Escape...The word echoed in my mind.

  4 minutes 49 seconds.

  I stared at the number slowly whittling down, processing it all.

  The earthquake seemed like a distant memory. Only the mess in the locker room reminded me it had happened moments ago.

  Escape. I have to get out.

  I climbed to my feet but felt the floor cave under my weight. I was sinking. Metal creaked and groaned as the floor cracked.

  I threw myself to the side just before it collapsed, slamming onto the cold metal lockers. Craning my neck, I peered into the hole, then recoiled, scrambling backward. My hands, clammy with sweat, slipped on the metal. My heart raced.

  The hole was growing and taking most of the room with it. The same thing had already happened to the floors below. A dark abyss of watery clouds waited beneath, as if a gargantuan creature had taken a bite out of the building.

  I crawled toward the door. Perched on the lockers, I couldn't stand, they were too tall, and the ceiling too low. The clock ticked in the corner of my vision.

  This is really happening.

  "Shit, shit, shit," I muttered to myself like a mantra as I scampered forward, my knees aching as they slammed against the cold metal. I had to get out.

  The collapse followed me like a shadow, never straying more than a few meters away.

  Reaching the doorway, I dropped from the lockers to the floor and tried the handle. Stuck.

  I stepped back as far as the tight space allowed, then dashed forward, using my momentum to kick the door. My foot smashed into the wood, and time seemed to slow as the panel creaked and gave out. The door jumped off its hinges and crashed into the hallway, and I stumbled with it, tripping over the water fountain that had blocked me in.

  Without pausing to breathe, I scrambled to my feet and dashed into the open office. Wild winds from outside kicked up sheets of paper, which fluttered through the room like a flock of birds and obscured my sight. I flailed my arms frantically, trying to get them out of my face.

  I didn't bother clearing anything from my cubicle as I passed. Nothing was valuable enough to make me stop.

  Just one more turn to see the elevators.

  3 minutes 55 seconds.

  It took about a minute to ride the elevator to the ground floor. I was going to make it. I was going to be alright.

  Or so I thought when the elevator bell chimed, and a mechanical voice flowed into the corridor. "Floor eighty."

  There were others!

  "Hold the elevator!" I shouted, picking up my pace.

  "Someone's still out there!" I heard someone mumble.

  "Screw them! I'm not risking my life for someone I don't know," another snarled.

  I wanted to shout a protest at them, but my bare foot slipped on a pile of scattered papers. I crashed to the floor and felt my chest deflate, "Wait," I tried, but could only whisper. I heaved for breath and tried again. "Just fucking wait!"I screamed.

  They argued as the elevator's shrill voice called out again. "Doors closing."

  I turned the corner just in time to see the relieved faces of the people who left me behind. I knew them. I knew them all.

  Fucking HR.

  They made it sound as if they argued, but they never even considered waiting for me, not truly.

  A young intern mouthed, 'Sorry,' as the door closed and the bell chimed, signaling the elevator's departure. She was pretty enough to have been the main point of gossip in the office since arriving a few weeks ago, but at that moment, she might as well have been the devil.

  I climbed to my feet and grumbled, "Sorry? You fucking better be sorry... There was time! You could have taken me!" I kicked a cubicle, my foot tearing through the thin paper wall like it was nothing. I struggled to pull it back out, unleashing a barrage of profanity.

  The building quaked, and my senses returned. There was no time for this. I hurried to the mechanical doors and pressed the elevator button. A thrum echoed from the shaft, like a wire pulled taut. Something had happened. The button flickered with the universal red for danger. The display number above the door told me the elevator hadn't made it all the way down and that it wasn't moving. It was stuck.

  "No," I said and pressed again. Still nothing. "No, no, no!"

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  I glanced to the side, my heart sinking. There was only one way down without the elevators. "Stairs it is..."

  I pushed the fire escape door open. It was heavy, and the hinges needed a good oiling. I couldn't remember a single time I'd seen the door opened during my time at the company.

  I forced my way inside as fiery red lights lit up the stairwell in a pulsing rhythm. The emergency lights. We'd been taught to follow them at crisis training, they'd lead us outside when all else failed.

  My legs screamed for mercy, barely supporting my weight as I ran down the steps. Every floor had a sign with the floor's number, and I counted them as I went. Ten stories at full speed took about thirty seconds, maybe a little longer in my current state. This was going to be tight. I swallowed and tried not to think of it. All I could do was run.

  I focused entirely on moving until the mysterious blue line shortened, forcing me to give it some attention.

  59 seconds

  To my side, bold red letters painted the wall: Floor 24.

  I cursed under my breath as the room swayed, and my footing shifted. A deep rumble tore through the building, like paper tearing.

  The sound grew louder until it filled my entire world and rushed right by me. I breathed a sigh of relief just as the wall a floor below exploded into a hail of rubble. The elevator car barreled into the stairwell, ripping pieces of concrete and metal piping with it. Water sprayed from the wall like rain.

