Level 1: Tutorial

  Hello, my name is Dante Montenegro and I'm 20 years old. And if you really want to know something about me, I’ll tell you something you can't even imagine…

  To begin with, I don't consider myself a victim, a misunderstood person, nor a lost boy who needs love. I'm not going to dress this up with pretty words. I was exactly everything the world would define as human scum.

  Honestly, I don't say it with pride, nor with regret; after all, my past is what built me. And that night… that fateful night was when I confirmed it.

  It all started on a hot and starry summer night, without a hint of wind. I had argued with my dad until we almost broke our throats. The fight had been so fierce that I thought the walls of my house were going to crack.

  He was screaming that I was destroying my life, that I had to find a decent job, a girlfriend, settle down… that my life of crime was going to end badly, that maybe I would end up dead.

  Like that drunken bastard had any right to lecture me about life.

  I… responding to him with hatred that he didn't understand anything and that he had no business meddling in my life, with that hollow rage one feels when there is nothing left to say.

  I left the house without looking back and took my motorbike, which was always my refuge. I needed to de-stress a bit. I accelerated with rage, as if I could escape from myself at 120 kilometres per hour. That was my talent: fleeing from everything. From my house, from my problems, from myself.

  After riding a few kilometres, I saw her. She was alone at the bus stop. Perfect, I thought. An easy target. I accelerated and stopped in front of her, pointing my revolver at her.

  I got off the motorbike and walked towards her. The dark-haired girl looked at me with fear, clutching her handbag against her chest.

  — The handbag — I spat, still pointing the revolver at her.

  She backed away half a step, frightened.

  — Please… my mum is in hospital… I need to get there…

  That "I need" irritated me. As if her urgency had more value than mine. As if she believed her problems meant something to me.

  — I don't give a shit about your mum… I said give me the handbag. — I cocked the weapon —.

  You fucking bitch, don't make me waste any more time! — my voice boomed even with my helmet on.

  The terrified young woman tried ridiculously to resist, crying desperately. I grabbed the handbag forcefully and we started to struggle. She scratched my arm and that's when I lost control.

  That was the last straw for me to cross the limit of my sanity. I gave her a brutal kick in the stomach, throwing her to the floor, “for being cheeky”.

  All the anger I had bottled up I discharged in that blow. I didn't even care that she was whimpering, or dragging herself across the floor. Let her cry all she wants, I thought.

  I ripped the handbag from her hands while she tried to breathe on the floor. I didn't even look at her; I just wanted to leave.

  Without looking back, I jumped onto my motorbike with my heart racing, and made it roar, escaping at full speed.

  Sometimes I see myself from the outside when I think about that night. Observing that Dante ride off towards his destiny…

  The road was empty, so Dante accelerated his bike fully and started to speed off. The swift lights of lamp posts and traffic lights reflected on his helmet. He accelerated even more; he needed more speed. The air vibrated around him as the motorbike roared, consuming everything.

  A perfect job, he thought with satisfaction, clutching the stolen handbag.

  That pure adrenaline. That excitement, was the only thing that, at least, filled the void of his existence a little. The little that cheered up his shitty life.

  A few metres further on, a sudden breeze picked up, making the dry leaves flutter around. The air swirled towards the road, reaching the exact spot where Dante would cross. A sudden breeze — one that did not belong to that windless night.

  At that instant, Dante felt the sound disappear, even the noise of his motorbike. This unnerved him, making him frown.

  There was something strange in the air, a strange vibration, almost imperceptible, that made everything feel… misaligned. Like when a screen glitches for a second. He didn't know how to explain it without sounding like a lunatic.

  And then reality… twisted. The lights stretched. The roar of the bike was heard again, but distorted, like an old, warped record. The temperature around him dropped suddenly; he felt very cold which made no sense on such a hot summer night.

