Zero Before Level One

Alex Walker is Level 39 in the best monster game ever made. In real life, he's twenty, broke, and nobody. Then the piece of black metal his parents left him turns warm. A green screen opens that only he can see. It says LEVEL 1. And Alex gets hungry, with a hunger that food won't fix. In Qasra, the Hunters are paid to kill anything that isn't human. Three days later, Alex is standing over a dead monster in a drainage tunnel, and its blood smells like dinner. Mara Vance can see how long every person has left to live. A countdown, every face, every time. She has never been wrong. Then she sees Alex. His numbers read zero. It isn't counting down. It already got there. — Description from novelcodex.orgFull novel: Zero Before Level One — read the rest free on N​o⁠v​e⁠l​C⁠o​d⁠e​x⁠.​o⁠r​g⁠