Time to Purifier Arrival: 8 hours, 47 minutes
I stared at the empty space where the paper had been. The words "MARKED_FOR_DELETION" hung in my mind like a death sentence written in pure logic.
My apartment felt different. Not just because I could see
Think, Kael. You're a programmer. What do you do when a system flags you as malware?
You understand the system better than it understands itself.
I stumbled to my desk, my legs unsteady. My laptop—normal, mundane, not glowing with any text—sat closed. I opened it, my fingers trembling. The familiar login screen appeared. No glitching text here. This was just… hardware. Not part of whatever cosmic operating system I'd stumbled into.
Or was it?
I focused. The same way I'd reached for the street's friction coefficient. I tried to see the code behind my laptop's screen.
Nothing happened.
Right. It had to be part of "their" system. Reality itself. Not human technology.
But maybe…
I looked at my empty coffee mug.
Show me your properties.
The text shimmered and expanded:
MATERIAL: CLAY, GLAZE
MANUFACTURER: SUNSET_POTTERY (DEFUNCT)
CREATION_DATE: 2043.08.12
HISTORY: GIFT FROM [MEMORY_RESTRICTED]
REALITY_STRING_ANCHOR: #445,992,117
LAST_EDITED: TODAY, 08:14 – CAUSALITY_CORRECTION
My breath caught. Reality String Anchor. An ID. And it had been edited today. By me.
This was a log. An audit trail.
If the mug had one… what about me?
I looked at my own hands. I focused inward, a strange and terrifying introspection.
A wall of red text exploded in my vision:
ENTITY_SELF_SCAN_NOT_PERMITTED
REASON: GLITCH_CLASSIFICATION – SECURITY_PROTOCOL 7
Of course. I couldn't read my own metadata. The system had me locked out of my own source code. But maybe…
I turned my gaze to the window, to the sprawling city. I focused on the nearest building, a residential spire called the "Aurora Tower." I didn't try to change it. I just… queried. Gently.
HEIGHT: 340_METERS
OCCUPANCY: 87%
REALITY_INTEGRITY: 99.8% (NOMINAL)
LAST_SYSTEM_AUDIT: 30_DAYS_AGO
SCHEDULED_PURGE: NONE
My heart hammered. A scheduled purge? Last system audit?
This wasn't just a passive reality. It was maintained. Managed. And "purge" sounded a lot like what was coming for me.
I needed data. I needed to know what a "Purifier" was.
I rushed to the window, scanning the streets below. People, vehicles, drones—all tagged with their simple, innocuous labels. Nothing looked like a cosmic debugger.
Then I saw it. A block away, in a small park.
A pigeon lay on the path. Not dead. Glitching.
Its form flickered between a plump, grey bird and a jagged, pixelated outline. The tag above it flashed erratically:
DIAGNOSIS: REALITY_STRING_MISMATCH
RESOLUTION: IMMINENT
A man in a beige trenchcoat walked toward the pigeon. He didn't look special. Average height, average build, bland face. But his tag…
DESIGNATION: CLEANER_UNIT_554
CURRENT_TASK: LOCALIZED_CORRECTION
THREAT_LEVEL: LOW
A Cleaner. Not a Purifier. A lower-level agent.
I watched, my nose pressed against the glass.
The Cleaner knelt by the pigeon, his movements efficient and emotionless. He didn't touch the bird. He simply held his hand palm-down over it. A soft, white light emanated from his palm, washing over the flickering creature.
The pigeon's glitching stopped. It solidified into a perfectly normal, slightly confused-looking bird. It cooed, pecked at the ground, and flew away.
The Cleaner stood. His tag updated:
CORRUPTION_CLEARED: MINOR_STRING_MISMATCH
COST_TO_SYSTEM: 0.0001% LOCALIZED_ENTROPY_INCREASE
AGENT_EFFICIENCY: 100%
Then he turned. And looked directly at my window.
Impossible distance. Impossible angle. But he was looking right at me. His eyes weren't eyes. They were smooth, blank orbs of white light.
His tag flashed:
SCANNING…
A beam of invisible energy hit me. It felt like being X-rayed by truth itself. My own hidden tag, the one I couldn't see, must have lit up like a beacon.
ENTITY: [REALITY_GLITCH – PRIMORDIAL]
ALERTING…
No.
Panic, cold and sharp, flooded my veins. I didn't think. I reacted.
I focused on the Cleaner's tag—on the ALERTING… status—and I didn't try to change it. I tried to delete the command.
My mind grabbed at the line of code initiating the alert. A simple SEND_ALERT(ADMIN_SERVER) function.
SECURITY_PROTOCOL_VIOLATION!
I ignored the warning. I backspaced the function. The code resisted, harder than the truck's path had. This was the System itself fighting back. Pain spiked through my skull, a drilling sensation behind my eyes.
With a final mental scream, I replaced SEND_ALERT(ADMIN_SERVER) with LOG_EVENT(LOCAL_ONLY).
