At first, there was only the suffocating weight of it, pressing from every direction like a collapsed grave. Then—faint pinpricks of color began to drip into the void, lines of text cascading downward as if reality itself were booting up.
[System Initialization...]
[Verifying Core Parameters...]
[Warning: Unauthorized Entity Detected.]
[Elimination Protocol: Activated.]
Rian gasped. The sound was raw, animal—it startled even him. He staggered backward, eyes snapping open to a sky that wasn't a sky at all. The heavens flared bright red, overlaid with glitching lines of code that pulsed like infected veins.
He was standing in the middle of a vast stone courtyard, sunlight stabbing down—but the warmth was wrong, synthetic, like a digital simulation of some memory. Towers loomed in the distance, medieval castles painted perfect, too perfect.
His last memory came rushing back:
The hospital bed. The beeping of monitors slowing. The doctors pulling the sheet.
He was… dead. He remembered dying.
So why was he alive here?
"Target located," a voice droned.
Rian's head whipped around. On the far side of the courtyard, figures were emerging—men in black armor, faces hidden behind expressionless masks. Above them hovered a crimson warning window:
[Delete Anomaly.]
"What the hell…" Rian whispered. His pulse thundered.
The soldiers raised weapons he didn't recognize—swords shimmering with icy blue data static. Every instinct screamed run. He turned, feet pounding stone, heart tearing at his ribs.
But another red message smeared across his vision:
[You Do Not Belong.]
The first soldier lunged. Rian barely ducked in time, the blade sparking against the wall where his head had been. Too close. He sprinted blindly down an alley between towering halls.
"Why the hell is this happening—this isn't Heaven, this isn't Hell—" His breath came ragged.
Another voice: Cold. Metallic. Inside his skull Spoke in an eerie tone:
"You are an unauthorized existence."
"Correction required."
"What the fuck does that mean?!"
He stumbled into a courtyard—causing villagers to stop mid-stride. But as they turned toward him, their smiles twitched. Their faces flickered like broken holograms.
Then, in eerie unison, they whispered:
"You don't belong."
Rian froze upon hearing this. A woman's face split like a cracked mask, showing static beneath. A child shrieked—not in fear, but as a screeching alarm. In the next heartbeat, every 'villager' around him liquefied into crimson data tide, crashing toward him like a living ocean of code.
"No—no, no, no—!" He stumbled backward, slipping against stone.
And then—
Someone grabbed his hand.
A girl. Human—at least, she looked human. Golden eyes, trembling with urgency. "Move!" she cried, pulling him with impossible strength.
The two of them bolted through collapsing streets. Behind them, the sea of corrupted villagers surged like a wave devouring the world.
They darted into a half-collapsed church. Dust swirled in its light. The girl slammed the door shut—though it was obvious no door could hold that tidal wave.
Rian panted, chest collapsing inward. "Who—the hell—are you?"
Her eyes narrowed, voice hushed in desperation.
"I should be asking you. You weren't supposed to exist."
A cold silence.
As if the simulation itself agreed, the walls around them flickered again, jagged red text blooming across every surface at once:
[ERROR: Anomaly has evaded deletion.]
[Deploying Higher Protocol.]
[Debugger arriving in 24 hours.]
Rian swallowed, throat raw.
"Debugger? What the hell is that?"
But the girl wasn't looking at him anymore. Her hands trembled faintly as she whispered under her breath, "You really… shouldn't be alive."
The last thing Rian saw before the system screen collapsed into darkness was a blood-red countdown clock, burning numbers into the air like molten iron:
[23:59:59 remaining]