent—casting an eerie silver glow across the land.
That's when he saw himself.
Bathed in the moonlight, he looked down at his own body—bare, thin, covered in cuts from the impact. His skin was pale, dusted with dark sand that stuck to the sweat already forming across his back.
A young man, maybe 1.70 meters tall, lean but not fragile.
Black hair, messy and wild, hung down around his face, sticking to his forehead.
His eyes, wide and disoriented, were a dark black—almost soulless under the alien sky.
His jaw clenched as he forced himself upright, breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling with sharp, shaky breaths.
He was cold.
He was naked.
He was alone.
Lucas scanned the horizon. There was nothing but dunes of black sand, rolling endlessly in every direction. No buildings. No people. No sound. Just… stillness. The kind of stillness that made your instincts scream.
And then, he said it.
The first words in this new world.
"Where the fuck am I."
His voice cracked, raw from dust and disbelief.
No answer came. Not from the sky, not from the moon, not from anything else.
He tried to stand.
His knees wobbled, barely able to support him, but he managed. The cold wind wrapped around his body like a threat, and the sand clung to every inch of him like ash from a dead fire.
He hugged his arms close to his chest.
'This is The Crucible... isn't it?'
Nothing looked like he imagined. He had no map, no guidance, no system message, no weapon.
Just a dead sky, black sand, and a broken body dropped in the middle of nowhere.
And the worst part?
He was completely fucking alone and booty naked.
A sharp pulse struck the inside of his skull.
Lucas stumbled forward, clutching his head as a sudden, high-pitched ring filled his ears—like nails scraping glass, but from inside his brain. His knees buckled, and he dropped to the sand with a grunt.
Then came the voice.
Not really a voice—more like a series of cold, synthetic tones echoing in his head, clear but lifeless.
[System initializing...]
[Analyzing soul signature...]
[Assigning class...]
He blinked hard, squinting against the bright, flickering screen that appeared in the air before him. Letters and symbols scrolled too fast to read. Lines of code glitched and twisted like they were being torn apart.
[ERROR.]
[Soul Signature: Unrecognized.]
[Class assignment failed.]
[Attempting reconnection...]
Lucas stared at the interface, jaw clenched.
[ERROR.]
[ERROR.]
[ERROR.]
The screen blinked red, then vanished entirely—leaving only silence behind.
'What the fuck was that.'
He sat there, half-naked in the sand, cold and shivering, eyes locked on the empty air where the system had glitched out. His hands curled into fists.
'No class? No help? Nothing? Are you fucking kidding me?'
He rubbed his face, dragging his fingers down through his hair.
He'd heard that the system gave you a class as soon as you arrived. Gave you a path. A weapon. A direction. Something.
He got an error screen.
Just his luck.
He looked up again at the moon—black and uncaring—and let out a sharp breath through his teeth.
'Of course it fucks up the moment I show up.'
The wind picked up, sharp and biting, throwing waves of fine sand against his skin. He winced and tried to shield his face.
He needed shelter. Now.
He needed food. Something to cover himself. Anything.
'Okay… okay. Fuck the system. I'll figure it out myself.'
Lucas pushed himself to his feet, teeth clenched, arms wrapped tightly around his torso.
The cold was worse now.
Not sharp, but creeping—slow, like fingers dragging down his spine. The wind carried it in waves, each one colder than the last, each one pulling a little more heat from his body. He could feel his toes going numb.
'Gotta move.'
He glanced around. Just black sand. More dunes. Nothing else.
But then, in the far distance, barely visible through the shimmering heat—or was it fog?—he saw it.
A shadow.
A shape. Tall. Still.
Something that didn't belong to the sand or sky.
His heart thumped once, hard.
It was far. Way too far. But it was something.
A direction.
A goal.
Lucas took a step forward.
The sand shifted beneath his feet. Still hot from whatever sun once existed here, or maybe just from the world itself. He moved slowly, each step making the cold wind bite a little harder as sweat mixed with dust on his skin.
'This is hell.'
Every breath scraped his throat. His mouth was dry. His stomach churned.
He hadn't eaten since yesterday.
And now he was naked, in an alien desert, being hunted by cold and silence and a broken system.
'No food. No water. No fucking class. But sure, throw me into the wild naked. Great plan.'
He kept walking.
He didn't know where he was going.
Didn't know if that shadow in the distance was a building or just another illusion—just another fucked-up part of this nightmare.
But it was something.
And something was better than dying curled up in the dirt.
The dunes never ended.
Every time he climbed one, he expected the next to show him something—anything. A structure. A creature. A fucking bush.
But no.
Just more black sand stretching under the purple sky, under that silent, oppressive moon.
Lucas's legs burned. His feet were raw, cut in places where sharp crystals hid beneath the sand. His breathing had turned shallow, his head pounding with every heartbeat.
He stumbled, fell to one knee, then forced himself up again.
'Keep going.'
He didn't know how long he'd been walking. Maybe hours. Maybe more. There was no sun to measure time. Only that dead sky and the whisper of the wind, mocking him.
Every now and then, the system flickered back into his vision.
[ERROR.]
[Class assignment pending.]
[Soul not stabilized.]
And then gone again.
Lucas gritted his teeth.
'Stabilize this, you piece of shit.'
His body was trembling now. From cold, exhaustion, hunger. All of it. He wrapped his arms tighter around his chest, curling forward as he walked, his bare feet dragging through the sand.
He tried not to think. Thinking made it worse.
Thinking reminded him that he was alone. That no one was coming. That even if he screamed, even if he begged, the only thing that would answer was the wind.
His lips cracked. His throat burned.
And still—he kept walking.
His legs finally gave out.
Lucas dropped to his knees, hands sinking into the cold sand as he gasped for breath. Every muscle in his body screamed. His feet were cut, his skin raw, his throat dry as ash.
He couldn't feel his fingers anymore.
He blinked up at the sky, the black moon still staring down at him like a silent god.
'Fuck you.'
He didn't say it. He didn't have the strength to.
Instead, he let himself fall forward.
The sand hit his face like stone, dry and bitter against his lips. He didn't care. Couldn't care.
His arms refused to move. His body was done.
The cold wrapped around him like a shroud.
Darkness followed, slow and steady.
No system.
No help.
No class.
Just silence.
And black.