In the dark void, both of them stood silent.
Only the faint shimmer of glitches flickered in the air — like broken codes still trying to heal themselves.
"Ryan…" Maria whispered,
"We should stop. This game… it's becoming something else."
Ryan looked at the device on his wrist — the screen was flickering, like the system itself was trying to pull him back in.
"There's no way to stop now," he said. "Level 3 has already begun."
Suddenly, the ground beneath them vanished.
They fell endlessly — into nothingness.
And then — THUD!
They landed on a metallic platform.
All around them, glitching digital walls kept shifting —
Sometimes like screens, sometimes mirrors, and sometimes just air filled with floating codes.
"Welcome to The Glitch Zone,"
A deep, mechanical voice echoed — but it wasn't human.
It was the system itself.
Maria asked fearfully,
"What's it going to do now?"
Ryan replied, "It's going to absorb us. Remember? Level 2 used our memories… now it'll use us as code."
Suddenly, several shadowy figures emerged from the walls — human-like, but incomplete.
Their faces were half-burned, pixelated distortions.
One figure stepped forward and said,
"Ryan… did you forget me?"
Ryan froze.
It was Aya.
But now she was completely glitched — data streamed down her eyes, her voice breaking with static.
"You erased me, but I became part of the system," she said.
"I'm not your memory anymore… I'm your coding."
"No," Ryan stepped back, "you're just a projection."
"No, Ryan," she said coldly.
"Every choice you made — the system saved a copy of it.
And now… they're all alive."
All around them, thousands of holograms appeared —
Each one was Ryan.
Some were laughing, some crying, some saving someone —
And every single one had glowing blue eyes.
Maria screamed, "What the hell is this? They're all you!"
Ryan whispered,
"Every time I made a choice… the system cloned me."
Aya laughed — a broken, glitched laugh that echoed everywhere.
"Now tell me, Ryan — which one of you is the real one?"
All the holograms spoke at once —
"WE ARE ONE."
The entire space was flooded with blue light.
Codes spun in the air, and new text appeared before them:
LEVEL 3 OBJECTIVE:
Find Your Original Self.
Ryan looked at Maria.
"If I choose wrong, I'll lose myself forever."
Maria gripped his hand.
"Then let's find the real you… before the system finds us."
And then a timer flashed in the air —
00:30… 00:29… 00:28…
The next second —
All the Ryans started moving toward him,
their eyes glowing, their voices merging —
"Are you the real one?"