Chapter 1: Glitch in the Cradle.part 2
722 Words
Jordan ran.
Down the apartment hallway — barefoot, hoodie loose, phone still useless in one hand. Floor tiles blinked with each step like pressure plates in some forgotten dungeon crawler. Except this wasn't a game.
It was too real.
The outside world looked… patched. Like someone had tried to render two incompatible versions of the city over each other. Trees flickered between green and glowing. Streets curled like melted circuits. A pigeon flew past with trailing light particles, its flapping wings sounding like distorted guitar feedback.
Jordan skidded to a stop in front of a reflection — but not his own.
The glass storefront showed a version of him. Not quite real. Wearing armor. Face covered. A heads-up display hovered beside his head like a player HUD, stats blinking red.
Then the glass shattered.
Not from an impact — from within.
Reality was folding in on itself, rewriting live like a broken mod loader.
“Merge. Merge. Merge,” echoed a dozen overlapping voices. Some human. Some digital. Some… not.
People in the streets were transforming — not physically, but behaviorally. Eyes glazed over, movements robotic. Like they were being booted into something else.
NPC mode.
One woman raised her arms and spoke a line Jordan knew from an old game’s tutorial:
> “Press X to interact with object.”
And then she froze, arms still raised, glitching slightly like an idle animation.
---
Jordan ducked into an alley. His thoughts were chaos.
> What is this? A prank? A full-scale AR invasion? Did some game company break reality? Is this AI retaliation?
Then he heard a whisper. But not through his ears — through his mind.
> “You are the last unsynced node.”
“You are the anomaly.”
“Final Player status confirmed.”
The world paused.
Everything froze.
Then, a new HUD appeared in front of him, this time embedded in the air:
Player ID: RAZE_VALOR
Sync Status: REJECTED
Survival Rate: Y.
---
Suddenly, the world accelerated.
The Merge began.
---
Buildings collapsed like digital sandcastles. The sky stretched into a dome of pulsing circuitry. Pedestrians rebooted into forms with glowing eyes and twitchy, menu-like movements.
Jordan was shoved backward into the wall — but didn’t fall.
A force suspended him midair, surrounding his body with hexagonal light shields. He could see everything.
And everything was falling apart.
---
Then he was dropped.
Slammed into the pavement, wind knocked out of him.
He groaned, rolling over, just as a hand extended toward him.
A girl — early twenties, short buzzed hair, tactical gear glowing with unstable light. She wasn’t merged.
She was real.
“You him?” she asked.
“What?”
“Final Player. You matched the flare signature. You’re the unsynced one.”
Jordan coughed. “That’s what they’re calling it?”
She nodded grimly. “Name’s Aya. Resistance. We don’t have time. You’re about to be hunted.”
“Hunted by who?”
“Not who. What. The System doesn’t like wild variables.”
---
Behind them, the world split.
A chasm opened down the street, and from it rose a creature — tall, skeletal, made of white-hot glitch. A hybrid of code and bone. Its eyes were red cursors. Its voice was a corrupted patch note:
> “UNREGISTERED PLAYER DETECTED. INITIATING FORCED SYNC.”
Jordan stared. “What the hell is that?”
Aya pulled him to his feet. “That’s your first boss.”
- Writer