  "Just a bit further!"

  I recognized the voices.

  Fucking HR! Not only had they left me behind, but now they'd destroyed my means of escape too. They must have gotten stuck when the elevators stopped working.

  I shook my head. "Focus!" I barked.

  The fire escape door on this floor had been left open by evacuees. I rushed through it and into the unknown office. It was shaped like a large cube with windows lining the far wall. I made a beeline for the closest panel and flung a thick monitor at it. The glass was too thick, designed to withstand heavy winds. I slammed my fist into it. Nothing.

  I needed something heavy. My eyes fell on a fire extinguisher half-buried under a knocked-over cubicle. I scrambled toward it, my legs burning. The roar of the collapsing building grew louder. Closer.

  I grabbed the heavy red canister, the metal felt like a cool blessing in my sweaty hands as I took a deep, ragged breath and swung it at the window with every ounce of strength I could muster.

  The window cracked into a web of white lines. I reared back and slammed at the window again.

  The second strike shattered the window and sent safety glass scattering into my face. A rush of cold wind nearly blew me off my feet. It made the sweat on my torso feel like it was freezing. I swallowed and peered outside.

  Two levels below the 24th floor, to my left, was a window washer's platform. Further beyond, scaffolding encased the next-door building. It was a measly twenty stories tall and was dwarfed by the skyscraper I worked in, but just tall enough that scaffolding for facade work made sense.

  The gap separating the washer's platform from the scaffolding looked to be about 4 meters. With the difference in altitude, I could make that work.

  I dared a glance at the time and gulped.

  8 seconds.

  Scratch that. I had to make it work.

  I took a few steps back and breathed. "Here goes."

  With my heart pounding against my chest, I dashed to the window at an angle and jumped outside. The roiling winds ripped at my loose sweatpants and almost made me veer off course.

  A weird smile crept onto my face. Amidst the cold wind caressing my steamy skin and the sudden leap of faith, I suddenly felt something I hadn't in a long time:

  Excitement.

  I slammed down onto the washer's platform. The screws holding it together rattled from the strain. Forcing my legs into a final sprint, I jumped toward the scaffolding. I didn't know when I started, but mid-air, I realized I was screaming.

  Blue letters scribbled themselves into the air I ripped through.

  Building collapse imminent.

  A wave of heat brushed against my neck, and a frightening roar escaped from my workplace. In front of me, the smaller building flickered with unnatural light.

  I stopped screaming and watched in bewilderment as it burned away like an autumn leaf at the sun's surface. Then, I slapped chest first onto the scaffolding, the metal bars forced the air out of my lungs.

  "What the fuck," I wheezed and watched as the building disappeared in a cloud of steam.

  Planet surface cleared.

  Terraform in progress.

  Initiating status distribution.

  My vision flickered. I blinked, trying to regain composure, only to find myself in a vast, empty room. The scaffolding had disappeared, and my feet felt solid ground once more. I bent at the waist and coughed. My chest flared with pain.

  Greetings, survivor.

  The voice came from the walls, the floor, the roof. It was everywhere—it was everything.

  I swallowed, and a trickle of sweat dripped down the side of my head.

  The room warped. A familiar desk and office chair formed out of thin air—my desk and the chair I'd longed for just minutes ago. It rolled out and turned to welcome me to sit. Swallowing my confusion, I sat down on the leather seat. I cringed as it stuck to my sweaty skin.

  The chair rolled me to the desk, and I barely kept myself from letting out a surprised yelp.

  "What the hell is going on?" I muttered.

  The desk sprouted a screen, awfully similar to the one I had at work. Thin white walls started growing in a square around me. The desk grew a keyboard, and then a cup of lukewarm coffee, stress balls, and grandma's faded photograph.

  It was my cubicle, no doubt about it.

  The monitor turned on and displayed my motivational screensaver of a cat doing pullups on a tree branch with the text: "when life leaves you hanging, climb."

  Your world has reached the required threshold of mana, the cat said.

  As a result, the world as you know it has come to an end. In its place, a new one is rising. You, along with the other survivors across Earth, will be the ones to shape the future of this new world. It let go of the branch and clapped. Confetti exploded with fanfare. Rejoice, your world is being elevated to a greater plane of existence.

  "What the fuck?"

  Fear not, your kind will receive the necessary means to brave the dangers of this world. You will enter a tutorial period while the world completes its terraforming process. During this time, you will be given ample time to adapt to the system.

  I stared at my hands, unsure of what to say. I had more questions than I knew what to do with. Were all survivors going through the same thing?

  They are.

  I jumped in my seat and gulped. "You can read my mind?"

  It shook its head. The initial world warp is almost complete. Thus, our time is running out, and your questions will have to remain unanswered. Before you are moved to the Tutorial area, I suggest you familiarize yourself with your status. Develop yourself as you see fit, but know that your actions and experiences will be the cornerstones on which you build your class.

  I was about to ask how when a transparent screen bloomed in the center of my vision.