2025-02-24 20:04:52Testing the System
A pulse of static rattles my skull as I reach for something unseen, my mind stretching into the void. The world around me flickers—distant, muffled—like reality itself is an old television struggling to maintain its signal. And then, everything sharpens. A screen materializes in my mind’s eye, the words forming as though whispered into existence: [Status Screen] Strength: Human (Upgradeable) Reflexes: Enhanced (Unstable) Cognitive Processing: Above Normal] My breath catches in my throat. This isn’t normal. This isn’t possible. Before I can even process what I’m seeing, another message overlays the first, stark and sterile in its cold declaration: [Welcome, Anomaly. You are not supposed to exist.] Ice floods my veins. My stomach twists. My entire body stiffens as if the mere acknowledgment of my existence is enough to unravel me from the inside out. I am not supposed to exist. What the hell does that even mean? My pulse hammers in my ears. My hands clench into fists. I take a shaky breath and force my legs to move, pacing the dimly lit room. The air feels thicker and heavier. The walls seem to press in closer, suffocating me with their silence. Someone—something—is watching me. I can feel it. “No,” I whisper, shaking my head, trying to steady the chaos clawing through my thoughts. “No, no, no. This has to be a mistake. Some kind of glitch.” But the words on the screen don’t change. They remain, imprinted on my consciousness like a cruel joke. I squeeze my eyes shut, gripping the edges of my desk until my knuckles turn white. If this is real—if this system is inside me—then I need to understand it. I need to control it before it controls me. Taking a deep breath, I focus. Status Screen. The display doesn’t shift, but I push harder. Details. A new set of information unfurls, breaking down each stat: Strength: Base human capacity, potential to increase via upgrades. Reflexes: Enhanced neural response, currently unstable due to synchronization errors. Cognitive Processing: Heightened analytical ability. Temporary spikes in pattern recognition. Potential risk: Information Overload. I swallow hard. Unstable? Synchronization errors? I test my reflexes, flicking my hand toward a nearby glass of water. My fingers react faster than I expected, the motion shand arp, unnatural. The glass nearly flies out of my grip. I barely stop it from slipping through my fingers. Enhanced reflexes. I exhale. Yeah. That tracks. But unstable. The thought sends a chill through me. What happens if it fails at the wrong moment? If my body moves before my brain can catch up? A creak echoes in the silence. I freeze. I am alone. My apartment is empty. The doors are locked. But the air shifts, as though someone—or something—has just moved. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. My hands tighten into fists. I pivot toward the sound, my breath shallow, my heartbeat a drum against my ribs. Nothing. My vision sharpens. My hearing strains against the quiet. But there is nothing there. At least, nothing I can see. I swallow back the panic rising in my throat and force myself to move. If I stand here frozen like prey, whatever is out there—if something is out there—will know I’m afraid. I step toward my desk and grab the nearest object—a metal pen. Not much of a weapon, but if my reflexes are truly enhanced, maybe I won’t need much. “Show me more,” I whisper, focusing again on the system. The screen flickers. A new message forces itself into view. [External Influence Detected.] The world tilts. The message pulses, as if alive. My grip on the pen tightens, my knuckles aching. “External what?” I rasp, my voice barely audible. A low hum reverberates through the room, deep and unnatural. It isn’t sound—it’s inside me, vibrating through my bones, echoing in the hollows of my skull. [Connection Attempt: Pending.] My breath stutters. My thoughts tangle. “NO!” I scream, pushing back with everything I have. The screen shatters. Not physically, but in my mind, the text dissolves into static before vanishing entirely. The hum cuts out. The presence recedes like an ebbing tide, leaving me gasping, shaking, gripping the edge of my desk like a lifeline. Silence crashes back into the room, heavy and deafening. I stay there, frozen, until the numbness fades and my mind starts to process what just happened. Someone—or something—tried to connect to me. This isn’t just a system. It isn’t just some weird anomaly. I am being watched. I need answers. Now. Gritting my teeth, I move. My body is on autopilot—pulling on a jacket, grabbing my phone, slipping the metal pen into my pocket like some pathetic excuse for a weapon. Every nerve in my body screams at me to run, but I can’t afford to be reckless. Whoever—or whatever—was trying to reach me isn’t gone. It’s waiting. And so am I. Because if it wants me, it’s going to have to fight for me. I take a shaky breath and step out the door, into the night, into the unknown. The game has just begun.