The Cleaner's head tilted. His blank white eyes dimmed for a second. His tag updated:
EVENT_LOGGED_LOCALLY
CONTINUING_PATROL
He gave one last, unnerving look toward my window, then turned and walked away, melting into the midday crowd.
I slumped against the wall, gasping. A hot trickle of blood dripped from my nose. The cost notification was immediate and brutal:
FOR: UNAUTHORIZED_SYSTEM_COMMAND_EDIT
PAYMENT:
1x SKILL_MEMORY: "How to ride a bicycle" (PERMANENT)
1x EMOTIONAL_CONTEXT: "Feeling of pride" (ATTENUATED)
REALITY_STABILITY_DEBT: +0.5%
My legs gave out. I sat hard on the floor.
I didn't just forget how to ride a bike. I forgot the concept. The memory of my father running beside me, holding the seat… the wobbling, the fear, the final glorious moment of balance… it was gone. Not a missing piece, but a hole where a whole category of experience had been.
And pride… I tried to feel proud for stopping the alert, for being clever. The emotion was thin, watery, distant. Like hearing about someone else's achievement.
This was different. They weren't just taking memories. They were taking capacities. Parts of what made me human.
The clock in my mind ticked down: 8 hours, 12 minutes.
The Cleaner had been low-level. A Purifier would be stronger, smarter, designed for threats like me. I couldn't just edit its commands. I needed to understand the rules. Find a loophole.
My eyes fell on my wristwatch—a cheap, digital thing. It showed the time: 12:48 PM. But in my new vision, it showed more:
NETWORK_ORIGIN: CITY_HALL_CHRONO_SERVER
SERVER_INTEGRITY: 100%
It was connected. To the city network. Which was part of the larger system. A tiny access point.
An idea, desperate and insane, formed.
I couldn't scan myself. But what if I asked the system a question about something else, and inferred the rules from the answer? A penetration test.
I focused on the watch's connection to the Chrono Server. I formulated a query, not as a user, but as if I were a subsystem checking permissions.
Query: List active correction protocols for Sector Neovalis-7.
The response was instant, flooding my vision with administrative text:
ACTIVE_PROTOCOLS:
1. JANITORIAL_CLEANING (CONTINUOUS)
2. CAUSALITY_PATCH_DEPLOYMENT (AS_NEEDED)
3. ENTROPY_MANAGEMENT (DAILY)
4. **[REDACTED – CLASSIFIED: ADMIN_EYES_ONLY]**
5. **[REDACTED – CLASSIFIED: ADMIN_EYES_ONLY]**
SCHEDULED_OPERATIONS:
- PURIFIER_DEPLOYMENT: TARGET [GLITCH_PRIMORDIAL_KAEL] – ETA: 17:00
There was more. Hidden protocols. Classified.
I pushed. I tried to force access to the redacted lines. The resistance was immediate and violent.
SECURITY_PROTOCOL_9_ENGAGED!
COUNTERMEASURE: TRACE_BACK_INITIATED
A searing, white-hot pain lanced from my temples to the base of my spine. It was the system tracing the query back to its source. To me.
Abort! Cancel query!
But it was like trying to stop a falling boulder. The trace pulsed, getting closer. In seconds, it would pinpoint my exact reality string anchor and broadcast it to every agent in the sector.
Desperation granted clarity.
I didn't fight the trace. I redirected it.
Using the watch's connection, I grabbed the incoming trace packet and, with a frantic edit, changed its target coordinates. I pointed it to the only other "anomalous" signature I knew nearby.
The Cleaner. Three blocks away, now walking along the riverfront.
SOURCE_LOCATED: CLEANER_UNIT_554
CONCLUSION: FAULTY_UNIT – SELF_SCAN_ANOMALY
REMEDIATION: IMMEDIATE_RECALL
On the street, the Cleaner in the trenchcoat stopped mid-stride. His body stiffened. His form began to dissolve into particles of white light, pixelating from the feet up. He didn't scream. He just looked down at his vanishing hands with empty, white eyes before dissolving completely into the air.
He'd been deleted. Recalled. For a fault that was mine.
The cost this time was a tsunami.
FOR: SYSTEM_INTRUSION, AGENT_FRAMING, CAUSALITY_FRAUD
PAYMENT_EXTRACTED:
It hit in waves.
First Wave: My knowledge of music. Not songs. The ability to understand melody. The world became eerily flat. The hum of the city, the whine in my ear—they were just noises now, stripped of rhythm, pitch, meaning.
Second Wave: The memory of sunlight on my skin. Not a specific day. The sensory memory of warmth itself. My body felt perpetually cool, disconnected from that fundamental comfort.
Third Wave: A chunk of my linguistic center. I stumbled over a word in my own thoughts. The word for… for the feeling of finding something you thought was lost. It was on the tip of my tongue, but the tongue was gone.
