Being a Codewright had never been a thing that assured your safety.
It was too late for me now though.
It hadn't been even in my little suburb where the grass was still green and we had enough food. The water was mostly clear, and only ran brown once in a blue moon.
Despite our good fortune, Mother and Father had still moved around robotically, their bodies worn down from trying to keep our little bit of coded world stable. I had felt the strain too, even though I was barely grown up.
That strain was nothing compared to what I felt now. I felt millions of needles prickling my skin. I wished I could… just die.
I took another breath in and remembered my before life.
My sister.
It was only when Vivid, my little comet of a sister, got home from afternoon activities that the house seemed to pulse with life.
Vivid was my sun, my moon, my northern star…
She was still the only thing keeping me alive.
I took another breath.
My last day being whole…
Vivid was late coming home. I followed her trace until I found her. She was playing with a flickering light.
"Look what I can make!" she squealed in delight. I watched the thing grow until I could see numbers inside it.
I froze, blood pounding in my ears as I realized too late. "No!" I screamed.
She caught my eye mid-smile before being sucked away into the vacuum that was cyberspace, and then I was gone too.
Cyberspace took me into its dark embrace. The same embrace that held me now. It threatened to tear me limb from limb.
One thought kept me from giving in and coming apart: Find Vivid. Find Vivid. Find Vivid.
Suddenly something emerged from the blackness.
Like a miracle I crashed into a glowing portal. My hands entangled in the code, creating tethers, and I grasped onto it.
Find Vivid.
Without even caring where it led I jumped through.
I materialized into the Patternlands.
The air hung thick with dust and static decay, clinging to my skin like a dire warning. I gasped several times trying to catch my breath. Blinking the dust and debris from my eyes, I wasn't suspended anymore.
I had found a way out of cyberspace… into somewhere.
I took in my health stats and found them depleted and my hunger stats extremely low. I looked down at myself and winced at how ragged I had become, underfed and skinny.
How many years had I been trapped?
I took a few shaky steps and I found I could still walk at least.
Not ten cubes away stood the crumbling outline of a house, its side blown wide open. A gaping wound in what used to be shelter.
With a trembling breath I put my hands on the ground and closed my eyes.
The codes came to me in a pulsing rhythm and information flowed into my brain.
I had landed in the Architect's Original Cradle. The oldest Cradle, the first to be coded and the most dangerous.
These were lawless lands supposedly, filled with unsavoury beings.
I opened my eyes anew. Around me was a wasteland once considered a forest. Leaves decayed before my very eyes, falling into dust.
I'd seen this kind of destruction before, like it was a fuzzy dream. The words and concepts came to my mind.
Rotcasters. The runners who'd forsaken the fight for humanity to spread chaos and ruin through what little remained. They ruled this Cradle.
Around the wreckage, a half-dead forest loomed—leaves pixelated and blackened at the tips. Before my eyes they were crumbling. I could feel it in my bones. This was not a good place for someone like me.
I moved toward the house with creeping caution. The Rotcasters probably hadn't left anything valuable, but there was always a chance they'd overlooked something in their rush to tear it down.
What I needed was simple: wood. Enough to craft a sword—anything that could help me survive. The sun sagged toward the jagged horizon. I pushed onward.
I drew several deep breaths and stepped through the collapsed entrance of the home.
It's going to be alright, Alis, I told myself.
If there was one thing I hated more than the Castors, it was the dark—the way it wrapped around everything, hiding the teeth that would tear you apart.
The way it had taken me and held me hostage for so long I could no longer picture where I'd come from. The way it had taken Vivid…
I was nothing more than a ghost from the code.
Thankfully, the gaping hole in the wall meant the interior was dim; some light trickled in. I crossed into the main room, the floor creaking under my boots.
I got lucky.
These Castors hadn't been looters—just vandals. Anarchists who came, shattered lives, and moved on to their next target. In the remnants of a kitchen I found a stale loaf of bread, a bowl of something that smelled like sour circuitry, and a multitool—half pickaxe, half hatchet.
Hope lifted in my chest.
This had been a better find than I could have dreamed of. With this tool I could chop down a tree, get some wood, and secure shelter.
Maybe I could even find coal and build a small fire.
My stomach growled. I checked my hunger stats and cursed. I was about to start to take damage from lack of food. With a sigh, I decided to eat my first ration.
The bread crumbled like sand in my mouth, but it did the job. I felt revitalized as my stats began to rise to normal levels.
Outside though, the light dimmed to a dusky haze. Night was coming fast.
I cursed aloud.
I had no weapons. I'd have to crouch in the dark and pray nothing found me before sunrise.
New information seeped into my brain and sank in like a lead weight.
There would be real monsters that came after nightfall. Unlike the Rotcasters, those weren't human. They were husks—soulless, unrelenting, drawn to the heat of life and driven to destroy.
I closed my eyes for a moment, thinking…
Stillness—that was the key. If I didn't move, didn't breathe too loudly, the monsters might pass me by.
I sank to the floor and crossed my legs. Then I closed my eyes and opened my mind into cyberspace.
My consciousness slipped from the physical plane into the Cradle's inner workings, passing through the hidden doorway etched into my mind.
I was careful not to let myself go completely. I had to stay tethered or I would be loose again, no guarantee of finding a way out.
Tonight I searched for Runner traces.
I found my own quickly enough—a tether, a glowing thread of memory leading back toward the void from which I'd come. I felt comforted to see I was indeed fully alive again.
But I didn't stop there.
I reached deeper, feeling along the lines of code for other traces. I hoped I might find a clue about the people here. Maybe a trace of my sister.
I refused to believe she was gone forever.
I pushed myself harder, pushed my consciousness out further into the forest. I was straining to hold focus. And then—I felt it.
Something ancient. Watching.
It moved like a presence across my mind—tendrils brushing over me, testing the edges of my awareness. My skin prickled.
My eyes flew open.
They were outside. I could smell them. That putrid rot—too sharp, too real. I clenched my jaw to keep from gagging. Had they sensed me?
Then I saw it.
Furry legs crept over the broken wall ahead of me. Dozens of eyes followed, glowing red like corrupted rubies. They locked onto mine—and held.
I didn't dare blink. My eyes burned, watering from the effort.
The thing was massive. A spider, yes—but wrong. Its limbs were too long, its abdomen bloated with glitching patterns, its mouth twitching unnaturally. It was easily twice my size. I saw my reflection in each of its many eyes—my own terrified face staring back a dozen times.
It occurred to me, spiders didn't blink. This was a losing game.
My lips parted. A reflex.
The instant I moved this fraction of an inch, the creature sprang.
I dove sideways and ducked under a half-crushed table. Wood splintered behind me. The spider wheeled, hissing. I could hear other sounds now—feet dragging, a wet slapping noise that scraped at my nerves.
More monsters were coming now.
This was how it ended. I knew it. My mind ran wild with thoughts:
Is this what happened to you, Vivid?
Did you even have a chance to scream?
I shut my eyes and whispered silently in my mind to no one.
Make it quick.
Just make it quick so I can see her again.
Then—just as I felt the coarse hairs of the spider's leg graze my shoulder—
A battle cry split the air.