  An invisible tug shook the motorbike to one side, and Dante felt how he lost stability. The wheels skidded on a ground that no longer seemed like ground. The handlebars trembled. Everything started to spin.

  The stolen handbag and his revolver flew out along with Dante. The bike crashed into something and broke into pieces. Then came a dull thud against the asphalt that not even his cheap helmet withstood.

  Followed by that sharp, long, infinite beep… He saw figures approaching to help him.

  He tried to move his lips. But something that pierced his helmet covered his mouth.

  A cold force — silent, firm — with thick invisible fingers. As if the Earth itself did not want him to utter another word. It was no longer necessary.

  He wanted to scream. He couldn't. He was no longer reacting.

  Everything began to fade. Little by little, he felt as if the void itself was absorbing him, slowly extinguishing everything around him.

  As if something was dragging him… Being ripped from his own body by something he couldn't understand.

  …

  Dante opened his eyes, feeling that his lungs lacked air.

  His vision was blurry. He wasn't bleeding. He didn't feel pain; only a deep void that confused him. He looked at his arm; he didn't even have the scratch the young woman gave him when he stole her handbag. He looked up, confused.

  He was still struggling to breathe, trying to understand where he was. The place surrounding him was impossible.

  A grey and infinite space, without a defined shape. Thick mist covered the textureless floor. A silence so perfect it seemed artificial.

  — W… What is this place…? — he mumbled in a panic while trying to translate what his eyes were seeing.

  He started to move awkwardly, moving his hands… he flailed his arms, punched at the empty air and screamed for help in vain, hearing only his own echo.

  Am I dead…? But I can feel my body; I'm not hurt he thought, trying to remember the last thing that happened.

  Soon something caught his attention… He took a few more steps and that's when he saw them.

  There were thousands and thousands of stones suspended in the air. They shone like deformed diamonds, of different sizes. Some floated motionless; others moved slowly, like fish in an ocean without water. All of them bore luminous symbols, with changing colours, and with inscriptions he couldn't understand.

  Runes.

  He had played many video games with his mates in his life to recognise them immediately, but something like that was illogical to exist: they looked beautiful, disconcerting, floating as if they formed constellations.

  — What the hell is this? What is this place? — he asked himself, bewildered.

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  His mind was cloudy, confused, but something suddenly began to push him towards a particular stone. The glow of that stone attracted him strongly, as if something inside him compelled him to take it.

  His trembling hand reached out without him realising. As he touched it, the space shuddered…

  The stone shone intensely, the light embedded itself in his skin. A luminous multicoloured tattoo quickly branched out with fine lines, expanding across his entire right arm. It didn't hurt; there was just a deep, strange sensation, as if something inside him recognised that sign… and accepted it.

  The rune and the tattoo disappeared as quickly as they appeared, but the mark was already on him, though invisible. Engraved on his soul.

  When he observed his arm, confused, something flickered on his retina. It was text written on what looked like a light blue holographic screen:

  [Rune of Infinite Regression]

  Grants its bearer the ability to rewind Time without limits upon each death,

  preserving all their memories, returning to the starting point in Level 1.

  Warning: each death entails loss of accumulated perception.

  — Huh? Rune of Infinite Regression? What the hell is that? — he asked himself, running his hand over the message, trying in vain to touch that hologram. — What does that message mean…?

  All that grey space crumbled like a mirror smashing into a thousand pieces, before he could wonder what happened.

  Everything disappeared. The space, the runes. And finally…

  He felt the floor beneath his feet. The light changed. Something new opened before his eyes.

  An infinite, grey room, without windows or doors. With identical columns scattered, disappearing into the distance, and walls that, if they existed, were lost beyond the visible. A space that looked like a warehouse, both common and absurd. The silence was absolute. The air, dense and stagnant, smelled of centuries without movement. With every step he took, the feeling of being watched increased. Fear chilled his blood, making his heart pound.