REALITY_STABILITY_DEBT: +3.7%
WARNING: DEBT_THRESHOLD (5%) APPROACHING
CONSEQUENCE: REALITY_REJECTION_IMMINENT
I was curled on the floor, shaking, drowning in absence. I was less than I was an hour ago. A hollowed-out shell filling up with cosmic debt.
But I'd learned something.
The system had rules. Protocols. It could be lied to. It could be tricked. It was a bureaucracy of existence, vast and powerful, but not infinitely smart.
And I'd found the first crack.
My watch's display flickered. The time glitched: 17:00… 12:53… 17:00… ERROR.
Then new text scrawled across its tiny screen, not in the system's clean font, but in jagged, hand-written-looking code:
Y͡o̸u̵ ͡a̵r̛e̸ ͜n̴o̡t͟ ͡a͢l̷o̵n̶e̢.̛
T̸h͢e͡ ͝S̷y̴s͝t͡e̵m͡ ͠l̷i͜e̢s҉.̛
T̡h͢e̸ ͏P̸u͠r̵i̶f̡i̢e̕r̴ ̛i̛s̴ ͜n̢ơt̢ ͟c̡o̡m̴iņg̷ ͢i̢n̸ ̡9̷ ͠h̡o̷u̶ŗs̵.̴
I̧t҉ ̶i̶s͢ ̷h̛e͟r̴e̸.̛
L̷O̡O͠K̴ ͟B̷E̸H҉I̛N̢D͡ ͠Y̡O͞U̢.
Ice water flooded my veins.
Slowly, mechanically, I turned my head.
In the far corner of my apartment, where the shadows were deepest, the darkness wasn't just an absence of light. It was a presence. A vertical slit of pure void had opened in the air. From it, a figure was stepping through.
It was tall, seven feet at least, and its form was a negative image—a man-shaped hole in reality, outlined by crackling purple static. Where its face should be, three rotating, geometric symbols floated in a triangle: a cube, a sphere, and a tetrahedron, spinning and clicking against each other with soundless, metallic precision.
Its tag burned in my vision, searing itself onto my retinas:
DESIGNATION: EXTERMINATUS_PROTOCOL_7
CURRENT_TASK: **DELETION OF [GLITCH_PRIMORDIAL_KAEL]**
THREAT_LEVEL: **APOCALYPTIC**
STATUS: **TERMINATION IMMINENT**
The clock in my mind shattered.
ETA: NOW.
The Purifier raised a hand. The geometric symbols on its face spun faster, locking into a new configuration. The cube glowed with a sickly, hungry violet light.
A single line of code appeared in the air between us, a death sentence in a simple command:
TARGET: [KAEL_PRIMORDIAL_ANCHOR #**REDACTED**]
CONFIRM? Y/_
The Purifier's void-head tilted. The tetrahedron symbol pulsed.
It was waiting for my confirmation. My final, cosmic courtesy.
My mind raced, empty of music, hollow of warmth, missing words. But burning with one last, raw instinct: survival.
I had one shot. Not at the Purifier. It was too powerful, its code too protected.
But at the command itself.
As the tetrahedron pulsed again, signaling the final confirmation, I didn't try to stop the deletion.
I edited the target.
With the last shred of my will, I changed the target string from my own anchor number…
…to the anchor number of the apartment building itself.
TARGET: [AURORA_TOWER_PRIMARY_ANCHOR #445,991,002]
The Purifier froze. The symbols on its face stuttered. It had processed the command. It was irrevocable.
It looked from me, to its own hand, to the glowing command line.
The Y illuminated itself.
Outside my window, the world screamed.
The Aurora Tower—all 340 meters and 87 stories of it—didn't explode. It didn't collapse.
It unwrote itself.
Starting from the foundation up, the building simply ceased to be. Not turning to dust, but pixelating into glowing, violet fragments that then dissolved into absolute nothingness. A perfect, geometric slice of reality was cleanly, silently erased from existence, along with every person, object, and memory inside it. The sky was suddenly visible where steel and glass had been.
The Purifier looked at the void where the tower had stood. It looked back at me. The spinning symbols on its face whirred, clicked, and recalibrated. It wasn't angry. It was… recalculating.
Its tag updated:
It took a step toward me. The shadows in the room bent toward it, stretching like taffy.
I was on my knees, debt-ridden, half-deleted, staring at the horror I'd just unleashed to save my own skin. Hundreds, maybe thousands, gone. Because of me.
The Purifier reached for me, its void-hand freezing the very air around it.
And in that final second, as the cold of non-existence washed over me, a new message flashed—not from the System, not from the mysterious jagged code, but from a third, unknown source. It appeared in the corner of my eye, in soft, gold text:
The floor beneath me vanished. I fell not down, but sideways, through layers of reality that peeled away like rotting wallpaper. The Purifier's grasping hand, my apartment, the silent scream of the erased tower—all stretched into impossible lines of light and were gone.
I plunged into screaming, chaotic static, and a single gold line of text was my only anchor:
WELCOME TO THE BACKDOORS, GLITCH.