The Null Player

The Null Player

mimisnow04 · Ongoing · 69.1k Words

866
Hot
866
Views
0
Added
Add to Shelf
Start Reading
Share:facebooktwitterpinterestwhatsappreddit

Introduction

Xavier didn’t ask to be chosen. He didn’t even know he was being watched.
When a global simulation system called ARES silently activated across every human mind on earth, billions of people woke up with classes, stats, and a rank. Warriors. Strategists. Architects. Everyone got something.
Xavier got nothing.
No class. No attributes. No rank. Just a single blinking error message where his player profile should be: NULL.
The system flagged him as a glitch. His government labeled him a liability. The powerful players who rose overnight looked at him the way people look at something they want to erase. He was given 30 days to either manifest a class or be permanently expelled from the simulation which everyone already knew meant brain death in the real world.
What nobody bothered to tell Xavier was that NULL wasn’t an error.
It was the rarest player designation in ARES history. A blank slate that could absorb, copy, and evolve any ability from any class with no ceiling, no restriction, and no rules. The system didn’t fail to assign him a class. It couldn’t. He was incompatible with limitations.
Now Xavier has 30 days, zero allies, and a target on his back from every top-ranked player who just realized what a NULL can become.
They should have just left him alone.

Chapter 1

The simulation was supposed to be painless.

That’s what the government broadcast said, three weeks before ARES went live. Every screen, every speaker, every notification feed carried the same message in that calm, rehearsed voice they use when they want you to stop asking questions. The ARES integration process will feel like falling asleep. Citizens will wake up classified, ranked, and ready to contribute to a new era of human potential. They said it so many times it stopped sounding like an announcement and started sounding like a prayer.

I remember watching the broadcast from the break room of the logistics warehouse where I worked night shifts. My coworker Dania had her hand pressed to her chest like she was about to cry. My supervisor, a thick-necked man named Pollock who had never once said anything kind to me, was grinning at the screen with the wide-eyed look of someone who had already decided he was going to be important.

I felt nothing. Not excitement. Not fear. Just the quiet, familiar weight of someone who had learned not to expect much.

My name is Xavier Cole. At the time ARES activated, I was twenty-three years old, behind on rent, and working a job that required exactly none of the two years I had spent studying systems engineering before I ran out of money to continue. I wasn’t miserable. I just wasn’t anything yet. I was the kind of person the world hadn’t gotten around to noticing.

ARES noticed me. Just not in the way I expected.

The activation happened on a Tuesday at 3 a.m. global sync time. I was on my lunch break, sitting on a crate behind the warehouse loading dock, eating cold rice out of a container I had packed the night before. The air was sharp and the sky above the city had that sick orange glow it always gets when the cloud cover is low. I remember the exact moment it hit because the rice was halfway to my mouth and then my hand just stopped.

It wasn’t painful. They were right about that part. It felt like a wave moving through water, except the water was me. Every cell, every thought, every memory I had ever filed away in the back of my mind got touched by something and reorganized in less than a second. I felt my consciousness expand into a space that hadn’t existed before and then contract back into my body like a rubber band snapping home.

Then I woke up on the concrete and the sky was starting to get light.

I had been out for almost two hours.

The first thing I noticed was that everyone else was already on their phones. I could hear Pollock shouting from inside the loading bay, something about his rank, something about a class called Iron Vanguard. Dania came running out with tears streaming down her face and grabbed my arm and said she got Healer designation, mid-tier, and she couldn’t believe it, and wasn’t it incredible, and what did I get?

I looked at my hand.

Everyone else had a faint projection hovering just above their dominant hand. A soft light in different colors depending on class type. Blue for intelligence builds. Red for combat. Green for support. The projection carried your name, your rank, and your class assignment, like a business card the system had printed for your soul.

Mine was there. I could see the faint outline of the projection field trying to load. But where the class name should have been, where the rank marker should have been glowing with color, there was just a cursor. Blinking. Patient. Empty.

And then a single word appeared.

NULL.

