The Tutorial Kill

Jax is a desperate nineteen-year-old custodian of his younger sister, living on the brink of homelessness in a sweltering inner-city tenement known as "The Stacks." His reality fractures when a gamified "System" designates his landlord—a biological horror in a human skin suit—as a high-value target, turning Jax into an unwilling hunter. In the suffocating grip of a record-breaking July heatwave, Jax stares at an eviction notice that promises to put his family on the street. Salvation appears not as a job offer, but as a floating blue hologram offering a bounty for a murder. Armed with a materialized dagger and desperate for cash, Jax must exterminate the monster in Apartment 4B before he becomes its next meal.