Behind Riko, the corridor hummed-a quiet shnk of sliding glass sealing off the way he'd come. He didn't turn. Didn't want to see the tiles breathe, shifting under it all. His gaze stayed on the small cube gliding toward him along the open span of floating platforms: it glowed a pale, fragile blue, its edges stuttering every few seconds like a mis-timed frame in a shaky cartoon. It moved with purpose-not randomly-straight toward him in a perfect line.
Riko's breath came unbidden, held in, unsure. The cube paused at shoulder height, hovering. Its light carved strange angles across his face, cutting shadow under his chin, tracing the curve of his fingers as he reached out, tentatively. He didn't touch it at first, waiting and watching the glow flare, shrink, then flare once more. The cube rotated, revealing lines on its faces-codes, symbols he couldn't read.
Then he pressed forward. His fingertips brushed the surface.
Everything blinked-once, twice-and then burst into a warped projection.
Then he was standing in a living room, sort of. The couch was only half-rendered, its blue pixels flickering into fabric on one side. A toy robot hovered in mid-fall, almost as if gravity hadn't loaded in properly. Walls rippled like water, glitching between his childhood home and the void. Something was wrong with the colours and timing, with the gravity, and yet he knew this place.
His chest tightened. "This is… my house?"
The cube pulsed, projecting memory around him like a hologram bent by static. He reached out, and his fingertips passed through the coffee table, texture dissolving into tiny squares. His brain knew what this was-the table he'd scratched when he was five. The place he hid under during thunderstorms. This was-
He froze.
There, on the couch, a child.
A boy, with a tangle of hair, swinging legs, humming a simple melody that looped two notes. The boy's face flickered, then loaded, then flickered again. Riko watched it, the recognition sinking in like bricks into his gut.
It was him.
Or a broken version of him.
The boy held something - a small handheld device - but it was blurred, scrambled by errors. When Riko tried to focus, the shape twisted like noise. The boy tapped at the device, humming, unaware that the world melted at the edges.
Riko stepped closer. "Hey. Kid. What are you doing?"
The boy didn't look up. The room flickered again, the floor briefly vanished beneath Riko's feet before returning. The cube pulsed sharply.
Images popped up for just a second: his mom's silhouette in the hall, then gone before her face could render; a birthday cake with no candles; a window to the void instead of a backyard. Every memory was off, missing pieces, the sounds lagging by half a beat.
The boy finally turned.
His eyes pixelated, blue shades shifting as if searching for the right color. His mouth opened, and the sound stretched and distorted, as though someone's voice was being pulled too thin.
"Riiiii…kooooo…"
Riko staggered backward. The boy's voice was his own, warped, slowed, like the Luna-voice earlier. His stomach churned with nausea. "This isn't real," he whispered. "This can't be real."
The boy on the couch raised the blurred device toward him; the display flashed symbols Riko had seen on the Screen-numbers, codes, level markers. The cube glowed brighter as the boy's form flickered, two frames wrestling for control.
Riko's hand reached for the cube once more, trying to shut the memory off, but the instant his fingers touched it, another flash swallowed the scene.
Back in the glitch zone.
The memory collapsed in a ripple; the living room folding into a thin line before dissolving into blue sparks that drifted away like dust. Riko staggered forward, blinking until the cold void air solidified once more. The cube hovered, glow much dimmer now, almost spent.
"What was that?" he whispered. His voice echoed oddly, lagging a beat.
The cube didn't answer, but merely drifted in a small circle as if considering its response.
Riko rubbed his arm, the memory's echo prickling his skin. He hated how familiar it all felt—the room smelling like his childhood even though no scent existed here. He hated hearing his younger self's voice stretched into something broken. Most of all, he hated that the boy held something with the same glitch-pattern as his Level Screen.
What did that mean?
He reached for the cube once more, this time slowly—and it backed off an inch, evading his touch. Its light pulsed frantically, the symbols of its sides scrambling faster than he could track. The cube shot backward a few paces, as if to warn him.
A low hum shivered through the floor tiles.
Riko froze.
Then he heard it: a soft, steady rhythm. It echoed along the floating platforms, perfectly in time with his own heartbeat. He stepped forward.
Tap.
The same sound behind him.
Riko kept his breath shallow, body straight. He lifted one foot, set it down again.
Tap
The footsteps mirrored his exactly. No delay, no hesitation, no offbeat cadence.
Something behind him moved in perfect sync with him.
His shoulders tensed, his fingers curling slowly into fists as he fought off the urge to whirl around and break the rhythm with noise. He could not betray the fear blossoming in his chest.
One more step. Tap. Behind him, footsteps matched his rhythm, perfectly.