I stared at it for a long time. Long enough that Dania stopped smiling and asked me again, quieter this time. I showed her my hand. She looked at it the way you look at something that makes you feel sad and uncomfortable at the same time, and then she looked away and didn’t bring it up again.

Pollock saw it about twenty minutes later. He didn’t look away. He looked at me with something that wasn’t quite pity and wasn’t quite disgust but lived in the neighborhood of both. Then he told me I should probably call the classification bureau and get it sorted before the grace period ended.

I didn’t know what the grace period was yet. I found out three days later when the government notification appeared in my projection field. The text was clean and official and written in the same calm tone as the original broadcast.

Citizen Xavier Cole. Your ARES classification attempt returned an irregular result. Under Mandate 7 of the Global Simulation Integration Act, unclassified citizens represent an unstable variable within the ARES ecosystem. You have been granted a 30-day review window to achieve spontaneous class manifestation. Failure to manifest within the allotted window will result in permanent neural disconnection from the ARES system.

I read it four times.

Neural disconnection. I had looked that phrase up before the notification even finished loading. Every article, every forum post, every leaked medical document said the same thing using different words. Neural disconnection from ARES didn’t mean you got unplugged and sent home. The system was too integrated for that. It had threaded itself into the human brain at a level that made removal equivalent to damage.

Neural disconnection meant you stopped.

Thirty days. No class. No rank. No allies. And somewhere in the back of my projection field, that cursor was still blinking.

NULL.

Like it was waiting to see what I would do next.

Last Chapters

You Might Like 😍

Cursed Fates

Cursed Fates

1.6k Views · Ongoing · Taylor Ashcraft
Charlotte Sinclair was murdered at the hands of her abusive boyfriend. After dying, she wakes up in the body of another. She pieces together information from her first day as Aribella Voss, realizing that she's been reincarnated into a book she knew all too well. The only problem: She was fated to die in this story as well. She sets out on a mission to ensure that doesn't happen, but when she begins changing important parts of the story, she also changes the plot of the story she knew. Without the upper hand, Aribella no longer has idea what lies in her future.
The Princess's Revenge

The Princess's Revenge

64.8k Views · Completed · Xena Kessler
Two nations are at war. Valencia's pack is massacred by Alpha Marcus, and she is enslaved by him. When he dies, she is to be buried alive with him as a sacrifice.

Alpha Logan is an illegitimate son whose mother disappeared when he was 10 years old. He grew up suffering from humiliation and lacking maternal love.

Alpha Logan saves Valencia at Marcus's funeral, which seems to be destined by fate—part of the Moon Goddess's grand plan.

As Valencia accidentally discovers prophecies in Logan's mother's diary that seem to be related to her, the truth gradually surfaces. Valencia appears to be merely a tool in a princess's revenge plot. How will Logan and Valencia navigate their path amid the national war and pack politics?
Reborn 14 Years later: Fix My Broken Family

Reborn 14 Years later: Fix My Broken Family

2k Views · Completed · xinna
Fourteen years ago, Isabella Winston died.

At least, that's what everyone believed.

One moment, she was trapped inside a sinking car beneath the icy waters of the Hudson River. The next, she woke up in her own bathtub and somehow fourteen years in the future.

Her husband is no longer the warm, easygoing man she remembers.

Her five-year-old son is now a nineteen-year-old stranger who looks at her with suspicion.

Her twins barely remember the mother they lost—one forever chasing affection, the other keeping the entire world at arm's length.

And the family she left behind has become something broken, distant, and unrecognizable.

Now Isabella faces an impossible challenge: rebuilding a family that never truly recovered from losing her.

Fourteen years have left scars on everyone.

Unfortunately for those causing the damage, Isabella Winston has returned to set things right.
The Ice Between Us.

The Ice Between Us.

1.7k Views · Completed · Nora Obeche
In the world of elite hockey, discipline is the only currency that matters. For Julian Thorne, the perfectionist Captain of the Northwood Olympic Center, every stride is calculated, and every emotion is frozen solid. He is one season away from the pros, but the team is drowning under public scrutiny and a board of directors looking for any reason to cut the cord.

