The world felt… off.
Ethan Vale woke up to the hum of the city—distant car horns, the quiet whirr of drones outside his window, the soft buzz of a neon-lit Seoul.
But something was wrong.
Static crawled at the edges of his vision. Not sleep dust, not eye floaters—actual static, like a broken TV. Tiny black-and-white squares flickering in and out, as if his sight itself was buffering.
His alarm clock read 7:30 AM. Then it glitched.
7:31. 7:29. 7:30.
Ethan sat up. A headache pulsed behind his eyes. His brain felt… laggy. Like he was a second behind reality.
He shook it off and pushed the curtains open.
Seoul was alive. Skyscrapers shimmered with holographic ads. Autonomous taxis zipped through the streets. The sky was a deep, electric blue—artificially filtered by the city's light pollution. A huge digital billboard across the street flickered with government announcements and AI-generated influencers selling the latest tech.
But something was off.
• A drone delivering coffee froze mid-flight, hovering unnaturally before snapping forward.
• A group of businessmen walked across a crosswalk—except one of them glitched back five steps and repeated the motion.
• The digital billboard flickered between two ads so fast it looked like it was flashing secret messages.
Ethan rubbed his eyes. The world was stuttering.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand. A message from an unknown number.
DO NOT TRUST THE UPDATE.
Before he could even react, the text erased itself.
Gone.
Ethan's pulse spiked. He scrolled through his messages. Nothing. No record of it. Like it had never existed.
A chill crawled up his spine.
He grabbed his hoodie and stepped into the kitchen, trying to shake the feeling. Coffee first. Then panic.
The smart coffee machine recognized him instantly. "Good morning, Ethan. Your usual?"
"Yeah," he muttered, rubbing his temples.
The machine whirred, pouring rich, black coffee into his mug.
And then—everything broke.
The coffee froze mid-pour.
Not slowed down. Not spilling. Just… stuck. Suspended. A perfect arc of steaming liquid, hanging between the pot and cup.
Ethan's brain short-circuited. He waved his hand through the stream.
Nothing. The coffee didn't move.
Then—SNAP.
The world rebooted.
The coffee splashed everywhere. The machine glitched out, repeating "Good morning, Ethan" over and over. His phone screen flashed white.
A new message. This time, it didn't disappear.
USER_404 DETECTED. INITIATING PURGE.
The phone shut off.
And then—three slow, deliberate knocks echoed from his front door.
Someone was already here.
TO BE CONTINUED…