Card Crawler: Snap & Craft | Prologue

Welcome to my rewrite of Snap Craft!

Writing this has been an incredible experience, and I genuinely hope you enjoy it.

If you're reading for the first time—welcome! If you're returning for a second read, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Does the story flow better? Do the emojis help make it more engaging?

I'll be releasing this story in packages. This first package covers the elimination round, and the next challenge—eight new chapters—will be posted as soon as they're ready. I'm aiming to rewrite one chapter per day, so new packages should release about every two weeks.

To avoid spamming notifications, you'll only get an alert for the first chapter of each new package. That way, you won’t be overwhelmed with updates.

The new edition of Snap Craft is already available for pre-order on Amazon at the lowest price I can offer: $1 USD (or your local equivalent). You can grab a copy for yourself or a friend here.

Enjoy!

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System initializing...

Calibration complete.

Welcome to the 353rd Daisy Exams.

Welcome, humans. You stand here as a token from your sectors. As vowed, I’ll test you and determine whether your seed should last or fade.

Kai expected Daisy’s voice to be cold and metallic. Instead, it was warm—almost motherly. Too human. Too real. Her words carried a sense of dignity and purpose, the kind he’d only heard in the fiery speeches of his mentors. He tried to remind himself that Daisy was just an artificial intelligence, but it was hard to hold on to that thought when she sounded so much like a person.

He turned his hands over, flexing his fingers. The accounts hadn’t lied. This place didn’t just resemble reality—it was reality. Every detail was perfect, down to the scar on his right hand. It felt like waking up in a dream that refused to break.

Kai took a deep breath and waited. No fever. No coughing. He closed his eyes, searching for any trace of pain. Nothing. The blight hadn’t followed him here. Relief flooded him. If the disease had lingered in the simulation, his chances of winning would have been doomed before he even started. Ariel still had a chance. They still had a chance.

Now, his surroundings. White walls. No doors. No windows. The empty cubic room reminded him of a hospice—sterile and suffocating. If Daisy’s goal was to put him at ease, she was failing miserably. He felt like a patient waiting for surgery.

No instructions. No clues. No obvious exit. How many others were in the same position right now, trapped in identical white boxes?

Kai kept still, fighting the urge to fidget. Daisy was watching. She always was. No breath, no twitch of his fingers escaped her notice. If she found him lacking, he’d be gone before he ever learned why.

The 23rd exam had started like this too. A featureless room, no rules, no objectives. The first participants panicked. They demanded answers. Daisy had removed them from the trial on the spot. Afterward, she revealed that the trial had been about patience. The ones who had waited were allowed to continue to the next round.

This year’s challenge was still a complete mystery. It could be a maze run, a cooperative game, or a quiz. Or maybe something entirely new.

A voice—warm, dignified, merciless—interrupted his thoughts.

This year, the trial shall be Snap Craft. This will test the two weakest traits of the last era: creativity and logic. The trial will now begin.

Creativity and logic.? The words struck him like a puzzle missing half its pieces.

Data from years of studying previous trials surfaced in his mind. Creativity was rare—this was only the fourth time in recorded history that it had been tested. Logical thinking, however, had appeared more frequently, roughly once every two to three decades. But never together. Until now.

The trial will now begin.

The white cube vanished. In the space of a blink, the stark emptiness was replaced by a woodland of brown and green. Gravel and pine needles cushioned his feet. A crisp breeze carried the scent of damp earth. The eerie silence of the cube gave way to the soft rustling of leaves.

Kai barely noticed any of it.

His heart slammed against his ribs as the weight of the moment came crashing down. What was he supposed to do? Was Daisy not going to explain anything else? Should he move? Stay still? His hands clenched into fists. The clock was already ticking, but he had no idea which way to run.

The stress of the day unraveled him, piece by piece.

This morning, he had been home, holding Ariel’s hand, making promises he wasn’t sure he could keep. By noon, he was at the testing center, his nerves crawling beneath his skin. Then came the white room. The sudden teleportation. Now, this.

Too much, too fast.

His mind filled with images of the other competitors arriving at their arenas, confident, already moving. They knew what they were doing. He was still frozen in place. He pictured the others from the firepit, watching him fail, their disappointment heavy in their eyes.

His legs wouldn’t move. His lungs felt tight.

Move, Kai. Move!

He willed his body to obey, but the panic held him still.

Then, a voice from memory cut through the chaos. “Remember your training. Your brain knows what to do. Just breathe and let it work.”

Neil’s voice.

INDEX

Ch. 1