The bloody vending machine just nicked my last one-pound coin.

I stared at the glass. I pressed B4 again. Nothing. Absolutely sod all happened. I gave the machine a proper, heavy smack with my fist, but my packet of cheese crisps just hung there on the metal coil, practically laughing at my face. I'd been awake for nineteen hours coding, and those crisps were my only hope for dinner.

"Fine," I muttered, kicking off my trainers as I walked back to my desk. "I'll just starve then."

I slumped into my chair and booted up my absolute favourite computer game. If the real world wanted me to go hungry, the digital world could at least let me win a match.

The second I put my headset on, my mates started screaming in my ears.

"Kael! Where the hell did you go? We lost two rounds because of you!"

"The machine stole my money," I said. My voice was completely dead because I was just too tired to care. "Calm down, I'm pulling the boss now."

The monster on my screen was massive, breathing bright red fire. My team had been dying to this thing for four whole days. Why? Because they never paid attention. They just ran in like headless chickens and got wiped. I didn't waste my breath trying to teach them anymore.

I just watched. I found the pattern, waited for the exact second the boss opened its guard, and beat it easily.

That's my number one rule: Watch first, move second. Everything else is just noise.

Then, the air in my room went completely weird.

It wasn't a massive clap of thunder. It was just this heavy, suffocating feeling in my ears, like right before a massive storm. My desk light flickered twice, buzzed, and went completely black.

I quickly typed in the game chat: brb.

But I never got to hit the enter key.

The floor under my chair literally disappeared. I fell straight down into the dark.

One. My carpet was gone.

Two. The air became bloody roasting, smelling like pure smoke and sulphur.

Three. My feet hit a hard, rough stone floor.

My knees bent to stop me from face-planting, and I forced myself to stand up straight before my brain could even understand what was happening. I looked up. My bedroom ceiling was completely gone. High above me, the sky was a swirling, angry mess of purple and dark red.

Then I looked straight ahead, and every single part of my body told me to run. Just turn around and run as fast as you can, mate.

But I forced myself to freeze. I took a deep breath in through my nose and let it out through my mouth. Hold it together, Kael. Do not let these gits see that you are terrified.

The room was a giant hall made of black stone. Massive torches hung on the walls, but the fire on them was completely wrong—the flames were pointing down toward the floor, not up.

And the place was absolutely packed with monsters. Hundreds of them.

To my right, there was a big lad who looked totally normal from the waist up. But below his waist? He had four thick, creepy spider legs that went click-click-click on the stone. He was shouting at a teenager who looked like he was made entirely of grey smoke. Across the room, two demon girls were laughing, and every time they giggled, the actual air around them cracked like broken glass.

The smell of burning rocks and heat made me want to gag. My heart was thumping so hard against my ribs I thought it would pop out.

I am in Hell, I realized, my stomach dropping. They have actually brought me to Hell.

I let myself panic for exactly one second, and then I stopped. I had to look at the facts.

° Rule one: My magic level is 0.00%. I have zero powers.

° Rule two: I smell like a human. If any monster catches my scent, I am dead.

° Rule three: I still haven't eaten those cheese crisps.

I shoved my hands deep into my hoodie pockets to hide the shaking. My fingers touched a heavy, cold black ring I'd found embedded in my floorboards earlier that day. It felt like ice against my skin.

Suddenly, bright glowing lines and numbers popped up in the air right above the monsters' heads. The spider-guy had a bright red aura, and the smoke-teen had flashing stats. I didn't know what the numbers meant yet, but they were a pattern. I could study them later.

I walked over to a big stone pillar near the side of the hall and leaned against it. I tried to look completely bored, like I did this every single Sunday.

My face: I am not scared of a single one of you.

My heart: Please, please do not look at me.

I stood there for two minutes. Then, the smoke-student suddenly turned around. He had no eyes—just two dark, empty holes in his face—and he stared right at me. He looked like he absolutely hated my guts.

My stomach dropped. Oh, he knows, I thought. He's figured it out. He knows I'm a human. I'm so dead. It's over.

But even though I was screaming inside, I didn't move. I didn't run. I lifted my chin, stared right back into his empty eye sockets, and put on the coldest, most arrogant, "I don't care" face I could manage. It was the exact same face I used when people talked absolute rubbish to me in online gaming lobbies.

We stared at each other. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.

The smoke-student looked away first. He turned and walked off.

I let out a very quiet, shaky breath. Wow. The bluff actually worked.

Suddenly, the entire hall went freezing cold. All the heat was sucked out of the room in a snap. The loud voices of the three hundred monsters stopped all at once. The hall went so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

At the far end of the stage, three tall figures stepped out. They wore long, dark robes.

The black ring in my pocket shook violently. It tried to read their power levels, but it couldn't. The system completely crashed, and a tiny line of text appeared in my eyes:

[DANGER LEVEL: UNKNOWABLE]

"Great," I whispered to myself. "Just wonderful."

The tallest leader walked to the front of the stage. A dark hood hid his face, and his fingers resting on the table were long, white, and sharp. When he spoke, the voice didn't come from his mouth. It came from deep inside the stone floor beneath our boots. It shook my feet. It vibrated right in my bones.

"NEW STUDENTS."

The sound was so heavy it made my teeth hurt.

"THE NAMES OF THE CHOSEN WILL NOW BE CALLED. THE SORTING WILL BEGIN."

Immediately, the hundreds of monsters jumped into perfectly straight lines. They knew exactly what to do. I looked at the lines, then looked around for a door, a window, a hole—anything to run out of. There was nothing. I was trapped.

Then, the tallest leader slowly turned his head.

He didn't look at the monsters standing in line. He turned his face across the giant room, looking right past the crowd, and stared directly at my pillar. Straight at me.

The weight of that stare felt like a heavy brick resting on my chest. I could barely breathe. The ring in my pocket turned so cold it felt like ice burning my leg.

He knows, a small, terrified voice in my head whimpered. He knows you are a human, and you don't belong here.

My heart was hammering against my chest like a trapped bird. But I didn't run. I stared right back at the hidden face under the dark hood. I kept my hands deep in my pockets and kept my face perfectly still, like stone.

If I am going to die here, I thought, I am not going to make it easy for him. I am going to look him right in the eye.

The leader slowly raised one long, sharp finger. He pointed it straight through the crowd of monsters, right at my face.

"YOU," the deep voice roared, shaking dust down from the ceiling. "STEP FORWARD FIRST."

The three hundred monsters all whipped around to look at me.