Prologue

It was early in the morning when Elo woke up because of a loud bang from a distance.

An average person would have been shocked, but for Elo, it was quite ordinary to wake up to the sounds of war. Since the war had come to his hometown about 20 years ago, everything had changed for him.

When it happened, he was just a normal teenager, staying at home, playing games and reading novels on the internet.

It had been a day like every other and Elo was alone at home because his parents had met up with their friends in the new cafe nearby.

He was about to start one of his new games when he suddenly heard the slamming of the front door. He had a bad feeling; usually, his parents would never come in like this.

He was shocked when his parents came running through his door to tell him to hide in the secret room his father had built him when he was young.

As soon as he had entered the room, his parents rolled out a carpet over the trap door.

About a minute later, the soldiers arrived.

Elo could hear them breaking down the door, and soon after, he heard shots.

While listening to the death cries of his parents, Elo swore to become stronger to punish those who had killed his family.

After a few minutes, the soldiers left the house, but Elo could still hear gunshots and the screams of the wounded. Only after another few hours, silence finally arrived. When he stood up, his whole body hurt, but he didn't care. The only thing he felt was a deep terror.

When the army found him, they first thought he was dead. One soldier was experiencing the shock of his life when Elo suddenly moved.

He was the sole survivor of this massacre.

But all of that was a long time ago…

Elo stretched his body and splashed his face with cold water to get rid of the bad memories.

He now was one of the best soldiers throughout the entire region. Every day he didn't fight on the battlefield, he trained his body and his weapon skills.

However, due to his lacking social abilities, Elo never rose to a higher rank. Everybody respected him, but they didn´t like him. His companions knew he was a good soldier, but nobody considered him a friend.

-"Damn, I have to stop thinking so much."-

That was when he suddenly heard gunfire near his tent. Elo was terrified.

-"I knew the enemy was near, but how are they already here? The enemy´s base should have been attacked by the rest of the army one hour ago; we were only supposed to be a support unit."-

He hastily put on his clothes and ran outside, the rifle in hand.

Once he saw what was happening, he felt reminded of the day his town had been attacked. There were dead bodies everywhere, and the enemy´s soldiers were swarming the camp.

-"I knew there was something fishy with this mission. The army used us as bait to make it easier for them to attack the enemy´s base."-

Suddenly he felt a stinging pain in his head region. The pain was so immense that he wanted to cry like a little child … but he couldn't. It felt like the body that hosted his mind for all those years just didn´t want to follow it´s commands anymore.

He couldn't believe it. After all, he´d done for the army; they send him to his death. His whole life, he had trained, just to end up like all his former neighbours and family, to get killed at the hands of the enemy´s soldiers. He had always chased strength but had never reached anything.

At this moment, he hated the whole world, but the one he hated the most was himself. He hated himself because he wasted his time chasing revenge and strength, but never really lived his own life.

-"I wish I had a second chance; I would…"-

That was when all his pain and emotions were washed away, and for the first time in his life, he felt nothing.

Nothing but a weak force pulling on his consciousness.

But the force got stronger and stronger, until it was so strong that Elo thought he couldn't endure it any second longer.

That was the moment when the force disappeared, and Elo was able to look at his surroundings again.

What he saw shocked him.

He wasn't on the battlefield anymore. The only thing he saw was white. Even when he looked down, to where his body should be, there was only white.

-"Is this heaven? But why would somebody like me go to heaven? I already killed so many people…"-

He was torn out of his thoughts as a grey bar suddenly appeared in front of him. Elo was already wondering what this means when the bar started filling with a green glowing substance.

"What is this? It kind of looked like the loading bar of a videogame, but something like that couldn't be real, right?"

As soon as the bar had filled to the top it disappeared. When Elo was already thinking about what would happen next, a big screen appeared in front of him.

"WELCOME TO THE GAME"