Yuuya was sitting at his desk, scrolling through his phone, half-reading the latest headlines that didn't seem real anymore.
> "Tom Cruise to fight aliens. Again."
"Kylie Jenner Awakens. Her power: Self-Duplication. 3000 Kylie clones spotted in Paris."
"Wait, what?" Yuuya muttered, rubbing his eyes. Was the world actually losing its mind? He flicked to the next article.
> "Eminem now a tier-3 Emotional Class. Rapping causes audio distortions. Claims 'his lyrics have always been too fire.'"
The news was getting stranger by the minute, but Yuuya couldn't stop reading. It was like watching a slow-motion train wreck, but with more famous people.
His mom walked into the room, holding a plate of pancakes, as if nothing had changed in the world.
"Breakfast?" she asked casually.
Yuuya blinked, then shrugged. "Sure... But do you remember anything... strange... happening yesterday?"
She placed the plate on his desk. "Nope. Just that you were mumbling about somebody messing with your Wi-Fi again. Same old."
Yuuya stared at his phone screen again. Somebody messing with his Wi-Fi? There it was. That was the kind of thing a person would say right before their world collapsed. A glitch. A flicker. A system-wide reset.
But no one was really ready for what came next.
---
Later that afternoon, Yuuya was walking home. The streets had changed. People were staring at their reflections longer, like they were trying to catch a glimpse of something that wasn't there. Like everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He didn't blame them. It felt like something was about to go horribly wrong.
As he crossed the street, a figure in a hood walked by, eyes wide, muttering to himself.
"You feel it, too, don't you?" the stranger hissed, looking directly at Yuuya. "They're watching, man. They're all watching."
Yuuya didn't respond. If he acknowledged it, he might lose whatever grip he had on reality left. The guy was probably some street performer, just trying to get a rise out of people.
He turned a corner and bumped into Haruto, his best friend since forever. Haruto looked extra flustered today.
"Hey, you okay?" Yuuya asked, watching Haruto fidget like he was on the verge of spilling something.
Haruto blinked rapidly. "You won't believe it. You know how that YouTube guy iShowSpeed... uh, flipped out on stream? The whole glitchy mess? Apparently, he wasn't just streaming his breakdown. He triggered it somehow. That wasn't just his internet—he was breaking something... like the world itself."
Yuuya raised an eyebrow. "So what? He just... snapped?"
Haruto looked around like he was afraid to talk too loud. "Nah, bro. He was awakened."
"... What, like some kind of superhero? Please tell me he didn't try to fly and hit a building."
Haruto snickered, relieved. "Nah, man. But his powers started doing something weird to the stream. People were feeling... off. You know how there's been all that talk about 'syncing'? He was syncing viewers, causing glitches, making them feel things. And now? The whole internet's scrambled. People think it's the start of something big."
Yuuya rubbed his temples. "We've got influencers causing dimensional instability now... great."
Haruto shrugged. "At least it's not, like, all bad. There's a new meme about it. 'If I glitch, you glitch.' It's viral."
Yuuya chuckled despite himself. "Well, at least we can laugh about it."
---
Later that evening, the news broke again.
> "Breaking: The World's First Real-Life Dungeon Appears in Los Angeles. Celebrities Try to Enter, Get Stuck."
A dungeon. Yuuya squinted at the headline. Was that... supposed to happen? And in LA, of all places?
Just as he opened his mouth to ask his mom about it, something flickered.
The room around him stretched. It was subtle at first. The walls thinned, like someone was stretching a piece of fabric too thin. Then there was a pulse, and suddenly, everything was sharper. Crisper.
Yuuya jumped back from his desk, knocking over his chair. "W-what the—"
A voice echoed in his mind: "Node Syncing Complete."
His phone screen flickered and buzzed. The app icons reorganized themselves. No, not just reorganized. They shifted. His weather app turned into a portal menu with options: Dungeon Entrance or Sync Lab.
He stared at the screen. "Okay. This is... I did not sign up for this."
Then, like it was the most natural thing in the world, he pulled up the menu. The world outside his window shimmered like static.
He heard the voice again. "Proceed to Dungeon Level One? Confirm."
Yuuya froze, realizing this wasn't some dream. The world was... changing. And somehow, he was at the center of it. He laughed nervously.
"This... This is happening. This is real."
---
That's when his phone rang.
It was Mika.
"Yuuya! Listen to me. It's happening. The system is evolving. The dungeons, the awakenings... you're not just a spectator anymore. You need to make a choice."
Yuuya stared at his phone, the world swirling around him.
"Choice?" He repeated. "What do you mean?"
Mika's voice was shaky. "You have two options now. One, you can leave it all behind. Go back to being normal. Forget everything."
Yuuya shook his head. Normal? What was normal anymore?
"Or?" He asked.
"Or... you can step into the dungeon. You can be part of this. But know this, Yuuya. Some people... the ones who are 'syncing' faster? They don't just adapt to this world. They control it. They become the system."
Yuuya turned toward the window. Outside, the world felt... unfamiliar. He knew, deep down, that there was no going back. Not now. Not after seeing the way everything was breaking apart.
He nodded to himself. "Then I guess... I'm stepping in."
---
Outside, the moon flickered, like a glitch in the sky.
And so, the world continued to change. One glitch at a time.