“Joshua—sit down. Brandon, face the front. Guys, we are almost out of time, make sure you’ve finished your work. Remember, if you don’t finish it, here you’ll need to finish it at home!”

  He’d repeated some variation of the same sentence every Friday for the past four years.

  Erik smoothly walked between the crowded desks, checking his students’ work as he went. It was the end of a long day and an even longer week, and he was looking forward to getting home and relaxing. He’d broken up half a dozen arguments and confiscated two Pokémon cards, a whistle, and something marketed as “edible slime”—before lunch. The afternoon had progressed similarly.

  The last minutes of class passed in their usual chaotic fashion, with the children excited to be free from school for a couple days. Of course, none of the students were nearly as excited as the teachers were, and few made any effort to hide their feelings. Erik was one of these, and when the clock struck four he rushed the students out the door as fast as humanly possible. Several hugs and multiple fist bumps later, he was on his way home.

  Traffic was heavier than usual, even for it being a Friday, but Erik endured it patiently. He sang badly along with whatever music came on, and the ride was bearable. When he made it home, Erik took his usual shower and put on a pair of old basketball shorts and a beat up t-shirt before planting himself at his desk, eager to zone out for a while.

  Unfortunately, Erik was a compulsive email-checker—a habit that often resulted, as it did now, in him being confronted by unfinished work. Multiple unanswered emails were waiting for him, as was a reminder that grades would be due on Monday. Now that he’d seen them, there was no pretending they weren’t there.

  He also had a missed call from his friend Mattias, who probably wanted to go out for drinks. It didn’t sound the least bit appealing tonight, so he ignored it.

  Erik settled in and got his work done as quickly as possible, cutting as many corners as he could. Grades were aggressively curved, rounded, and estimated. Emails were answered with promises of follow-ups next week.

  The district loved metrics. Growth targets. Standardized benchmarks. None of it accounted for the fact that half his students treated school like a playground.

  Having finished his work and dispensed with his social obligations in the quickest way possible, Erik finally settled in to game for a bit. Within a few hours he had crushed his opponents. At least here, the rules made sense.

  Unlike most weeknights, Erik stayed up past ten before finally giving into exhaustion and going to bed. As he fell asleep, he thought he heard his phone vibrating on the nightstand. He didn’t check it. It buzzed again.

  Some hours later, Erik awoke suddenly. He found his body frozen in place, his eyes rolling wildly as he took in the dark ceiling above him and the lazily rotating fan. Panic surged in his chest as he struggled to move an arm, a finger, a foot. The sheets were twisted around him, feeling almost like bindings to his rioting mind.

  It’s sleep paralysis. Everything is fine.

  Having been through this a few times, Erik was able to take control of his emotions and forcibly calm himself. Despite the familiarity of some aspects of his situations, there was also something different about it—something that seemed more tangible than his previous experiences.

  However, before he could make meaningful progress, his thoughts were interrupted by the sudden appearance of a glowing blue rectangle directly in front of his eyes. As his mind scrambled to make sense of what he was seeing, text appeared on the blue shape he now recognized as a screen.

  System announcement:

  Your planet has been identified as populating a Residual Allocation Zone (RAZ) and is scheduled for removal shortly. Notice of the removal was filed with your local administrative office; if you are seeing this message, it is because you have chosen not to evacuate.

  Commencing Species Protection Lottery

  All users successfully assigned a lottery identification number

  Your number is: 13984842

  Drawing…

  Erik read the information, his eyes unable to widen the way the situation warranted. His internal struggle to move dropped off before stopping entirely. If this was a dream, it was the strangest and most intense one of Erik’s life.

  What the hell is happening— his thoughts were cut off as the message scrolled and continued showing new text after the brief pause.

  Winning number: 13984842

  Beginning extraction sequence

  Erik could not believe what his eyes were showing him. Quickly, he compared the two numbers. A lottery… and he had won? What did it mean by “removed”? Questions bored into his consciousness even as he felt an odd floating sensation—as if he had been given laughing gas. A tingling feeling spread throughout his body, and Erik was surprised at how nice it felt.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Just as quickly as he had formed that thought, however, the feeling grew sharper, more electric. Now it felt as if he were hooked up to a car battery and the current was gradually increasing.

  The ceiling fan definitely seemed closer than it had a moment before, and he still couldn’t move.

  All at once he found himself floating in the night sky. He was no longer laying down, but had been turned into a vertical position. From his current height, he could see cars on the interstate, all frozen in motion.

