The Invitation

Just another day. Heat and boredom. Nothing interesting online, and the TV is blabbering on about disasters and the failing market. Damn. What a world. "Nea!" I shot up immediately. I never wanted to make my mother angry again. Not after last time... "COMING!" I yelled back, slipping on my favorite slippers—the ones with the bunny pattern.

Walking down the stairs for the nth time today, I wondered how some guy can own six houses while I can't even have safe, unbroken stairs. I quickly stop thinking about it, though, because a smell takes over my brain. Rice again. But then again, I love rice. Wonder what's with it today. I sat down at the table and saw: boiled chicken, various vegetables, boiled eggs, some fish. "Enjoy the meal!" I announced, piling the ingredients onto my mound of rice.

It was already evening. As usual, I couldn't sleep because of the temperature. It's too hot in here! Why did my dad have to be some guy from the north... Suddenly, a notification pulls me from my musings on ethnicity... an email?! Probably another scam. Ughh, but honestly, I'm curious...

I clicked the browser icon. My email inbox appeared, and in it, an unread email with a weird subject line: "A world without sickness, for you." Strange... I wonder if Mom was logging into her health portals from my computer again.

I move my cursor over the trash can icon next to the subject. I'm just about to click when the subject line changes! Now it reads: "Immortality within your grasp."

Probably just a bug on the email client's side... ugh, all the networks have been acting weird lately. It's definitely a bug. Better delete it. As I think this, the subject changes again: "Infinite possibilities."

Okay, that intrigued me. I clicked "Open." Oh it's empty...

The next night, a console window opened by itself. A CONSOLE WINDOW OPENED BY ITSELF?! I scanned everything: all the antiviruses, logs, background processes. Nothing. Empty. Zero suspicious activity. Finally, I looked inside it. There was just a link: "N342ASTL.id".

I don't click suspicious links. Especially ones that appear in my terminal on their own...

But something pricked at me. I don't know what. It was like... I needed to click it. Like the world was waiting for me to finally do something.

Since then, I've been going back to N342ASTL.id every day. The site only loads for me. When I sent the link to my friends, their IPs got banned. When they came over to my place, the server crashed. They say I'm going crazy. And me? I know this site is just for me.

Every day, I got new tasks. Leetcode style, but something was off. The deadlines were insane. 10 minutes for something that would normally be "Hard+"? No problem. I knew this. I saw these patterns.

But some of the tasks were... different. They didn't exist anywhere else. Algorithms in some language I'd never seen before. LSPL. Commands from another system. They'd give me 5 minutes to learn, then 5 minutes to solve. The variables in this LSPL were weird, too. Who the hell names variables "Human_4308i123" or "Tarluon_4"?

It should have been impossible. But when I was there... I felt like my brain was being externally powered. My motivation? Superhuman. When I finished a task, I felt this unexplained anxiety. Like something around me had changed. Maybe I really was getting paranoid.

Three tasks left.

... The last task—solved. I stretched and took a victorious sip of cold orange soda. After catching my breath, I clicked "next" with a smile. Hah, another hundred percent! I'd already figured out this whole LSPL.

A sudden change on the screen snapped me out of my thoughts. The site... vanished. Or maybe it transformed? Everything looked different. Patterns—hundreds of tiny patterns in strange colors—swirled on the screen. Futuristic. Almost hypnotic.

In the middle, question #100:

"A pack of Blatuans is hunting you. Write the code that will allow you to proceed. You may submit the solution in LSPL or execute it physically."

What kind of weird-ass task is this?! A file downloaded automatically: map.jpg.

I opened it. A map of my city. The target: Abandoned Industrial Building #34. But there was no route. And then I realized something else. I wasn't given any variables for the task. And every single task in LSPL has external variables. Every one.

Why were there none in this one?

And why did I smell... chocolate?

In the evening, Mom sat at the table, peeling a mango. The room was stuffy, but not from the heat—from the silence. For a moment, there was only the sound of the knife hitting the seed. I watched my mother's hands work automatically, as if repeating something memorized from childhood. I wanted to say something.

"Mom..." She looked at me. Not sternly, not tenderly. She just... looked. "Hm?" I swallowed. My throat suddenly felt dry. "What if you...? ...eh, never mind."

She put the mango pieces into a small bowl and handed it to me. "Here. Eat before it turns brown."

I took the fruit, but it had no taste. Nothing had any taste.

It's been three days since I unlocked task #100. I still don't understand how I'm supposed to use LSPL. There's no text field on the site for the code. And the smell of chocolate follows me everywhere... I tried to tell my friends, but when I'm in a group, the smell disappears.

Maybe I should follow it? Or maybe I've completely lost it, just like my friends said.

I can't with this anymore! Its been a month! A. MONTH! OF SMELLING THIS DAMN CHOCOLATE! I have been to doctors. NOTHING WRONG WITH ME. I have been to psychologists! NOTHING WRONG EITHER. Maybe a little stressed? MAYBE. I got the meds but they don't do jack shit for me!

I can smell it even with friends around now!! And they tell me they CAN'T! Im going insane! Tonight! IM GOING TO THIS DAMN BUILDING.