  It was when a new line of text appeared before his eyes:

  [Level 1: Axis +X. Class 1 — Survival Difficulty: Tolerable]

  Occasional presence of non-aggressive entities. Dangers are minimal or easily avoided.

  Hostility generally depends on human behaviour.

  Survival is possible with caution. Several identifiable exit routes exist.

  Level 1

  Trying to focus his gaze, he read the message with confusion, — Level 1? Survival Difficulty? Axis? Class?

  Something inside Dante was pushing him, ordering him to move. It wasn't fear; it was a strange urgency to move.

  In a corner, a rusted iron bar caught his attention. Almost as if his criminal survival instinct was screaming at him to go for it.

  He decided to take it as it seemed as if the heavy air itself demanded that he be prepared for whatever might appear.

  Dante took the bar and that's when he realised that the columns adorning the corridors also extended into the infinite, upwards and into the distance.

  — What the hell is this place? — he asked himself, confused, observing the absolute void.

  The light seemed to come from nowhere and, even so, it didn't calm the bewilderment. A constant pressure continued to surround him, as if someone or something was watching him, invisible. The smell of metal and ancient dust intensified.

  Something on a wall caught his attention. They were marks, lines engraved quickly. Twisted, illegible phrases. He tried to read them with a frown, but they were incomprehensible words, incomplete phrases, as if someone had left a desperate message before disappearing. A chill ran down his spine, making him tense up like an agitated cat.

  A low noise, almost imperceptible, brushed his ears.

  — Who's there?! — he said, but silence answered. Something was moving somewhere, but his mind didn't seem to be able to register it. He tried to reach for his revolver from his waistband by instinct but fleetingly remembered he no longer had it.

  He took a step forward, completely terrified, sweat pouring down his entire body, and it happened.

  Reality ripped open and from among those folds, something with its jaw open, emerged from nowhere. A distorted creature, without a defined shape and the size of a human arm. Slimy, grotesque folds surrounded it. A reddish core beat in its chest.

  Before he could process the threat, it was already on him. That thing was trying to devour his face.

  Terrified, he started to struggle, trying to get it off him, screaming desperately.

  Soon, a stabbing pain ran through his groin: the monster's stinger. He felt his warm blood drain onto the floor after being wounded by the monster.

  As best he could, Dante desperately grabbed the creature by the throat with his sweaty and trembling hand.

  The entity's spiny, slimy armoured skin dug into the palm of his hand, causing his blood to start pouring down his arm in torrents.

  He moved his other arm as best he could and tried desperately to sink the bar into the red core. But the creature was stronger, soon enormous, pointed teeth sprouted from its mouth, swallowing Dante's head with sharp movements.

  His vision turned red.

  The last thing he managed to feel was how his skull was crushed and chewed by the creature.

  Everything went dark again; there was no more pain.

  Shit, now I'm really going to die he thought, full of confusion and terror.

  …

  Then he opened his eyes, as if waking from a nightmare.

  The rusted iron bar was in the same corner, the same grey light, the same endless corridor… the memories of all his previous regressions returned with overwhelming clarity.

  He remembered every specific detail of his past actions. And most importantly, the mistakes he had made.

  Dante took a deep breath.

  He observed those dirty and bloodied hands, which were now completely clean, with indifference. As if he had lived this moment countless times already.

  His body didn't have a single scratch, and when he looked at the bar again, in the same corner where he had found it that first time, he understood that he had died once more and returned to the starting point.

  To the same point, just after obtaining his rune.

  To Level 1.

  With a fixed gaze, lost in a single point, Dante relived his first terrifying experience in Nullaria.

  That visceral fear that had paralysed him the first time now clashed with his absolute indifference, with the exhaustion caused by repeating it over and over again.

  Each death returned him to the initial instant, but it no longer seemed tragic; just a reset, the zero point he had to endure.

  The rune engraved on his soul reminded him coldly: it allowed him to go back in Time without limits, keep all his memories, and always return to Level 1.

