There were no fireworks. No digital cutscenes.

  No overly dramatic “Welcome, Player One” voiceover.

  Just pain. And static. And the cold, metallic taste of fear sitting at the back of Anya’s throat like she’d licked a corroded battery.

  She woke up sprawled on concrete — the real kind, not the pixel-perfect shiny flooring from her VR streams.

  Her fingers twitched like broken joysticks.

  Her vision lagged.

  The sky above her was glitchy, half-sunset, half-apocalypse, as if the game developers couldn’t decide between beauty and bloodshed.

  “Respawn successful,” said a voice.

  Flat. Robotic. Unapologetic.

  Anya groaned and sat up.

  Her limbs ached. Her head throbbed.

  She wore no armor, no stats hovered above her head, and her health bar — wait.

  Where was her HUD?

  She slapped her wrist. Nothing.

  No menu. No settings. No escape button.

  This wasn’t the game she logged out of last night.

  This wasn’t even the world she knew.

  This was Battle of Assassins versus Spies, alright — but this wasn’t any beta test or streamer-access pass.

  This was the game stripped raw. No cheat codes. No power-ups.

  Just one rule. Kill Anya.

  That sentence wasn’t metaphorical. It was painted — in actual dripping blood — across the building in front of her.

  KILL ANYA. ALL PLAYERS. NO MERCY. Well, that was... direct.

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  Anya Lewis, 17, MVP of the gaming scene, Twitch darling, top leaderboard killer — now target number one in a world where every other player had just one mission: wipe her out.

  She staggered to her feet, instinctively trying to reload a non-existent rifle.

  Muscle memory’s a cruel thing.

  Instead, she found herself in torn jeans, a hoodie too thin for the chill, and sneakers that felt like they were held together with prayers and duct tape.

  No weapons. No buffs. No exit.

  “Neutral zones,” she whispered, like a prayer.

  If the game’s rules held up, there had to be at least a few places where she wouldn’t be instantly gutted. She started moving — fast.

  Not because she knew where she was going, but because stillness was death here.

  It wasn’t paranoia if they were literally all out to get you.

  A crack of metal — behind her.

  She ducked.

  Something whizzed past her ear and embedded itself in the brick wall.

  A dagger. Shit.

  She ran.

  Half a city later — lungs burning, calves screaming — she stumbled into a dim alley lit by the soft, golden hum of a neon sign: “NEUTRAL ZONE – NO BLOODSHED, NO BULLSHIT.”

  Inside was a small café, the kind that looked like it was plucked out of a cozy anime and dumped into a warzone.

  And behind the counter?

  “Anya?!” It was Becky. Anya's best friend. A meme queen. The only person who ever beat Anya at a game of mental chess — because Becky never played by the rules.

  She was also, for some ungodly reason, holding a frying pan like it was Thor’s hammer. “I thought you were dead,” Becky said, pulling her into a hug that somehow smelled like burnt toast and bubblegum. “Also, three people tried to kill me with spoons outside, so... typical day.”

  Anya blinked. “Wait. You’re here too?”

  “Yeah. One minute I’m rage-quitting Valorant, the next I wake up here with a kitchen arsenal and a new appreciation for cardio.” Becky grinned.

  Anya didn’t. Not yet.

  Later, over hot noodles and a temporary sense of safety, Anya asked the question that wouldn’t let her rest. “Who brought us here?”

  Becky stirred her ramen like it held the answers. “No clue. But everyone I’ve talked to says the same thing.

  This game isn’t just a game. It's some twisted hybrid between reality and code.

  There are levels. Bosses.

  And the only way out…”

  She paused. “...is through the Central Tower.”

  Anya’s gaze dropped to her own trembling hands.

  No skills. No weapons.

  No allies she could fully trust. Except maybe Becky.

  And then there was him.

  The boy who walked in like he owned the place.

  Tall. Cold. That same sharp jaw and calculating stare that haunted her from every previous ranked match they’d ever played.

  Damian. Rival. Trash-talker. Probably a traitor.

  Maybe worse. “I thought you’d be dead already,” he said with a smirk.

  Anya stood up.

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  In this world, everyone’s a killer.

  The only question is: who’s killing for you... and who’s just waiting to stab you in the back?

  And somewhere, far beyond the pixel skies and scripted danger, a machine beeped softly in a hospital room.

  A girl lay still, eyelids twitching. And she was part of an experiment her father never asked permission for.