“When the ‘gift’ awakens, it will search your soul and choose the best ability to blossom for you. Don’t be disappointed if your ability isn’t strong. Compare it to a newborn; at first, it is helpless and needs its parents to take care of it, but over time, as it grows up, it gets stronger. As long as you keep working and get stronger, your ability will grow along with you. Take me, for example, my gift was simple: I could spark fire in my right hand. They called it ‘Fire Starter’. At first, I thought my ability was trash, but I didn’t give up. After years of hard work, it evolved into being able to control any fire, and its name changed; now it’s known as ‘Fire ruler’. Please pay attention as I will give a demonstration.”

  A spark flared at the tip of the instructor’s finger. It spread quickly, curling across all five fingers like a living thing. Then the flames lifted, hovering around him in slow, deliberate motion. He pointed to the ceiling, and the fire obeyed—rising, twisting, and gathering into a single, pulsing orb above his head. The new employees stared in disbelief, unsure if what they were seeing was real. Then the orb shifted. A long neck emerged, then wings, a tail. The fire reshaped itself into a slender dragon, its wings stretching wide enough to fill the room. Each scale looked chiseled from flame, so detailed it seemed almost solid. The dragon reared back, ready to breathe fire—then vanished, leaving only heat and silence behind.

  'Maybe I’ve made a good decision pressing that button. I wonder what my ‘gift’ will be. I hope I get something similar. I can just imagine creating a dragon and flying above the clouds. I will fulfil every young boy’s dream of riding a dragon after seeing them in movies and games.'

  A symphony of voices could be heard in the room. Each new hire began wondering what ability they would awaken. Silence loomed over everyone when the instructor began talking again.

  “I can see that you all are in high spirits, but not everyone can do the job of a reaper. In this branch, you have to put your life on the line to finish your assignment, so we will need to weed out the weak from the strong. To make it easier, we came up with a game, a battle royal. I think you all know what that means; there can be only one victor. Don’t worry, you will be separated into groups of thirty people and placed on a special island, where you will hunt each other until only one remains. Now, please pay attention to the screen behind me; you will see where your group is assigned. For the conclusion of this presentation, I can only say; Good luck and may the strongest contender win.” As he finished his speech, the instructor disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  'Are they crazy? They want to make us kill each other, but why does no one else look concerned about this delusional game?'

  Chris began looking around the room and was scared by what he saw. Not one of those creatures seemed to be concerned about the hunt; they all looked pleased by this denouement. A chill began to go down his spine, and he finally realized that he was in a room full of killers. He began to feel sick and ran out of the room to get some fresh air. His handler saw him and went after him.

  “What’s the problem? You can’t just flee like that in front of them all. They will now think of you as an easy target.”

  “I’m an easy target. In my world, we are the top of the food chain with no predators; we no longer have to live in fear of being hunted, but in this strange world, I’m at the bottom of it, and everyone else is a potential predator. I can’t do this. Let me get back home, I want to get home.”

  Chris began to frantically look around for a way out. There was no easy way out of this for him this time.

  'I’m dead, I can’t compete with those monsters. I won’t be able to return home, my parent won’t even know that I died. The last time we spoke, I told them not to call me anymore.'

  “Stop that! If you think like that, there is no future for you. Look at me, a long time ago I was in your position, but I managed to get through it. If I could get through, you can too.”

  “I was just a washed-up college graduate; I couldn’t even find a job. I survived thanks to donations from strangers who liked watching me play games. I’m not able to end someone’s life; I couldn’t even harm a fly. I’m that weak.”

  “Ok, I’m going to train you. The hunt will begin in a day, and we have to cram everything that will keep you alive. You are going to owe me big time. I’m going against the regulation, but it doesn’t really matter because you already got me in trouble. Oh, by the way, my name is Arwenwel, I’m what you people call an elf.”

  Arwenwel held out her hand to help Chris up. It was the first time he really looked at her: fair skin, emerald green eyes, short ashen hair just above the shoulders, and a crescent moon earring glinting on the tip of her pointed ear.

  'She’s so beautiful. Fuck, I forgot that she knows what I think.'