Darkness.
That was the first thing Arin noticed when he opened his eyes. Not the comfortable kind of darkness before sleep, but the empty void of a corrupted screen.
He floated in it, weightless. His arms, his legs—he could barely feel them. Only his heartbeat echoed in the silence, like a drum in a hollow room.
Then, a sharp beep cut through the void.
[System Error: Loading Environment… 73%]
"What the…?" Arin's voice cracked. It didn't sound like his own.
Fragments of memory rushed back. The blaring of a car horn. The screech of tires. Pain exploding through his chest. Then—nothing.
Death.
But instead of an afterlife, or the comforting emptiness he had always imagined, he was here. Floating inside… a loading screen?
The void flickered like an old monitor, and suddenly the world began to load.
A grassy plain stretched beneath his feet. A sky unfolded above, too blue, too perfect. But at the edges of the horizon, it tore like ripped wallpaper. Chunks of floating land blinked in and out of existence. A massive tree in the distance repeated the same loop of falling leaves again and again, like a broken gif.
Arin staggered back, clutching his head. He knew this place.
[Welcome, Beta-Tester.]
His blood ran cold. "No way… this is Elysium Online."
The name alone made his stomach twist. Years ago, he had been one of the few testers of the ill-fated VRMMO. A game with breathtaking ambition but riddled with fatal errors. The developers had scrapped it before launch, claiming the world was too unstable to fix.
And now—he was standing inside it.
"Okay, okay… calm down," Arin muttered, holding up his trembling hands. They were real. Too real. Every vein, every crease in his skin. He swallowed hard. "If this is a dream, it's the cruelest one I've ever had."
A faint chime echoed, and a blue window hovered before his eyes.
Player Status:
Name: [ERROR]
Level: 1
Class: None
Title: The Bugged One
Arin's jaw tightened. "Great. I don't even get a proper name."
The wind shifted. The grass bent unnaturally, as though moved by invisible code.
Then came the growl.
Low, guttural, unnatural.
From the glitching forest ahead, a wolf-like monster emerged. Its body flickered between polygons, jagged teeth stretching too far with every snarl. Its eyes glowed like corrupted pixels.
Arin froze. His instincts screamed to run, but his legs wouldn't move. He had no weapon. No skills. Nothing but a rock-strewn field and a nightmare walking toward him.
The wolf lunged, jaws snapping.Instinctively, Arin thought, Stop!And then—the world froze. Leaves hung midair, wind suspended in motion.
[Bug Detected: Exploit Activated.]
Ability Unlocked: Pause Function (3 sec).
Time stopped. The beast hung frozen midair, jaws inches from Arin's face. Its dripping fangs gleamed like glass in the light.
Arin's pulse thundered in his ears. He looked around wildly, heart hammering.
"…No way. Did I just… stop time?"
The timer ticked down.
3… 2… 1.
The world resumed.
Arin ducked instinctively. His hand closed around a jagged rock, and with pure desperation he smashed it upward into the wolf's jaw.
CRACK!
The monster shattered—not into blood and bone, but into fragments of corrupted code. Its body pixelated and scattered like broken glass in the wind.
[Glitched Beast Defeated. Bug Exploit +1.]
Arin staggered back, gasping for air. His entire body trembled, the adrenaline burning through him. Slowly, his lips curled into a grin.
This world was broken.
But so was he.
And maybe—just maybe—that gave him a chance.