The blade hovered just inches from Erevan's chest, glitching like a broken signal, edges flickering in and out of reality as though reality itself couldn't decide whether it existed. Every nerve in his body screamed at him to run, to vanish, to melt into the nearest tree, but the system's prompt burned across his vision like a warning carved in neon:
Critical Choice Triggered
Option 1: Destroy the Echo Prototype.
Option 2: Absorb the Echo Prototype.
Warning: Consequences irreversible.
Erevan's pulse thundered in his ears. Sweat traced sharp lines down his temples, his fingers trembling despite his best efforts to stay steady. He muttered under his breath, sarcastic but terrified: "Oh, fantastic. Two options. Murder myself or… eat myself. Love that. Really helpful, system."
Kaelith's bow remained drawn, her hands taut, knuckles white. Her sharp green eyes locked onto him, rigid with tension. "Erevan, decide. Now!" she urged, her voice cutting through the oppressive stillness of the Prototype Forest.
The unfinished forest pressed in on them. Trees repeated in perfect, identical patterns, leaves all the same shade, branches bending at exactly the same angle. Every bird call—real or synthetic—echoed in a loop so perfectly timed that it set Erevan's teeth on edge. The villagers—the glitching, mannequin-like entities—hissed and shuffled closer. Their distorted mouths stretched into static-choked smiles, glitching unnaturally with each step.
Pressure clawed at Erevan's chest. The air felt thick, almost solid, pressing into his lungs. Every instinct screamed: Run. Abort. Don't touch the option. Don't do anything.
The Echo Prototype tilted its head, eyes flickering in binary streams. Its voice—his voice, warped, layered, fractured—dripped into his skull. "You… are… error. Correction… required."
Erevan felt something snap inside him. Every corrupted system alert, every glitch reward, every warning that he "should not exist" came rushing back. Maybe… maybe this is the system's way of erasing me. Maybe absorbing it… maybe that's the only way to survive. To take its power, to turn the tables.
He clenched his fists until his nails bit into his palms. Sarcasm twisted with fear: "Screw it. I didn't come this far to play it safe."
His finger jabbed at the option like a gambler throwing dice with his life on the line.
Option Selected: Absorb the Echo Prototype
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the Prototype froze. Its glitching face fractured like broken glass, shards of binary raining down in sparks of corrupted light. And then, impossibly, it lunged. Not forward. Not sideways. But into him, a collision of flesh, code, and raw energy that tore through him like the world itself was being rewritten.
Pain exploded through Erevan's body. Every cell felt like it was splitting apart and recombining at random. His vision shattered into static, colors bleeding into digital noise. His voice tried to scream, but two layered tones collided in a single impossible sound.
"Erevan!" Kaelith's shout barely reached him. Her voice was sharp, fearful, but drowned in a cacophony of system alerts and glitching reality.
Warning: Unauthorized Merge in Progress
System Error: Conflict Detected
Stability Level: 43%… 32%… 21%…
Erevan dropped to his knees, clutching his chest. Data surged through him in pulses, jolts, and waves, scrambling his senses. The villagers convulsed around him. Some collapsed into polygons. Others melted into strings of numbers before flickering back, unbroken. Sir Quacksalot flapped furiously, beak snapping at arcs of sparking corrupted energy, quacking indignantly as though trying to defend his human.
The Prototype's voice carved into his skull. "I am you. You are me. We are wrong."
Erevan wheezed between gritted teeth. "Yeah… tell me something I don't know."
The system chimed again, almost apologetically.
Merge Stabilizing…
New Trait Acquired: Echo
Effect: Copy an ability used against you within the last ten seconds. Glitched abilities may cause unpredictable outcomes.
Warning: Trait Incompatible
Result: Mutation
His body jolted violently. Skin flickered like corrupted textures. One arm briefly became a cluster of polygons before snapping back. The reflection in the glitch-light revealed a half-warped face, features sliding, shifting, reshaping before correcting.
"Holy… crap," Erevan gasped, voice trembling. "I'm literally a broken mirror."
Kaelith sank to her knees beside him, hand gripping his shoulder. Her wide eyes were steady, fearful but relieved. "You're alive. Somehow."
"Alive is… generous," he muttered, groaning as he tried to stand. Muscles buzzed with energy, tingling like live wires running under his skin. "Let's just say I upgraded. With… side effects."
The villagers froze, their twisted smiles collapsing into flat, empty lines. One by one, they fell apart into streams of code, acknowledging with silent defeat that the anomaly was no longer theirs to control.
The forest groaned. Trees flickered. Sections of terrain vanished entirely, like a glitch eating through a digital canvas.
Kaelith's voice was sharp now. "Erevan, this zone— it's collapsing!"
The system confirmed her observation.
Prototype Zone Integrity: 7%
Collapse Imminent. Evacuate Immediately.
Erevan staggered forward, Kaelith hauling him along as the jagged, glitching ground began folding into itself. Chunks of terrain dropped away, revealing endless digital voids. Sir Quacksalot clung to Erevan's shoulder, flapping desperately as if holding on would prevent the world from unravelling completely.
