Sunlight danced around the window with faint tints of green from the leaves of a massive Sugar Maple tree outside. Bluebirds raced through the skies like a couple of fighter jets, zipping up and down all over the mild blue sky until settling onto one of the branches to rest, twittering.

It looked like a little Eden compared to what the student had on his side of the glass.

Sweat and body odor swamped the bedroom. He could feel the glasses begin to slip down his nose as he furiously typed up the conclusion paragraph.

A conclusion that could’ve made sense to anyone but folks his own age. There were momentary thoughts of worry over his diction having too much flair, but they didn’t last long…he just wanted to get this over and done with. Checking for grammar mistakes to find little, he felt pleased and downloaded the Google Doc into a pdf and dragged it to the submission box.

ERROR: Please try again later. If the problem persists, contact administration.

The bold red letters announced themselves on the screen, a silent yet uncompromising rejection of his attempted submission. One of his eyes bulged a little, red vein matching with red font. What the fuck is this!?

Opening a separate tab in the browser, he scurried to open up YouTube in attempt to ensure his internet was working. It was. The cat videos were numerous and fetching. The advertisements for ramen noodles up front and center.

He switched back to the submission box tab.

Refresh...

Re-upload...

ERROR: Please try again later. If the problem persists, contact administration.

A short stifle of a breath squeezed out from his throat. Refresh three more times. Reupload. Error again.

He smacked the surface of his desk. No. No, no, no. He was going to turn in this essay, and he was going to do it now.

Scrolling down to the bottom of the page, he spotted a button labeled "Request Help". Click.

A notification popped up on the screen, indicating that a support ticket had been submitted. He leaned back in his chair, frustrated and defeated. But something inside him urged him to keep trying to figure out the problem on his own.

He opened up the browser console, diving into the code of the submission system. Lines upon lines of complex programming language filled the screen, making his head spin. But as he scrolled through the code, he noticed something peculiar.

There was a hidden function, a piece of code that shouldn't have been there. Curiosity piqued, he analyzed the function line by line, trying to decipher its purpose. And then, it hit him.

This hidden function was causing the error message to appear. But why? What was its purpose?

He traced it back to its origin, a mysterious folder buried deep within the system. With trembling hands, he opened the folder and gasped in disbelief at what he found.

It was a hidden message, written in a language he couldn't understand. Symbols and glyphs danced across the screen, forming words that seemed to pulsate with an otherworldly energy. And as he read the message, a chill ran down his spine.

"Only those deemed worthy shall pass. Prove your intelligence and wit, or face eternal rejection."

His mind raced as he tried to make sense of the message. Was this some sort of test? A challenge set by some unknown entity within the system?