The afternoon sun poured through the tall classroom windows, casting long bars of gold across the rows of desks. Dust drifted lazily through the light while the low murmur of students filled the room.
Class 2-B was restless.
Some students leaned back in their chairs, whispering to friends. Others tapped on their phones beneath their desks. Near the window, someone quietly shuffled a small stack of trading cards.
At the front of the room stood their history teacher, Mr. Kovač.
He was a tall man in his mid-forties with thinning brown hair and square glasses that constantly slid down his nose. His voice had the slow, patient rhythm of someone who had repeated the same lectures for years.
"…and after the Cold War, the balance of global power began shifting in ways historians still debate today—"
He stopped.
Not because he finished speaking.
Because he was gone.
One moment he stood at the blackboard with a piece of chalk raised in his hand.
The next moment the chalk dropped to the floor with a small, hollow tick.
For several seconds no one reacted.
A tall boy sitting in the back row laughed nervously.
"Did he just… walk out?"
No one answered.
The door suddenly slammed open.
A girl stumbled inside, breathing heavily. Her blonde hair was messy, and her school uniform jacket hung half off her shoulder.
"Something's wrong!" she shouted.
Everyone turned.
"The teachers— they're all gone!"
The room erupted into confused noise.
"What?"
"What do you mean gone?"
"Did they leave or something?"
Another voice cut through the shouting.
A student near the front stood up suddenly.
He was older than most of them, repeating the year after failing several classes. His name was Luka, a broad-shouldered boy with short black hair and a permanent scowl.
"Stop messing around," he said, irritation in his voice.
He took one step toward the door.
And vanished.
There was no flash.
No sound.
No movement.
He simply stopped existing.
The empty space where he had stood seemed to hang in the air like a missing piece of reality.
A girl screamed.
Chairs scraped violently against the floor as students jumped to their feet.
"What the hell was that?!"
"Where did he go?!"
"He was right there!"
Panic spread through the classroom instantly.
Phones began buzzing all at once.
Emergency alerts flashed across every screen.
UNKNOWN INCIDENT REPORTED. REMAIN CALM.
But outside the classroom, calm had already disappeared.
Students poured into the hallway.
Lockers slammed open and shut as people rushed past each other, shouting questions no one could answer.
In the middle of the chaos stood one boy who didn't move.
He leaned quietly against a locker near the back of the hallway.
His name was Miloš Petrović.
Seventeen years old.
He had dark brown hair that fell slightly into his eyes and a thin, thoughtful face that made him look older than he was. He wasn't tall, but there was something steady in the way he carried himself.
Where others panicked, Miloš observed.
His eyes moved slowly across the hallway.
Students.
No teachers.
No staff.
Only teenagers.
Someone ran past him.
"My mom's not answering!"
Another voice echoed from the stairwell.
"My brother disappeared! He was eighteen!"
Miloš felt a strange tightness in his chest.
So that was the pattern.
Adults… and anyone over eighteen.
Gone.
He stepped outside with the others.
The courtyard looked wrong.
Cars sat crookedly in the street beyond the school gate. One had rolled halfway onto the sidewalk after crashing into a mailbox.
The driver's seat was empty.
Farther down the road, a bus sat motionless across two lanes.
Its doors hung open.
No driver.
No passengers.
The world had lost its adults in an instant.
A girl nearby dropped to her knees, crying.
Students began calling parents, older siblings, relatives.
Most calls went unanswered.
Miloš pulled his phone from his pocket.
The emergency alert was still on the screen.
But suddenly the text glitched.
The message vanished.
New words appeared.
THE WORLD WILL NOW BE DECIDED THROUGH DUELS.
He frowned.
Around him, dozens of students reacted at the same time.
"Hey! My phone says the same thing!"
"What does that even mean?"
Before anyone could respond—
A sharp metallic click echoed from inside the building.
Then another.
And another.
Students turned.
Inside the hallway, several lockers had swung open.
Something unfamiliar rested inside them.
Black mechanical devices with folded armatures and card slots.
Duel Disks.
"They weren't there before!" someone shouted.
More lockers opened.
Deck boxes sat beside the duel disks like they had always belonged there.
Confusion slowly replaced panic.
"What is this… some kind of game?"
Miloš returned to his locker.
It stood slightly open.
Inside rested a duel disk unlike the others.
Most were silver or white.
This one was black.
Sharp edges.
Dark crimson lines ran across its surface like veins.
Beside it sat a small deck box.
Miloš hesitated for a moment before reaching inside.
The moment his fingers touched the box—
Everything vanished.
The hallway disappeared.
Sound disappeared.
Light disappeared.
He stood alone in endless darkness.
For a long time nothing moved.
Then he heard something.
A low rumbling sound like distant thunder.
Slow.
Heavy.
Something enormous shifted in the darkness.
Two glowing yellow eyes opened far above him.
They burned in the black void like twin stars.
Miloš felt pressure in the air around him, as if the space itself had become heavier.
The shape behind the eyes was massive.
Wings unfolded somewhere in the dark.
A deep voice echoed through the void.
"You feel it."
The words vibrated through his chest more than his ears.
"The fear of a world that has lost its balance."
Miloš didn't run.
He couldn't see the creature clearly.
Only the eyes watching him.
"…What is this place?" he asked quietly.
The eyes narrowed slightly.
"A crossroads."
The darkness rippled like disturbed water.
"In the world to come… only those who resist fate will survive."
Something drifted slowly toward him.
A card.
It stopped in front of his hand.
"Take it."
Miloš stared at it for a moment.
Then he reached out.
The instant his fingers touched the card—
The void shattered.
The hallway snapped back into existence.
Students were still shouting.
Some were arguing over decks.
Others were staring nervously at the duel disks strapped to their arms.
No one seemed to notice anything strange had happened.
Miloš leaned against his locker, breathing slowly.
He looked down at the deck box still in his hand.
Inside was a complete deck.
Dark-themed monsters.
Armored knights.
Ghostly warriors.
At the center of the deck sat the card he had just been given.
He slid it out slightly.
The monster on the card was a massive dragon clad in black armor, crimson energy running through its wings.
For a brief moment—
He thought he saw those same yellow eyes staring back at him from the artwork.
Miloš quietly placed the card back into the deck.
Outside, somewhere in the distance, a deep echo rolled across the city.
Not thunder.
Something else.
Around him, dozens of students began activating their duel disks.
Metal arms unfolded.
Card slots lit up.
The first arguments were already beginning.
In a world with no adults…
The first duels were about to begin.