They ran. The forest disassembled behind them like crumpled paper being thrown into a shredder. The shattered fragments of trees, ground, and sky flickered in and out, warping unpredictably with every step.
"Exit!" Kaelith shouted, pointing toward a portal shimmering in the distance, the only stable patch of reality left in the collapsing zone.
Erevan's lungs burned. His legs screamed with effort. Yet the new, unstable power thrummed inside him, propelling him forward. Each stride cut meters of terrain in a single blink, a terrifying, exhilarating display of the Echo trait.
"Okay," he gasped, "this is new. And terrifying. But mostly… new."
The portal flared brighter as they approached. One last desperate lunge, and they dove through together.
The collapsing forest behind them vanished entirely.
The world snapped back into something that resembled normalcy—or as close to normal as it could get after surviving a living glitch. Erevan landed on uneven, messy grass, sprawling weeds poking at his elbows and knees. He rolled once, then propped himself up on shaky arms, breathing hard. The air smelled alive—fresh dirt, damp leaves, and that subtle sharpness that comes with imperfect nature. Not the sterile, manufactured smell of the Prototype Forest.
Sir Quacksalot flopped beside him, puffing his chest feathers out proudly, as if he had just saved the world single-handedly. He quacked sharply, then nipped at Erevan's ear for dramatic emphasis.
"Ow! You feathery demon!" Erevan yelped, rubbing the sore spot.
Kaelith dropped beside him, chest heaving, hair plastered to her forehead. Her bow was still in hand, though trembling slightly. "That… was too close." She scanned the surrounding forest with narrowed eyes, noting the uneven spacing of trees and the chaotic, unpredictable undergrowth. "This isn't… artificial. Not even close. We made it out, but this—this is a real place."
Erevan's hands flexed, tingling with residual Echo energy. The strange, unstable power hummed under his skin, a chaotic rhythm that made him feel both alive and like he could explode at any moment. His chest tightened as he realized just how much of the Prototype's essence was now tangled inside him.
The system chimed softly, the voice almost cautious.
Quest Complete: Survive the Prototype Zone
Reward: 500 EXP
Bonus Reward: Prototype Shard (Glitched Item)
Before Erevan could ask, a faint, pulsing object materialized in his hand—a shard of pure uncertainty. The Prototype Shard hovered, flickering between solid and data forms, never quite deciding what it wanted to be.
"Oh, great. Another mystery item, because that always goes well." Erevan muttered, staring at it like it had just insulted him personally.
Kaelith's green eyes softened, a mix of admiration and worry. "Erevan… what you did back there. That wasn't just a choice. You let it inside you. What if it changes you… completely?"
He flexed his arms experimentally, still twitching with residual energy, and let out a humorless chuckle. "Then I guess we'll find out. But if the system wants me gone… maybe the only way to beat it is to break it from the inside."
Sir Quacksalot flapped his wings again, hopping onto Erevan's shoulder with a triumphant squawk. "Ow! Okay, okay, feathered menace!" Erevan rubbed his shoulder, shooting the penguin a glare, though a small smirk tugged at his lips.
Kaelith allowed herself a tiny, fleeting smile, but her worry didn't leave her eyes. She leaned back, scanning the sky as a faint shimmer passed across it, like a thin veil of reality vibrating. "You see that?" she asked, voice low, tense.
Erevan squinted upward. His chest tightened as the thin ripple traced across the sky, subtle but undeniably there. "Yeah. The world is… thinning. We don't have much time."
The Prototype Shard pulsed in his hand, and the unstable power inside him vibrated in resonance, almost as if it were alive and aware. The shard's faint hum mingled with the electric tingle under his skin. Every instinct told him this was only the beginning—the system had layers upon layers of secrets, and he was now one of its wildcards.
Erevan glanced at Kaelith, who was still gripping her bow tightly, every muscle coiled like a spring. He gave her a crooked grin, the humor forced but necessary. "You know… next time, maybe we skip the 'absorb a copy of yourself' phase. Just a thought."
Kaelith exhaled, shaking her head but letting a single laugh escape, brittle and fleeting. "Yeah… great idea. I'll pencil that into our next life-threatening adventure."
Behind them, the forest hummed faintly. Leaves rustled in uneven patterns. Birds chirped randomly, never repeating the same call twice. Imperfection was back, messy, chaotic, alive. And it felt good.
Erevan flexed his hands again, feeling the echo energy ripple, unpredictable but potent. "Okay… side effects and all, I think I'm officially upgraded. Let's see how broken I can get." He smirked at Kaelith, whose eyes widened slightly at his levity.
Sir Quacksalot quacked, hopping to the ground and pecking at the grass as though testing if it was real. Erevan crouched, watching the penguin, and thought—If a penguin can survive all that… maybe I can survive anything.
A faint pulse came from the Prototype Shard, and Erevan's chest tightened with purpose and dread. He didn't know exactly what lay ahead. But one thing was certain: the system had just revealed one of its secrets, and now it was his turn to play the game on his terms.
The world was still fragile. The system was still lying. And Erevan was no longer just a survivor.
He was an echo.