First Glitch
654 Words
Chapter 6: First Glitch
Nova stood at the location the system had marked—an empty, crumbling plaza overtaken by ash and ivy. Her boots crunched on broken tiles, and her heart thudded with suspicion.
This wasn’t right.
The system’s map had clearly shown a weapons cache hidden beneath a warehouse. Coordinates exact. ETA accurate. And yet—nothing. Just a hollow square surrounded by skeletal lamp posts and shattered concrete, as if the building had been ripped from the ground and swallowed by time.
[SYSTEM ERROR: Location data conflict. Recalibrating…]
Nova’s eyes narrowed. “You’re glitching.”
[Rebooting subroutine: Resource_Recovery_01]
Error. Error. Location integrity: 37%]
A cold breeze brushed her cheek. She scanned the plaza again. No signs of struggle. No scorch marks. No radiation residue. But the air was… wrong. Too quiet. Like the world was holding its breath.
“You’re never wrong,” she muttered, gripping the handle of her makeshift stun rod. “So why now?”
Ever since her reset three days before the apocalypse, the system had been precise—brutally so. Mission prompts, enemy spawns, route plans—it calculated everything with eerie accuracy. But now, in her first major supply hunt, it had led her into a void.
[Survivor Detected: 43 meters north]
Nova spun toward the direction. Her instincts kicked in. She ducked behind a moss-covered bench, breath shallow, ears straining. A low crunch echoed—boots on gravel. Someone else was here.
A silhouette emerged from the shadows. Tall. Armed. Gas mask obscuring the face. He moved with caution, scanning the area with a handheld detector that blinked red as it neared Nova’s hiding spot.
She didn’t wait.
Nova darted from cover, slid behind a broken fountain, and activated silent mode.
[Stealth Boost: +40% activated for 60 seconds]
Her heart pounded in sync with the system’s countdown timer.
60.
59.
58…
The man paused, sensing movement. His head tilted.
“Show yourself,” he called out. Voice muffled, but calm.
Nova didn’t move. She’d learned the hard way—survivors could be more dangerous than the infected. Especially if they were scavengers or system-possessed.
[Warning: Hostile system signature detected. Level 2 anomaly nearby.]
Her blood ran cold.
The man wasn’t just a survivor. He had a system too. And not just any system—an anomalous one. That meant corrupted protocol, unpredictable behavior… and possibly, someone else who had reset like her.
Was he an ally—or another glitch?
Suddenly, his detector buzzed violently. Red lights flared. He turned directly toward her hiding spot.
“Found you,” he said, pulling out a weapon.
Nova cursed and bolted, leaping over a cracked bench and diving behind a pillar. A pulse blast exploded where she had stood a second before, ripping through concrete like paper.
[Engage Combat Mode? Y/N]
She slammed Y.
The world slowed. Her vision sharpened. The stun rod in her hand hummed to life with faint blue energy. She lunged forward just as the man rounded the corner.
They clashed.
Rod met gun. Sparks flew. He grunted, taken aback by her speed. She flipped over him, landed behind, and aimed a shock jab at his spine.
[CRITICAL HIT - Enemy stunned: 2.6 seconds]
He collapsed to one knee.
Nova didn’t hesitate. She pinned him with her rod, yanked off his mask—and froze.
She knew that face.
“Eli?” she whispered, breath catching.
His eyes fluttered open. Recognition flickered.
“Nova?”
The system went wild.
[WARNING: Temporal Anomaly Detected.
Target ID: Eli Crane
Status: Deceased in Original Timeline]
Nova staggered back, heart crashing in her ribs. Eli was dead. He had died—she’d seen it with her own eyes in the original timeline. Killed in the firestorm during the last evacuation.
Yet here he was, alive… armed… and system-bound.
Something had gone horribly wrong.
Or maybe—
Something—or someone—was rewriting fate besides her.
- Writer
