Chapter 2: Unexpected Updates
The monsters hit the ground with a wet, meaty crunch.
Kai ducked instinctively, though none landed close enough to pose a threat. From the sky, they looked like oversized insects—limbs bent wrong, flickering with code, as if someone had bootlegged a boss fight and uploaded it halfway.
Around him, the world groaned. Literally. The sound was like a thousand processors overheating at once. The air shimmered with heat. Or maybe with instability.
Then the second wave came.
But it wasn't monsters.
It was people.
Kai saw them fall from the sky—dozens of human shapes plummeting like ragdolls. Some were screaming, some were silent. Most didn't move once they hit the ground. A few did, staggering upright with the stiff confusion of someone waking up in a stranger's house.
He ran to the nearest one. A teenage girl with cornrows and a cracked pair of sunglasses, blinking against the harsh light. Her clothes were singed at the edges like she'd passed through fire.
"You okay?" Kai asked, kneeling beside her.
She blinked, stared, then said, "This isn't LA."
"Nope. Definitely not."
She looked around. "Why does everything look like PlayStation 2 graphics?"
Kai had no answer. He was still processing his own theory—a half-formed suspicion that this world wasn't real. Or at least, not intended to be real.
More people were stirring now. A middle-aged guy with a pot belly and a Bob's Auto Repair shirt stood up shouting for his wife. A kid with a VR headset still strapped to his face sobbed uncontrollably. A woman in a hospital gown tried to climb a tree, then collapsed against its repeating bark texture.
And then it happened.
A shockwave, like a software patch installing across the sky.
Kai saw the message before he felt anything:
[SYSTEM UPDATE: Reality Layer Enhancements Applied]
Assigning: ABILITIES
Status: RANDOMIZED
Warning: Incompatibility Detected in Host #042
The pain hit instantly.
Not like a punch or a cut—this pain was molecular. His bones shivered. His teeth ached. The ground dropped out from under him and he felt like his soul was being rewritten line by line.
He screamed, along with everyone else.
The girl beside him arched her back, eyes glowing green for a split second. The man in the auto repair shirt exploded in a burst of orange flame, his screams turning into gurgles as he rolled across the pixelated grass.
Kai's skin turned cold. Not numb—cold. Like death. He looked down at his hands.
Black veins were crawling up his arms. His fingernails were turning gray. His breath came out like smoke, despite the warm air.
[ABILITY UNLOCKED: GRAVE MEMORY (LVL 1)]
Description: Detect and access residual data from dead entities.
Type: Passive. Cooldown: N/A.
"What the hell?" Kai whispered.
Another message appeared:
[Necromancer Class Seed: 7% Installed]
Progress: Incomplete.
Stability Risk: High.
He felt a presence behind him before he turned.
A body was rising.
One of the dead monsters—some twisted, dog-sized centipede thing with too many eyes—was twitching. Its legs bent backward, and it began to stand. Slowly. Brokenly.
It looked at him. Not with hunger, not with rage.
With obedience.
Kai stumbled back. "No. No no no. I didn't tell you to—"
The creature stopped.
Then knelt.
The girl beside him—Jade, she said her name was later—was levitating now. Not flying, not soaring. Just gently floating six inches above the ground like it was normal. Her eyes were glowing again, and when she looked at Kai, she said: "I think we're infected with something."
Kai nodded slowly, wiping sweat—or was it ash?—from his forehead. "Yeah. Something like that."
Around them, chaos unfolded.
People were discovering powers at random. Some useful. Some terrifying. A man turned into liquid. Another summoned a swarm of bees from his mouth and then collapsed. One woman disintegrated entirely, leaving behind only her shadow.
A new message blinked on his wrist console:
[NEW OBJECTIVE: Reach Safe Zone Alpha]
Distance: 2.7 km
Threat Level: Extreme
He looked at Jade, who was now touching the air like it was glass, drawing neon symbols with her fingers.
"You coming?" he asked.
She nodded, slowly drifting toward him. "Might as well. Whatever this place is, it's not stable."
Kai turned to lead the way.
Behind him, the creature followed.
Later That Day
By the time they reached the first outpost—a crumbling tower half-rendered into the side of a hill—Kai had confirmed three things:
The dead spoke to him now. Not in words, but in thoughts. Memories. Fragments.
He could make them move.
And they wanted to move.
At the base of the tower, a man was waiting. Not a player. Not like the others.
He was too still. Too perfect. His skin looked high-res in a world of low-res pixels.
"NPC," Jade whispered.
Kai nodded.
The man's eyes flicked toward him.
"Patch 042. Kai Tanaka. Welcome."
"You know me?"
"You were added. But your template is incomplete. You are not like the others."
"I didn't choose to be here."
"That makes you the most dangerous kind."
Behind them, thunder cracked. The world trembled.
Then the tower opened