Darkness.
Not the comforting kind.
Not sleep. Not rest.
This was a darkness that breathed — cold, alive, and watching.
Ryn floated in it, or maybe he was falling. He couldn't tell anymore. There was no sky. No ground. Only fragments of static dancing like broken glass across an invisible screen.
His body... wasn't his.
It didn't hurt. That scared him more.
> [System Booting...]
[Attempting user registration...]
[Error: No valid ID found.]
[Entity status: Undefined]
[Proceed with emergency protocol?]
A pulse of white light cut through the void. Suddenly, his heart kicked — hard. Breath surged into lungs that had no right to function. His eyes snapped open.
Cold metal beneath him.
The floor shimmered like glass.
A room — circular, sterile, humming with artificial life.
> "Where... am I?" he whispered.
His voice sounded strange. Hollow. Like it echoed off data itself.
Then came the chime.
> [Welcome to Sector Null.]
[You have been reactivated.]
[Warning: Subject marked as ANOMALY.]
[Status: Threat-level pending.]
[No class assigned. No path chosen.]
Flashes of memory struck like lightning.
Screams.
Fire.
A woman's face — blurred by tears and betrayal.
Pain, then... silence.
And after that — nothing.
He had died.
Not metaphorically. Not spiritually. Literally erased.
Yet here he was. Breathing. Thinking. Questioning.
But not alone.
Footsteps. Mechanical. Slow. Calculated.
A figure stepped into the light — humanoid, but wrong. Its eyes glowed violet, and its voice came not from a mouth, but directly into his mind.
> [Scanning subject.]
[Designation: Unknown.]
[Category: Rejected Data.]
> "You shouldn't exist," it said.
Ryn staggered back. "I... didn't ask to."
The construct raised its hand. Energy gathered, pixelated and unstable. The room began to distort, like reality was struggling to hold shape.
Instinct screamed.
Ryn didn't think — he moved.
His body responded like it remembered something he didn't. He rolled, grabbed a rod of shattered code on the floor — a broken weapon, maybe — and swung.
The blow connected. Sparks flew. The construct stumbled.
It felt... real.
> [Alert: Combat initiated.]
[Sync rate: 17%. Processing combat protocol.]
Something activated in his mind. Not words. Not thoughts. Commands.
He felt a surge — raw code stitching into his nerves.
Pain this time. Beautiful, sharp, human pain.
He dodged another blast, closed the gap, and drove the rod into the construct's core. It screeched — a sound that wasn't made for ears — and exploded into particles.
Silence returned.
Then—
> [Enemy eliminated.]
[System anomaly confirmed.]
[Assigning temporary identity: "Ryn."]
[New Path created: CHAOS / NULL / ERROR]
> [Would you like to activate Player Interface?]
Ryn stared at the glowing prompt in front of him.
"…Player?" he muttered. "You think this is a game?"
His hand moved anyway.
Accept.
The air shimmered. Data folded in on itself. A transparent window blinked open:
---
Name: Ryn
Level: 0
Status: Anomaly
Class: Unassigned
Energy Core: Corrupted
Skill Tree: [Locked]
Known Threats: [System Agents]
Objective: Survive / Discover Origin of Deletion
---
He laughed, bitterly.
"Perfect. Not even Level 1 and I'm already a problem."
A door opened ahead. It hadn't been there before.
Beyond it: a hallway of flickering screens, each showing fragments — battles, broken cities, screaming faces. He didn't recognize them, but something deep in his bones remembered.
> [Welcome to the GodSystem.]
> [You have 72 hours to stabilize your code.]
[Failure will result in permanent deletion.]
> [Good luck, Glitch.]
---
Ryn walked forward. Not because he trusted the voice.
Not because he had answers.
But because standing still meant dying again.
And this time, he planned to stay broken — on his terms.