​Then comes Jax Miller.

​Jax is a hotheaded rookie with a lightning-fast puck and a reputation for burning bridges. He doesn't follow playbooks, he doesn't respect authority, and he’s determined to melt Julian’s icy composure. When a viral video of their on-ice collision threatens to bankrupt the program, Coach Clain delivers an ultimatum that feels like a death sentence: they must live together in a cramped, two-bed dorm for the duration of the season.

​Forced to navigate the high-stakes world of sports fame, "forbidden" locker-room tension, and the mysterious blackmailer who caught their first mistake on camera, Julian and Jax must decide what’s more dangerous: losing their careers, or losing themselves to the person they were supposed to hate.
Iron And Glamour Just Don't Mix

Iron And Glamour Just Don't Mix

3.8k Views · Ongoing · Kit Bryan
Have you ever seen a screaming toddler and thought, wow, they just can’t be the same good-natured kid who was eating cereal ten minutes ago?
Well… Sometimes you just might turn out to be right.
It turns out, the fae stole my little brother. In his place? A pixie with boundary issues and a talent for home repairs.
I’ve spent my life taking care of everyone else. So when my baby brother is taken, I don’t hesitate. I walk straight into a faerie mansion and make a bargain with its infuriatingly charming master.
Kie is everything you’d expect from a dangerous fae, beautiful, political, and entirely too amused by me. Power wrapped in a smirk. Sensual, mischievous, and far too aware of the effect he has on people. He agrees to help me find my brother.
For a price.
Now I’m bound by a faerie bargain and navigating a world of glamour, manipulation, and ancient rules I definitely should have learned sooner, enchanted forests, political games, magical contracts, and a fae lord who treats seduction like a perfectly reasonable negotiation tactic.
Iron is how I keep people out.
Glamour is how he draws them in.
And apparently, they just don’t mix.
After One Night with the Alpha

After One Night with the Alpha

543.2k Views · Completed · Sansa
One Night. One Mistake. One Lifetime of Consequences.

I thought I was waiting for love. Instead, I got fucked by a beast.

My world was supposed to bloom at the Moonshade Bay Full Moon Festival—champagne buzzing in my veins, a hotel room booked for Jason and me to finally cross that line after two years. I’d slipped into lacy lingerie, left the door unlocked, and lay on the bed, heart pounding with nervous excitement.

But the man who climbed into my bed wasn’t Jason.

In the pitch-black room, drowned in a heady, spicy scent that made my head spin, I felt hands—urgent, scorching—searing my skin. His thick, pulsing cock pressed against my dripping cunt, and before I could gasp, he thrust hard, tearing through my innocence with ruthless force. Pain burned, my walls clenching as I clawed at his iron shoulders, stifling sobs. Wet, slick sounds echoed with every brutal stroke, his body unrelenting until he shuddered, spilling hot and deep inside me.

"That was amazing, Jason," I managed to say.

"Who the fuck is Jason?"

My blood turned to ice. Light slashed across his face—Brad Rayne, Alpha of Moonshade Pack, a werewolf, not my boyfriend. Horror choked me as I realized what I’d done.

I ran away for my life!

But weeks later, I woke up pregnant with his heir!

They say my heterochromatic eyes mark me as a rare true mate. But I’m no wolf. I’m just Elle, a nobody from the human district, now trapped in Brad's world.

Brad’s cold gaze pins me: “You carry my blood. You’re mine.”

There is no other choice for me but to chose this cage. My body also betrays me, craving the beast who ruined me.

WARNING: Mature Readers Only
The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates

The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates

2m Views · Ongoing · Jaylee
Soft hot lips find the shell of my ear and he whispers, "You think I don't want you?" He pushes his hips forward, grinding into the back of my ass and I groan. "Really?" He chuckles.

"Let me go," I whimper, my body trembling with need. "I don't want you touching me."