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A Code Written in BloodThe vault smelled like cold metal and something else—something rotten, like data that had spoiled. The walls pulsed with dim red lights, stretching into endless rows of glass cases. At first glance, they looked empty.They weren’t.I stepped forward, breath fogging against the glass as I peered inside. A face stared back at me. Eyes wide. Mouth slightly open, like he’d been caught mid-sentence. A man frozen in time.Not dead. Not alive.Just gone.Kane moved beside me, her fingers hovering inches from the glass. “What the hell is this?”Elias was already moving, his bag slung over his shoulder as he pulled out a tablet. “A graveyard,” he muttered, running his fingers over the control panel. “Or a prison, depending on how you look at it.”My stomach twisted. “They’re trapped?”“They’re rewritten.” His voice was grim. “The system didn’t just erase them. It repurposed them.”I forced myself to look again. The man in the glass had no scars, no wrinkles, nothing tha
CHAPTER 36
The Fractured SelfThe road ahead stretched endlessly, a ghost of a world flickering in and out like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to exist. My boots kicked up dust, but even that felt artificial, like it was programmed to react the way I expected. Kane walked beside me, silent, her sharp eyes scanning the ruins ahead. Elias trailed behind, muttering calculations under his breath.I knew where we were going. The Overseers’ domain. A place where reality wasn’t a certainty, where time looped back on itself and people became echoes.But for some reason, I couldn’t remember why we were going there.I frowned, shaking my head. Something was missing—like a word on the tip of my tongue, slipping further away the harder I tried to catch it.Kane noticed. She always did. “What’s wrong?”“I…” I opened my mouth, but hesitation stopped me cold. What was wrong? I couldn’t explain it, but I felt lighter, like pieces of me were missing.“Tony,” she pressed, voice firm but not unkind. “Talk to me.”
CHAPTER 35
A World Outside the SystemThe world around us wasn’t fully formed. Buildings stood half-finished, their structures dissolving into static at the edges. The sky above flickered between shades of gray and deep violet, glitching in and out like a bad signal. It was a place that wasn’t supposed to exist—an abandoned zone, untouched by The Overseers.Kane and I stood in the middle of the street, our breaths visible in the eerie cold air. She kept a tight grip on the device we’d stolen, her knuckles white from the pressure.“This place feels wrong,” she murmured. “Like it’s waiting to disappear.”I agreed. The world here wasn’t stable. It was like standing on the edge of a dream, just before waking up.Then, a figure emerged from the shadows. A man, dressed in a dark, tattered coat, his face partially hidden beneath the hood. He stepped forward with a calculated slowness, his hands raised in a gesture of peace.“I was wondering when you’d find your way here,” he said.Kane tensed beside me
CHAPTER 34
The Core’s CoordinatesThe screen flickered, casting a cold blue glow over Kane’s tense face. Lines of encrypted data scrolled rapidly, filling the air with the soft hum of technology at work. My fingers danced across the keyboard, heart pounding as I decrypted the last layer. Then—Coordinates. A list of possible locations. The Core.Kane exhaled sharply beside me. "This is it." Her voice was quiet, but beneath it, a current of urgency rippled through.I swallowed. "We finally have something real."But before the words could settle, a chill ran through the room. The lights dimmed, not flickering—shifting, like the walls themselves were second-guessing their existence. Kane and I locked eyes. Outside the window, the city moved in ways it shouldn’t. A building that had been across the street was now beside us. People walked in slow, deliberate steps, their faces expressionless, heads subtly tilting in unison."The Overseers," Kane murmured, reaching instinctively for the knife at her b
CHAPTER 33
The Price of RebellionThe air here was heavy, thick with the weight of things that didn’t belong.I could feel it pressing down on my skin, humming through my bones—a silent scream buried in the fabric of reality. Kane and I moved cautiously through the remnants of what had once been someone’s last stand. The place had the same eerie stillness as the hideout before, but worse. This wasn’t just abandoned.It was frozen.A street half-formed, cutting off into an expanse of nothing. A doorway leading to nowhere, hanging in the air like it had been sliced from existence mid-thought. Cars, chairs, even the dust in the air—stuck in a single moment, refusing to move.Like time had decided to give up.Kane ran a hand over a rusted terminal embedded in the wall, her fingers pressing against dead keys. "Whoever they were… they didn’t get far."I crouched near a stack of papers scattered across the cracked pavement. Words scrawled in desperate handwriting, some neat, others jagged and frantic.
CHAPTER 32
The First RemnantI woke to the taste of blood in my mouth.For a second, everything was wrong—blurry, twisted. The world flickered like a broken screen, and shadows stretched in directions they shouldn’t. My heartbeat was loud, too loud, like it was trying to hammer its way out of my chest. Then, just as quickly as it started, the distortion snapped back into place, leaving me gasping on a cold, cracked floor.Kane's voice cut through the haze. "Tony."She was crouched beside me, eyes sharp, body tense. There was dust in her dark hair, and a thin cut ran along her jaw, but she looked intact. Alive."You're okay," she said, like she was trying to convince herself. "I caught you before you hit the ground. Mostly."My head throbbed. I forced myself upright, biting back a groan. "Define 'mostly'?""You didn’t die. You’re welcome."I let out a weak, breathy laugh. "Guess I owe you one."She stood, scanning the room we’d landed in. It was some kind of hideout—low ceilings, metal walls, the