  — Shit…— he murmured to himself, with a halo of frustration.

  It didn't matter how many times it happened; the memories of all his deaths were still fresh in his mind. All that suffered pain no longer mattered. Only the lesson learned from those mistakes made was the most useful thing now.

  If you ask me how many times I died and came back to life in this place, I lost count a long time ago.

  A valuable lesson that Nullaria taught me: in nature, there is no room for individuals who are useless. It doesn't negotiate with weakness. It doesn't feel compassion. It acts without hatred, without pity, without hesitation.

  There is no malice in it; that's really how Natural Selection works. In the animal world, the useless ones are eliminated. But in the human world… they are concealed.

  We are billions of people on Earth, each convinced of their worth, of their place in the world. But the truth is much rawer than that.

  Humans invented systems, laws, support networks… And even pretty words like “hope”, “empathy” or “second chances”, even for people as rotten as me…

  All that as if they were patches over a truth that no one wants to say out loud: sometimes, some people simply have to be cast aside.

  And just as nature purges the weakest, I discovered in the worst way possible that the planet has its own silent way of purging people.

  It's not immediate. It's not visible. It's not a punishment, but a silent correction. A protocol that happens without anyone noticing. And when it happens… well, it's almost as if the world itself pushes you to the edge.

  An accident here, an overdose, a stupid decision there. And poof, you fall into a deep coma. And soon, you find yourself plunged into chaos, your existence broken, suspended between life and death. Fighting desperately to try to prove to this disgusting planet or whoever is behind all this that your damn existence is worth it.

  I was told that when someone loses their will to live… when their existence becomes a nuisance… Something on Earth decides to act, slithering in stealthily, initiating a process that I still can't fully understand.

  But it's not coincidence or random. We are carefully selected by something that drags us to this place — all for the sin of not knowing what the hell to do with our existence.

  All I can think is that if you are someone who is depressed, frustrated about being unemployed, depressed about not meeting your family's expectations, you're screwed, you are single-handedly securing a one-way ticket to this hell without even knowing it.

  The good thing is that I'm not dead yet… As long as my body is alive on Earth and I keep fighting here, there is still hope of returning.

  I just hope I can go back home before someone in my family decides to disconnect my life support and erase me from the face of the universe forever. Without even imagining it.

  It's truly maddening not to be able to do anything about it…

  Little by little, Dante's mind returned to the present, interrupting his train of thought about the type of Natural Selection that the Earth applies to human beings.

  He shook his head, walked with renewed determination, picked up the rusted bar from the corner.

  — Here we go again… — he whispered, as if cheering himself up.

  As he had already experienced countless times, as if it were a sickening time loop, the same creature emerged again, exactly from the same place, fracturing reality itself.

  Dante plunged the bar into its core without hesitation, destroying it again, and even with the tedium of having done this so many times already. The impact was immediate.

  He watched the creature disintegrate, in a sigh, with a chilling shriek that faded with the dust.

  And his eyes landed on the scrawls written on the wall, where incomprehensible doodles had been before.

  “Careful, they are there even if you can’t see them.”

  The message was clear. It was a warning left by someone for the newbies.

  He made a face as if all that now seemed funny to him. At first, his own fear distorted the message, making it illegible due to his low spiritual perception.

  But now his perception was different, much higher thanks to all he had learned after countless deaths and resurrections.

  A bored yawn escaped him as he cracked his neck with a lazy tilt. With the iron bar resting on his shoulder, Dante started walking with renewed determination, whistling a careless tune as he faded into the distance, ready to face a new regression… again.

  End of Chapter One.

  Welcome to Nullaria.

  spiritual perception of the soul — to make it see what has always been right before its eyes. There are no shortcuts, no sudden salvation — only growth through pain and persistence.

  What do you think about the Natural Selection of the Earth upon humankind?

  What do you believe Nullaria truly is?

  Nullaria.

  — Alberto Báez