Chapter 1

"Hey Jake, when's the new anime coming out?" Jacob asked, wondering if his friend knew. "Or should I just Smoogle it?"

Jake shrugged and replied, "I'm not sure. I've been pretty spaced out today."

Sighing, Jacob pulled out his phone. "Well, I'll just check online then. It's the 22nd of November, so it should be out in two weeks, right?" He asked, lifting his head up and staring at Jake.

Jake nodded absently, still staring off into space.

"The reincarnation anime, season four with the bird," I reminded him.

"Oh right. Yeah, can't wait," Jake finally responded, snapping out of his trance.

Jacob decided it was too hot and Jake was too boring so he would go down and have a shower. As he made his way down the stairs, he couldn't help but feel a sense of frustration with Jake's distraction.

It was as if he was barely present in the conversation, his thoughts somewhere else entirely. The heat of the day didn't help his mood either, the air thick and oppressive as Jacob descended the stairs. Sweat dripped down his forehead, and he longed for the cool respite of the shower.

When Jacob stood in the bathroom, preparing to step into the shower and wash away the sweaty stress of the day, his phone suddenly made a strange noise from its speaker. Although it was on vibrate, and as he picked it up, he couldn't help but feel a weird sense of dread.

To Jacob's surprise, the screen displayed a video of his Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.

Justin's face was grave as he spoke, his voice heavy with sorrow. "My fellow Canadians, I regret to inform you that the United States has engaged in a full-blown nuclear war with Russia. Many cities have already been targeted, and other nations are also launching their weapons in response. We have failed you as leaders. May God help us all."

As the video ended, a countdown appeared on Jacobs' now unresponsive phone, showing that there were only 22 minutes until the first impact.

He stared at the phone in shock, mind racing as it tried to process what he had just seen. Is this a joke? Is he hallucinating? Jacob quickly ran out of the bathroom and towards the entrance, leaving the door open as he ran across to his neighbour's apartment, pounding on the door once he realized it was locked, shouting for Cameron.

*BANG, BANG, BANG*

"CAMERON!" *BANGBANGBANG*

"ANSWER THE DOOR!"

When he opened the door, he looked just as frightened as Jacob felt. "What the fuck is happening?!" he shouted.

Jacob shook his head, trying to focus. "I don't know, but we have to get moving... Get to the basement. It's our only chance of surviving if we're not in the direct blast of the bomb. Jake's coming too. Let's grab as much water and clothes as we can. Grab your garbage bags too. Throw the soft stuff down the broken shaft. Thankfully, our cheap landlord might have helped us this time."

Jacob raced back to the apartment, followed closely by Jake, who seemed to have finally snapped out of his trance. They quickly gathered supplies, throwing everything into plastic bags and tossing the softer things, like clothes and shoes, down the broken elevator shaft. Jacob had always been paranoid about these kinds of things and had made rudimentary plans in case of an emergency. He knew the elevator led to the basement, and below that was a sub-basement where we might be safe.

As the two college students rushed around, gathering their belongings, they could hear panicked voices coming from inside the apartment building. The walls were paper thin in some places as the concrete was falling off.

"Jake, come on!" He shouted, pulling him towards the door. "We don't have much time left. We need to get to the basement now."

Jake nodded; his eyes wide with fear as he followed Jacob out of the apartment. They could hear the panic in the voices of the other residents as they realized what this actually meant.

"Cameron, have you got everything you need? Throw the shoes and clothes down the shaft. Anything that won't break but we can use, or you can't carry but might as well risk it." Jacob quickly asked, turning to his neighbour.

He nodded slightly, lifting his left arm, holding up 4 bags filled with supplies. "Yeah, I think so. Let's go."

The three ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time as Jacob tried to outpace the ticking clock on their phones. Anyone could feel the fear and adrenaline coursing through each person's veins, urging them on as they reached the basement level.

As we made our way down to the basement, Jacob couldn't help but feel a sense of despair wash over. He couldn't believe that it had come to this, that the world was on the brink of destruction. He just hoped that we could make it through the night, and that somehow, they could rebuild and survive in the aftermath of the nuclear war. Although he would miss his anime too.

"In here!" He yelled, pushing open the door to the sub-basement. It was dark and musty, but it would have to do. Jacob hurried inside, followed by Cameron and finally Jake. They paused, taking a break. Then Jacob turned around and closed the door. Leaving it unlocked for now until the last minute, in-case others arrived.

They held their breath, praying that somehow the three would survive the night as the world outside would be burned and torn apart by nuclear war.