I fall forward onto the bed then turn around to stare at him. The dark tattoos of Domonic's chiseled shoulders, quiver and and expand with the heave of his chest. His deep dimpled smile is full of arrogance as he reaches behind himself to lock the door.

Biting his lip, he stalks toward me, his hand going to the seam of his pants and the thickening bulge there.

"Are you sure you don't want me to touch you?" He whispers, untying the knot and slipping a hand inside. "Because I swear to God, that is all I have been wanting to do. Every single day from the moment you stepped in our bar and I smelled your perfect flavor from across the room."


New to the world of shifters, Draven is human on the run. A beautiful girl who no one could protect. Domonic is the cold Alpha of the Red Wolf Pack. A brotherhood of twelve wolves that live by twelve rules. Rules which they vowed could NEVER be broken.

Especially - Rule Number One - No Mates

When Draven meets Domonic, he knows that she is his mate, but Draven has no idea what a mate is, only that she has fallen in love with a shifter. An Alpha that will break her heart to make her leave. Promising herself, she will never forgive him, she disappears.

But she doesn’t know about the child she’s carrying or that the moment she left, Domonic decided rules were made to be broken - and now will he ever find her again? Will she forgive him?
The New Girl and the Broken Basketball Star

The New Girl and the Broken Basketball Star

1.6k Views · Completed · xinna
At sixteen, Clara Bennett lost the last place she could call home.

After years of feeling unwanted by the father who should have protected her, Clara is finally forced to leave the only home she has ever known. Her stepmother’s pregnancy only makes it easier for her family to let her go.

With nothing but her mother’s old violin, she arrives in a small Pennsylvania town carrying the fear that she will never truly belong anywhere.

The last thing she expects is Adrian Cole.

Once the town’s basketball star, Adrian gave up his dreams after his father disappeared and left him with debts he never should have carried. Now he spends his days repairing cars, avoiding the court, and pretending he doesn’t want anything more from life.

Clara thinks she is too broken to be loved.

Adrian thinks his future is already over.

But somewhere between physics lessons, late nights at the repair shop, and a forgotten small-town high school, two lonely people begin to find something they both thought they had lost forever:

A reason to stay.

✦ ✦ ✦

A tough exterior with a soft heart x A soft exterior with a strong heart

✦ ✦ ✦

The first half is set in high school, and the second half is set during their college years. Hope you enjoy the journey!

This is a slow-paced story, focused more on emotions, healing, and the small moments in life rather than intense action or dramatic twists.

If you find any mistakes while reading, please feel free to leave a comment. I’ll be happy to correct them.

I hope ordinary Clara, ordinary Adrian, and all of us ordinary people can find the happiness we deserve.
The Spy Who Left

The Spy Who Left

1.7k Views · Completed · Orion Vale
"She's naive. A pretty little socialite who got lucky marrying above her station."
"I still can't believe she actually did it. Aria Hart, filing for divorce. Who saw that coming?"
"How long do we think it'll take before she comes crawling back?" Another voice joins the conversation.
"Three days," Victoria declares. "Five at most. She has no money, no skills, no family. Where's she going to go?"
When Aria Chen divorced billionaire Leon Hart, New York's elite sneered, betting she'd crawl back within days. She never did.
Three years later, the world is rocked when Dr. Aria Vale, CEO of a revolutionary cybersecurity empire, steps into the spotlight. The mysterious genius who built a billion-dollar company from nothing is none other than Leon's discarded wife, the woman everyone thought was just a pretty ornament.
Now, every powerful man wants the queen Leon threw away a renowned scientist seeking partnership, a financial titan proposing an empire, and an actor offering devotion. Each sees the brilliance Leon ignored.
Then Leon discovers the truth: Aria's sacrifices, her secret double life, and the daughter she's been raising without him. For the first time, the man who once took her for granted must fight for her love. But can he compete with men who valued her from the beginning?
A story of love, betrayal, and power where the king must kneel before the queen who never needed saving.
Where The Ice Gives Way

