Chapter 1 - When it changed

Do you remember the moment your life became what it is now? Was there even one moment or was a series of moments that slowly transitioned you from one way of life to another?

I remember the moment. The moments.

The day itself hadn't been anything particular interesting or notable, it was a Friday though so that was cause for some celebration. I worked for a marketing company in the social media department. I'd never heard of them before joining but they ran paid socials for a bunch of important companies so it wasn't a surprise that they could afford an office in Canary Wharf. It was a good company, I even miss it now.

Back then I thought my life was boring, not going anywhere.

I was 25 when it happened or at least when it started. I'd had a few jobs in my life, since graduating university I'd worked three; the first two were retail jobs but I quit both after having customers berate me. I'd wound up with my at the time current job from complete coincidence, a friend of mine worked in the sales department and he offered to put in a good word for me. That's where I was for the past two years.

Outside of my job all I did was go home, eat food, watch TV, and play some video games. I'd tried dating but it never really worked out for me. Not that living in London allowed me enough spare money to go enough dates. I didn't see my friends much because I'd moved down to London for this job and with the pandemic I'd basically just started going outside when I moved. We still kept in touch but what was once talking to each other every day was a meme in the group chat or a game of something if people were free from their partners for the night.

My family kept in close contact but again I'd only seen them a few times since moving though they seemed supportive at the time.

It led to my social life consisting of work nights out or speaking to the receptionist at my local gym.

I think I miss those days.

The day had been warm. I remember dripping with sweat, our boss Peter was a tightwad and refused to put on the air-conditioning unless it got over 30°s. Whenever he was out of the room the workforce relaxed a lot more. Some of the most fun I'd had was in the conversations we had on days like that day. We were driven to the bone, paid less.

Work finished at 5:00 everyday but like every other day I had to work overtime just due to having too much work to do during my allotted hours. No matter how long I worked that job it always surprised me how many clients thought I simply worked for them and was waiting for their email and could drop everything to fix something that wasn't even broken in the first place. I'd given lunches, evenings, and weekends to people who paid my company enough money to drown out my complaints.

I actually left at 6:00 which whilst not ideal did allow us a mild reprieve from the foot traffic central London starts experiencing the hour before. I found myself walking with four of my colleagues; Matt, Megan, Becca, and Sara.

Matt had quickly become my best friend in and out of the working environment; we started on the same day and not even mentioning the fact that he was really nice to me we shared a lot of interests. I often compared him to our own Henry Cavil because he was a huge nerd but also extremely charming and good looking. On weekends we played video games together if he wasn't working out or on a date with a new girl - it was always a new girl he could barely hold down a girlfriend for longer than a month, always said he was waiting for "the right one".

Megan, Becca, and Sara were three of a five person group in the office. Sure they had other friends but it seemed from social media that they did everything together as a five. However, the other two drove so they didn't walk to the tube station with us.

Megan was a bit of a nerd, she played Dungeon and Dragons on the weekends and even dragged the girls along for her birthday and forced them to play along.

Becca was the rough and tumble one of them all. She had her friends backs no matter what and would fight for them, though she usually ended up in trouble because of it.

Sara was timid, she had a great time with her friends and she'd even started speaking to me about non-work subjects recently. Before then I could have sworn she was a selective mute.

Yet here were. I'll always thank that job for providing me with friends I wouldn't have met outside it's oppressive walls and windows.

The sun had begun setting when we left the stuffy building into what was still a sweltering evening. The orange and pink mixed like watercolours on the horizon. All the clouds reflected that beautiful rose from the fading light.

Our station laid up ahead. Canary Wharf might not have been the best view in the city but I enjoyed it. I'd always grown up in an urban area so I think I appreciated the architecture more than most. The tall buildings for most blocked that beautiful light, but for me the reflection on the windows and the act that the light always found a way through wowed me.

The air was hot and clung to me. I was only in a plain white shirt and tie but I could feel the fabric bound to my sweating skin.

London's rush-hour soundscape is nothing that can be described. It's city bustling taken up the extreme. Cars. Conversations. Footsteps. The Tube. There was so much going on at all times that you learned to focus on the sounds you needed like the people talking to you or the sound of your train coming.

Don't get me started on the smell though. Not because I don't want to complain, but because I wouldn't know where to start. Would it be the heavy air filled with pollution? The smell of sweaty pedestrians pushing into you, getting way too close into your personal space and having their stink stuck into your nostrils. The water of the Thames that's gone stale over countless centuries. The cars that have been modded to produce more exhaust fumes that should be allowed? Horrid is not the word, neither is rancid. There's also the smell that it could rain at any moment, even on days as clear as that one was. The oppressive smell. The rot of the city. It never went away. I doubt it ever will, you just get used to it. I got used to it. I don't like it, I never will, but I can't tell it's there anymore.

We'd just passed the ticket barriers, at the top of the escalators when it happened. It's like time stopped for a moment something appeared in my vision; it looked like a computer window. In front of it was the word Calibrating in big white letters. The window flashed, glitched, and changed into a ton of different shapes most I recognised as windows of various applications the Windows XP stood out to me. Eventually it settled on one I'd only seen a few times before but I recognised it from a couple comics I'd read before. It was a translucent blue box with white text with darker blue edges. The text etched upon it read,

Player: Jin Han

Available languages: English, Korean

How did it know my name? How did it know my languages? Could anyone else see it? That's when I noticed it. A sound I had never heard in London: silence.

Everyone had the same pop-up. Was it that all were calibrated the same or did they all look the same to me? No matter they all had them. Then the text changed,

Welcome to The System.

All will be explained to those who pass the first quest.

It held for a moment. In the top left it said the time. 6:07 p.m.

Main Quest 1:

Area: London – Canary Wharf Tube Station

Time limit: 30 minutes

Conditions: ??? or REVEALED IN 5

The secret interested me. But everyone's eyes were on the revealed.

REVEALED IN 4

REVEALED IN 3

REVEALED IN 2

REVEALED IN 1

Conditions: ??? or Survive

Survive

6:08 p.m. on August 31st of 2023 in London is when my life change irrevocably and I became a part of the system and the system became part of us.