  No air entered his lungs, but he didn’t feel panicked at the thought. It was as if his body simply didn’t need it at the moment. There was no wind, no movement, no sound.

  Time stood still for a long moment, and then a new message arrived.

  Routing to nearest Immigration Center for initiation and orientation

  Warning!

  Mana null conditions detected: Routing not recommended

  …

  Exception: Species Protection Lottery = True

  Routing…

  The blue screen shattered the stillness of the night and brought a corresponding spike of dread in Erik’s heart.

  Routing sounds ominous enough on its own—what does it mean it’s not recommended? And it’s doing it anyways?

  He didn’t have time to worry further, however, as he found himself literally rocketing away from the planet, straight into space.

  Erik broke through the atmosphere in seconds, surely obliterating any launch speed records.

  His mind raced as he tried to process the fact that stars were now blurring past him, stretching into the distance as white streaks. Erik’s entire body was tense, expecting to feel something from the absurd speed at which he was moving, but it was quiet and still. Too still, in fact, as he still felt no need to breathe. There was no sound whatsoever around him, and he felt the silence keenly. It felt more profound than any other he had ever encountered, and it took him some moments to realize why.

  Not only was he not breathing, but his heart wasn’t beating either. His body was truly frozen, with only his mind free.

  Okay. I need to wrap my mind around what is happening. Let’s see, I was in bed. I was asleep. The—

  His thoughts were interrupted once more by the appearance of a screen in front of his eyes. It seemed to move with his eyes, always staying right in front of them and never falling behind despite the incredible rate of motion Erik was experiencing.

  User successfully extracted

  Clearing RAZ…

  RAZ cleared

  RAZ cleared? Surely that doesn’t mean…

  Time until arrival: 13:26:52.

  A timer appeared in the upper right corner of Erik’s vision. It was not in the blue box but was still somehow visible. It was counting down.

  As Erik struggled to keep up with all the changes, a new problem came to his attention. A warm, gentle feeling had begun in the center of his chest and seemed to be spreading throughout his body. Something had changed in the air around him.

  No, not the air—there is no air in space, idiot.

  Erik would have laughed hysterically at the not-so-funny thought, were he capable of doing so. Instead he focused on what was different. He felt a pressure against his skin. It was light, as if he was being pushed against by a breeze, but from all directions.

  The substance pushing against him met his skin and was easily rebuffed.

  The pressure increased slightly, and now it felt like he was immersed in water. The gentle warmth in his chest had spread fully throughout his body by now, seeming to loop out from his chest towards his hands, feet, and head. It was no longer quite as gentle, and was now accompanied by a sensation of growing pressure at a point to the right of his heart.

  Both of the pressures increased dramatically. It felt as though he was imploding and exploding all at once, waves of hot and cold rolling through him unpredictably. He was convinced that he would die at any moment.

  With the popping of a balloon, the external pressure vanished.

  Then, his body was absolutely flooded with—something. Waves of energy poured in through the bottoms of his feet, his palms, and his forehead, joining the torturous mass that was forming in his chest. With the gentleness of a stream of acid, the energy burned its way towards the growing point of darkness.

  The pressure point he had thought to be his heart absorbed it all, even as it continued to pump through him.

  Core instability detected

  Attempting to regulate…

  Regulation failed

  The sudden message distracted him momentarily, but brought no reprieve. His body was now a lightning rod, and a continuous stream of energy flowed through him, all of it being absorbed by the black dot that grew in uneven spurts. It was heavy, and as silent as everything else had been since time had stopped for Erik. He watched, helpless, as a dense, black bomb grew in his chest.

  The pain will end soon. It has to end.

  His mind jumped from question to question until it devolved into a mindless repetition of a single phrase.

  I will live.

  The thought carved out a corner of sanity for Erik to take refuge in.

  The pain was not gone, but through his intense focus Erik was able to set some of the immediacy of it aside. Then, from a somewhat calmer perspective, he was able to examine what was happening to his body.

  Energy was drawn inward towards the black mass he now knew was his core. It swirled in chaotic patterns. One moment it bounced off the core like waves crashing against rocks, the next it fell right in with no resistance at all. Rejected strands looped back through his extremities and tried again, gaining speed and force each time.

  Erik was used to dealing with chaos. That was part of being a teacher. As he watched the apparently senseless movements, he began to notice something. The rate at which his core was absorbing energy was continuing to increase.

  A new pressure built within the core itself.

  When it all suddenly ended, it took him a moment to notice. His body felt like it had been set on fire from the inside out. Repeatedly.

  Core stabilized