The staff room was empty. Typical. So it was easy to find this year’s staff photo. He stood in front of the photo wall, filled with pictures stretching back decades. They were of Remi’s old staff, from his old school, and he was in none of them. Before all of this, he would look at the wall, and revel in his absence. Mission accomplished. I will fade from here like a ghost, with not even a single photograph to mark my presence.

  Why had he done that, really? It didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was that now he wanted to be there. Not just for the stupid quest, but because now he likely was a ghost in the real world. A simulacrum of running through what used to be his life, and likely no one even noticed that the real him was gone.

  The glass panel that covered the frame was clean. Behind its shiny surface posed dozens of smiling faces; all arranged in symmetrical rows on the gym risers. A close examination showed Remi that some of them were even marked as active participants. Wallace was in here. Janet, a woman he liked to call the Math Matriarch, had also made the cut. Most were dormant, staring back at him with lifeless eyes.

  In the back row, where the tall people stood, was an empty spot. A whole left just to the right of middle. Remi couldn’t remember when they began doing this. Leaving his spot vacant. It had started as a joke, a reminder to Remi that he wasn't as smart as he thought he was.

  He reached into his shopping bag, brushing away a stray onion peel that clung to the printout. The security still, him waving, hand on the fire alarm—the candid criminal. He tore himself out of the page. It was a jagged rectangle that was just large enough to fit in the gap. A three-quarter framed Mr. Page, smiling and waving at the camera. It had taken him the length of the walk here from the office to figure out how he was going to do it. The thought of sneaking back to the office to steal some tape had crossed his mind, but had quickly been abandoned as he couldn’t bring himself to see Astrid again.

  Improvisation was something he had always been good at. If he could eat noodles with coffee chopsticks, this would be easy enough to figure out. It ended up being pretty straightforward. Remi touched the glass and cast Mana Lash and then stuck it to the back of the picture. While still connected, he retracted the lash, letting it snap in place against the glass. Ensuring he pulled out his finger at the last minute. The photo held. Now to make it permanent.

  Gently, he touched the meter stick, his first weapon, now a wand as he held it against his waving form. He could feel the new paperclip rune under his thumb, and so he carefully channeled into it, causing a pulse. He didn't think of the picture, but through it, to the lashing behind it. Unsure if he needed to say anything, he did anyway.

  “I want to be here. I want to be remembered.” Remi thought of leaving a permanent mark. His mana surged, not outward, but downward, into the floor of the Crucible itself. With the stick serving as a conduit, the rune did what it was shaped to do; it attached the picture to the glass. Ink tendrils reached out from the image, toner turning to fingers reaching, over the edge and through the glass. They paused, as if the Crucible itself were unsure, but then they continued to dig inward, and pulled the picture after it. Until it too was behind the glass. It flared once and then settled into permanence.

  Remi rested his hand against the pane. The glass was cold under his palm, yet he could feel the photo pulsing, as if waiting. He thought of all the effort it took to get this image whole. Of the effort it had taken to hide from it originally. Even the effort it took to be a part of a place like this.

  Then the pane trembled, like a cramping leg muscle; it rippled from the glass up through his arm, steady, rhythmically, and deliberate, like the Crucible itself was taking his pulse. The ink tendrils behind the glass contracted, pulling the picture into the image itself, so it no longer floated just behind the glass. Remi was now part of the actual picture.

  [AI]: You’re part of something. Glad you finally see it.

  The words could be comforting or condescending, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was Remi in this moment. He lifted his hand as the warmth faded. The image was sealed now; if you looked closely, you’d never know Mr. Page hadn’t always been there, smiling and waving from the back row, the whole time.

  [SYSTEM MESSAGE]

  Mr. Page

  Narrative Instructor

  Status: Pending

  Remi paused. Then, slowly, he reached into his bag and pulled out his pen. He marked the glass, not with an incantation or a flourish; it was more of a scribble. Big and messy, yet impossible to ignore. He wrote directly on the glass, scrawling across his chest.

  Remi Page was here!

  The ink shimmered faintly in the HUD. It wasn't so much an act of graffiti, more a declaration of his philosophical shift. It was unsanctioned, and the ink stuck.

  [QUEST COMPLETE: PROVE YOU EXIST]

  You have left a permanent mark on this place. You forged it yourself, and it's one we can’t delete.

  Bonus Achieved. This world will remember you on your own terms.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  REWARDS:

  XP: +150, 1320/1350.

  UPGRADES:

  - Mana Lash: Anchor Ability Unlocked. You can now tether objects to other locations.

  - Annotation Glyph: You can now tag objects in-game to have them recognized by your Codex.

  Remi knew he should not hang out here. He took a last look around, trying to soak it all in. He knew he would never be here again. Before he left, he should check his mailbox one last time. It likely would have only junk mail. Flyers from publishers address to Department Head, or even more likely, special discounted car insurance for teachers.

  He walked over and found his name and was pleased to see there was, in fact, something in there in the cubby. Maybe a note from a former student? For the briefest of moments, his chest tightened with hope. It wouldn’t matter what it said. It could be a doodle. A scrawled thanks. Even a long forgotten DVD from a student who borrowed it after missing the film study, somehow unearthed and guiltily returned. Anything that marked a genuine connection would have been enough. Some small glimmer of the past he could cling to.