Where The Ice Gives Way

74.1k Views · Completed · Sheridan Hartin
Charlotte Pierce is used to surviving in motion. New towns, new schools, the same old house on the edge of nowhere, and the same rule that keeps her standing. Keep her twin brother, Charlie safe. Keep his hockey dream alive. Keep her own needs quiet. She works too much, sleeps too little, and saves the one thing that still feels like hers for the middle of the night, when she can lace up her worn skates and carve freedom into dangerous frozen ice. Charlotte and Charlie shifted once, years ago, and never understood what it meant. They had no pack, no guidance and no protection. Just two twins clinging to each other and pretending the voice in their heads was stress, imagination, or loneliness. Then they move to Wellington.
Blake Atlas scents his mate the moment Charlotte arrives. The bond hits hard and unmistakable, but Charlotte doesn’t recognise it. She doesn’t know why her chest keeps pulling toward the one boy she absolutely cannot afford to want. Blake is Charlie’s new hockey captain. Charlie’s chance at making something good. Charlie makes it clear; his sister is off-limits and Blake tries to do the right thing, but secrets don’t stay buried forever. Rogues prowl the edges of town. The ice cracks. The bond tightens. Then Charlotte’s rare white wolf awakens, the very thing that makes her powerful, also makes her a target.
Shanti needs Shakti. (Peace needs strength.)

Where the Ice Gives Way is a slow-burn YA paranormal romance filled with fated mates, protective alpha energy, fierce sibling loyalty, found family pack bonds, hurt/comfort, and quiet, aching tension. It’s a story about first belonging, learning to be cared for, and what happens when the girl who has always held everyone else up finally falls, and someone catches her.
Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother

Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother

2.9m Views · Ongoing · Harper Rivers
Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother.

"What is wrong with me?

Why does being near him make my skin feel too tight, like I’m wearing a sweater two sizes too small?

It’s just newness, I tell myself firmly.

He’s my boyfirend’s brother.

This is Tyler’s family.

I’m not going to let one cold stare undo that.

**

As a ballet dancer, My life looks perfect—scholarship, starring role, sweet boyfriend Tyler. Until Tyler shows his true colors and his older brother, Asher, comes home.

Asher is a Navy veteran with battle scars and zero patience. He calls me "princess" like it's an insult. I can't stand him.

When My ankle injury forces her to recover at the family lake house, I‘m stuck with both brothers. What starts as mutual hatred slowly turns into something forbidden.

I'm falling for my boyfriend's brother.

**

I hate girls like her.

Entitled.

Delicate.

And still—

Still.

The image of her standing in the doorway, clutching her cardigan tighter around her narrow shoulders, trying to smile through the awkwardness, won’t leave me.

Neither does the memory of Tyler. Leaving her here without a second thought.

I shouldn’t care.

I don’t care.

It’s not my problem if Tyler’s an idiot.

It’s not my business if some spoiled little princess has to walk home in the dark.

I’m not here to rescue anyone.

Especially not her.

Especially not someone like her.

She’s not my problem.

And I’ll make damn sure she never becomes one.

But when my eyes fell on her lips, I wanted her to be mine.
Let Them Kneel

Let Them Kneel

238.7k Views · Ongoing · My Fantasy Stories
Kaelani spent her life believing she was wolfless.
Cast out by her pack. Forgotten by the Lycans.
She lived among humans—quiet, invisible, tucked away in a town no one looked at twice.

But when her first heat comes without warning, everything changes.

Her body ignites. Her instincts scream. And something primal stirs beneath her skin—
summoning a big, bad Alpha who knows exactly how to quench her fire.

When he claims her, it’s ecstasy and ruin.

For the first time, she believes she’s been accepted.
Seen.
Chosen.

Until he leaves her the next morning—
like a secret never to be spoken.

But Kaelani is not what they thought.
Not wolfless. Not weak.
There is something ancient inside her. Something powerful. And it’s waking.

And when it does—
they’ll all remember the girl they tried to erase.

Especially him.

She’ll be the dream he keeps chasing… the one thing that ever made him feel alive.

Because secrets never stay buried.
And neither do dreams.