Miles stood rooted in the sand long after the glowing creature vanished beneath the waves. A warm breeze lifted strands of his hair, the salt stinging his nose. Reality pressed in on him from every direction, too sharp, too vivid to be a dream.
His heart thudded in his chest, heavy as someone knocking on the inside of his ribs.
Get it together.
You're here. Wherever "here" is… it's real.
He dragged a hand across his face, smearing fine grains of sand across his cheek. The sensation was grounding—rough and irritating in a way dreams never bothered with. He inhaled again, slower this time, letting the humid air fill his lungs. The world smelled clean, wild, and faintly sweet, like flowers blooming just out of sight.
It was nothing like his cramped, stale apartment. Nothing like the city's gray concrete scent after rain.
He glanced at the shoreline again, half hoping the glowing creature might reappear. It didn't. Only the rippling water remained, shimmering with that faint, unnatural glow.
Miles turned away from the waves and looked down at himself. Same sweatpants. Same worn shirt. Same shoes with the peeling rubber at the toes. Nothing about him had changed—yet everything around him had.
He pressed his fingers into the sand, letting it sift through them. Warm. Fine. Real.
"…Okay," he whispered. "Let's think. Let's… figure something out."
But before he could take another step, something flickered in the corner of his vision.
Miles jerked, instinctively raising his hands as if something was physically there. But there was nothing—just a faint, transparent shimmer suspended in the air like heat distortion.
It pulsed once.
Then words appeared.
Sort of.
[SYS— DETE—]
[In…lization I…tiated]
[Cognitive Lay— Sta… Fail]
The text jittered, breaking apart and reforming before his eyes. Miles blinked hard. The words didn't vanish.
"…What the hell?"
Another flicker.
[Fallback Protocol En—ed]
[…tempting Connec…]
A sharp, brief ringing shot through his skull—like someone dragging metal across glass directly inside his brain. Miles flinched, grabbing his temple as his knees buckled slightly.
The ringing ceased as abruptly as it came.
Miles exhaled shakily. "Please tell me I didn't hit my head."
The shimmering text stabilized—just enough to become legible.
[User Identified]
[Designation: Miles]
[Qualification Confirmed: NOBODY]
[Definition: Access Denied]
"What does that even mean?" Miles snapped at the empty air. His voice came out half-nervous, half-angry, the kind of tone he used when the universe pulled something on him and he refused to accept it quietly.
No response.
He swallowed, staring at the word NOBODY. It didn't sting as much as it probably should have. Mostly because it felt… accurate. Ironic. Like a cosmic joke with his name on it.
Then another flicker.
[Basic Profile]
• Name: Miles
• Class: None
• Level: 0
• Skills: 4 Unrated Skills Detected (Locked)
"Locked?" he echoed. "Why locked? Why is everything locked?"
This time, the System did respond.
[Function Restricted — Initialization Incomplete]
Great. A broken, passive-aggressive system interface. Exactly what he needed.
He tried anyway. "Status?"
[Command Recognized]
[Ignoring]
Miles stared at the message, dumbfounded. "Are you serious?"
The shimmer dissolved slowly, fading into the air like mist. Miles released a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
Okay. Fine. The System was real. Broken, but real.
Next problem: survival.
He scanned the beach. It stretched in both directions—one way ending in a rocky cliff overgrown with strange, vine-like greenery that twitched faintly when the wind blew. The other curved toward a glowing bay, water lit from beneath by soft, iridescent hues.
None of it felt safe.
None of it felt predictable.
He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "HELLO?"
The sound carried far, swallowed by open air and endless sea. Nothing answered.
He took one step inland—and stopped.
Something had moved.
Not near him. Not close enough to attack. Just far enough to make the hair on his arms prickle.
The cliffside greenery had… bent. Not like wind. Like it retracted when his shadow touched it.
Miles blinked. "Plants don't do that."
Another breeze flowed across the beach, and the greenery moved again—slightly delayed. Like it was reacting.
Watching.
He backed several steps toward the water. "Nope. Nope, nope, that's—plants shouldn't move away from shadows."
But before he could decide which direction was least likely to kill him, the System flared again, sharper and clearer this time.
[Skill Scan Complete]
[4 Unclassified Skills Detected]
[Class Assignment: Refused]
[Reason: User Incompatible]
That cold, analytical tone scraped at his nerves. "Un… compatible? How? With what?"
The System didn't answer. Instead:
[Initialization Requirement: Survive One Cycle]
[Time Remaining: 23:51:27]
Miles stared as the numbers began ticking down.
"…Survive?" he whispered. "Survive what? What's a cycle?"
No answer.
He released a tremor-laced exhale and looked inland again, studying the cliff. He needed shelter. Water. Maybe food. Something. The beach was too exposed, too open.
But the plants that reacted to him made his skin crawl.
His gaze drifted toward a half-buried shape tucked near a jutting rock. Something that didn't look organic. Something that didn't belong on a beach.
Curiosity nudged him forward despite his better judgment.
He approached slowly, sand shifting under his steps. The object was metallic—dull gray, spotted with corrosion, maybe the size of a dinner plate. It wasn't a natural form. It had grooves carved into its surface—perfect lines, exact circles, nothing like wind-shaped erosion.
He crouched and brushed away sand.
The metal was cool to the touch, almost cold, even under the sun. The grooves formed a pattern—runes? Symbols? Some kind of mechanism?
He brushed a bit more sand aside.
Something clicked.
A soft pulse of light rippled across the metal surface.
Miles froze.
The System did not.
[Unauthorized Interaction Detected]
[User Classification Anomaly Recorded]
[Warning: Local Entities Notified]
A wave of dread cooled his spine. "Entities?" he whispered hoarsely. "Notified? Notified how? Notified who?"
The metal object sank back to stillness, as if running out of power. Miles stumbled to his feet, heart pounding hard enough to hurt.
The beach was suddenly too quiet.
Too wide.
Too open.
He took three unsteady steps backward. Then four. Then he turned—
Footprints.
Not his.
They trailed from the tree line to a point maybe thirty feet away, half-erased by the wind but unmistakably human-shaped. Bare feet, judging by the shape. Small. Light. One foot pressed deeper than the other, like the person had been moving slowly, cautiously.
And fresh. Very fresh.
Miles's breath hitched.
He followed the line of footprints with his eyes, up the sand, toward the edge of the sparse foliage—
And stopped.
Someone stood there.
A humanoid figure, barely visible through the shifting leaves. Not hidden, not approaching—just standing. Watching him. The dappled shadows made it hard to tell if they were tall or short, cloaked or bare, but their outline was unmistakably human.
His pulse roared in his ears.
The figure didn't move.
The System pinged again, but Miles barely registered the flicker in his vision.
He took a hesitant step back toward the water.
The figure took one step forward.
Not fast.
Not threatening.
Just… closing the distance, slow and deliberate.
Miles's mouth went dry.
"H—hello?" he called, voice cracking despite his effort to steady it.
The figure did not answer.
But they kept walking.
Closer.
Closer.
Closer.
Until Miles could finally see the faint outline of a face—