  It wasn't. In fact, it was the opposite. He sighed in exasperation at the Christmas decoration he now held. The ornament said, “YOU ARE ONE OF A KIND!” There was one in every box, so it was probably from HR or the Wellness Committee. He flipped the cheap-wood decoration over. Made in China. Figures.

  Never mind, he thought to himself. All thoughts of nostalgia burned away in a blaze of irony that was lost on whoever selected the “gift.” Remi Page walked out of the room, dropping the ornament in the trash as he left. He didn't look back. Lunch in the cafeteria it is!

  Remi would have liked to have said that the cafeteria was as he had left it, but that was certainly not the case. While he’d been off questing, the previously unoccupied space had clearly hosted visitors. Although the space remained empty, so much refuse now filled the once mostly clean environment that even a politician couldn't adequately downplay it.

  There were wrappers and half-eaten sandwiches, noodle cups and French fry containers, bags of both paper and plastic strewn across the floor, with such disregard it almost felt personal. That would have been bad if the waste had still been on the floor, but it hadn’t. As the waste currently cycled the room by some invisible hand. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, he described the Third Circle as having a floor of vile slush, with a perpetual filthy rain. Remi finally thought he understood the image, stuck here in a literal trash maelstrom. Yet, if Dante were here, he would have changed the name of his poem, as nothing about this was remotely funny or sacred.

  The lone redemption feature was the glowing trash can at the center of the chaos. It was the eye of the trash tornado, and it was dragging debris into its plastic belly. Well, at least there is that, he thought to himself as he took a seat. Leaning slightly to the side to avoid a spiralling, half-eaten soft pretzel. Unfortunately, he couldn’t dodge the spray of mustard that followed. The yellow smear would never come out of his shirtsleeve.

  It was, all things considered, quite impressive to watch the bin do its work. The pale blue glow from the mouth of the receptacle shot straight up into the air, like a flashlight on a dark camping trip. As food scraps floated through the beam, they briefly hovered, halted from their circular journey before getting sucked straight down into the bin. It was an insatiable maw, consuming all that had been left behind.

  The anthropomorphic trash was impressively onomatopoeic. As chip bags flapped like crows, crinkling and slapping their polyethylene wings. The straws clicked like mantises as they scuttled across the floor. Sandwich bags rustled as they careened like tumbleweeds across the floor. Each sound on its own would likely have gone unnoticed, but combined they created a discordant dissonance, the sound of a cafeteria’s choir gone feral.

  A closer examination revealed that it was operating under orders.

  [AUTOMATED SANITATION PROTOCOL]

  Instructions: Clean ALL

  TARGET: Food

  [AI]: It really is quite impressive to watch, isn’t it?

  Remi: Yeah. It really is.

  [AI]: Sort of like a Trashrora Refusalis.

  Remi: Gross. This is nothing like that. The auroras are a miracle, and this is garbage and flickering lights.

  [AI]: Well, the real ones are just solar waste.

  Remi: No. Your comparison is missing all that it important. Its truth is technical, not emotional. It’s absent all the soul, the humanity, that comes from looking up into a dark sky and seeing the heavens painted with a celestial brush. I saw them once, with my…

  He paused.

  Remi: …people. For years we had gone on nighttime quests, with disposable coffee cups in your car’s holders, to drive far into the country in the vain hope that we might catch a glimpse. Then one night, we just walked into the field beside our house and there they were. They were magic. This is nothing like that.

  [AI]: Noted. But I have another observation.

  Remi: What?

  [AI]: You’re sitting in a sanitation zone, and while that is fun and all. This would be so much better.

  [SYSTEM MESSAGE]

  A request for the removal of trash bin 1423.6-A has been received and authorized.

  With a soft pop, the trash can disappeared.

  Remi: What is the benefit of doing that?

  [AUTOMATED SANITATION PROTOCOL]

  Target Reassigned: Closest food-adjacent holder of refuse.

  He wasn't sure why any of this even mattered—until he remembered that looped around his arm was a plastic shopping bag. A bag that was already holding some onion peels.

  [AI]: Tag! You’re it.

  All the waste: the wrappers and crumpled napkins, the lids and the straws, the forks and the ketchup packets, milk cartons and juice boxes—all of it paused in the air. They hovered there for a moment, suspended mid-motion, and then turned. Remi knew they didn’t have eyes, but he felt their gaze all the same. And in that brief moment of recognition, the entire room of refuse launched itself directly at him.

  [AI]: Fooooood Fight!

  Remi: You have got to be kidding me.

  [AI]: Does that sound like me?

  The System arrives on the day of his prison transfer. Championship VR gamer Ian turns disaster into a second chance at freedom, reluctantly accepting the System's brutal demand: lead or die.

  Transformed into a hulking orc and thrown into a deadly tournament to determine leadership of his cell block, Ian navigates a prison turned battleground, forging shaky alliances with rival gang leaders to survive.

  Guided by Otis, a snarky orc assistant who mocks Ian’s axe swings as “lumberjack chic,” Ian battles mutated beasts and advances through the System’s paths. He must escape before alien invaders descend in six days, then reunite with his wife and daughter. But Ian fears they’ll reject the monster he’s become.

  Ian must unite a crew of orc inmates, conquer monstrous guardians, and break out of the prison—before the aliens enslave them all.