Each moment and breath felt like eternity, not being sure what you could do.

It was torture for Jacob. His body was shaking, and it felt like it was on fire from the stress. As if a predator would jump from any corner and his body knew it.

Jacob realized he didn't want to spend my last moments being a scared animal. So, he tried to make small talk, "Hey Jak..."

Something cut him off. It was a voice in their heads.

"Congratulations humans, you have been forcefully selected because of your incompetence to take part in the fantastic galactic games! Prove your worth as a species or be ground into dust by more capable aggressors!"

Jacob's mind raced as he tried to process this sudden turn of events. What did the aliens want from them? And what did this game mean if it could grind us to dust?

The voice continued

"We will provide each of you with your own AI orb, something to ensure everything stays exciting! It will help each of you on your pathetic journey to death! It's up to you to figure out how to use them, though."

"This guy... really doesn't like us," Jake muttered.

A flash of light seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, and the bombs disappeared moments before impact. Even jet fighters and passenger planes found themselves back on the tarmac. Jacob was unaware of all these things, mainly distracted by the orb in front of him.

The orb was a small, spherical device that hovered just above the user's shoulder. They equipped it with advanced sensors and processors that allowed it to understand and respond to the user's needs and desires. It could act as a personal assistant. It also could connect to data streams and access any information the user needed, making it a powerful tool for research and communication.

But the AI orb's capabilities went far beyond just being a personal assistant. They also equipped it with advanced artificial intelligence that allowed it to learn and adapt to the user's preferences and habits. It could predict the user's needs and provide helpful suggestions and recommendations, and it learned based on its experiences and requests from each user.

Each orb was different and had different potential based on how the user raised it, making it an invaluable resource for navigating the complex and unfamiliar world of the galactic games.

Besides all its advanced features, the AI orb also served as a phone and a way to communicate with the other humans, taking part in the games. It had a built-in speaker and microphone, and could even connect to other devices wirelessly, allowing users to communicate with each other from a distance.

Jacob came back from his stupor. "what the hell just happened? Where did that mental Wikipedia page come from!??"

Realizing the aliens must have uploaded information to their brain to skip the learning process and speed things up. A switch flipped; Jacob got started with his own excitement.

AI a free AI assistant!

"Wait, what do you mean by 'galactic games?'" the Jacobasked the AI orb.

"The galactic games are a competition held by advanced civilizations in the galaxy to determine the worthiness of new species to join the greater multiverse. Each colony has been given a set of technologies to use in the competition."

"The winner is granted access to even more advanced technologies and a place in the galactic community," the AI orb explained.

"But what if we don't win? What happens to us?" he asked with a sense of dread.

"If they deemed a species unworthy or incapable of competing, it erased them from existence," the AI orb replied matter-of-factly and continued. "If you don't win, you simply die or are assimilated into the winning party."

Jacob's stomach dropped at the thought of their entire species being wiped out. But realized that was already an ongoing situation.

"What will happen? Aren't we all going to die anyway from the bombs??"

"You were about to face mass extinction. However, before you heard the announcer, the planet was placed in a time dilation field. Each airborne object was returned to its origin in a Planck second."

Just before Jacob could ask any more questions, the AI spoke up on its own. This time it wasn't the AI's voice it had just used. It was back to the announcer.

"Greetings, inferior human! Congratulations on being chosen as a leader of a colony in New Eden. You will guide 3000 of your fellow humans as you design and build your new nation. Your sponsor, the esteemed Voidwalker race, has generously provided you with three technology points and an impressive selection of advanced technologies to choose from. Lucky you, winning the multiversal lottery of luck like this! I'm sure you'll do your best to disappoint us all, as seems to be the nature of your inferior species."

The orb chimed down and changed from a red glow to a silver one.

Jacob, Jake, and Cameron's world had been turned upside down in an instant. One moment they were dealing with a hot day, then frantically trying to find shelter from the impending nuclear attack, and next they were dealing with an extremely strange first contact with aliens. Before they could even process what was happening, they encased them inside strange bubbles which quickly *popped* and disappeared, along with the humans inside them.

All of humanity's creations left behind decayed rapidly into dust and dirt, similar to a snap from a movie. Removing all traces that humans even existed on the planet to begin with. While this happened, the atmospheric composition changed rapidly back to what it was 200000 thousand years ago.

And so, Jacob and the other leaders began their competition for humanity's survival in the galactic games, determined to prove their worth or their pride and secure a place in the greater multiverse for their species... or simply themselves.