Iris was working the register. To be more accurate, she was attempting to work the register. Her hands trembled with every transaction, every receipt, every slightly-too-enthusiastic customer who said "thank you." Her shoulders shook. Her breaths shortened. She could feel her anxiety crawling up her spine like a demon whispering: What if you mess up? What if they're judging you? What if you drop something? What if—
"—Iris? Iris? Sweetie? You okay?"
Kagura's voice cut through the static.
Iris froze.
Chifuyu, wiping down a table, glanced over. Ariel peeked above his head. Nicholas and Caesar were prepping drinks. Shinatsu was reading the newspaper. Everyone felt it. Something was about to go terribly, catastrophically wrong.
"I—I—I…" Iris squeaked.
Then—
THHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRT.
Her body glitched.
She sputtered like a corrupted file. Her outline flickered into squares. Her voice became electronic noise.
Ariel: "What's going on with Iris?"
Chifuyu: "Oh no. She's glitching!"
Iris: "I–I'm… sor…ry… something… feels… wrong—"
She vanished. Reappeared three feet to the left. She reappeared behind the counter. Now on the ceiling. She was glitching all over the place.
"…AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
Iris screamed.
"Iris, get down from there!" Kagura yelled.
"I—I'm trying—but my body—!"
Iris teleported mid-sentence, reappearing behind a customer's head. The customer screamed and threw their drink into the air. The drink froze mid-air, duplicated, then multiplied into fifty coffees that rained down on Caesar.
"AAAHHHH MY UNIFORM!!" Caesar shrieked.
Nicholas freaked out: "What the hell is going on?"
Diego: "This doesn't logo food guys."
Ariel clung to his shirt in fear: "Chifuyu… she's becoming a final boss."
Kagura rushed forward: "Iris, just come here—"
She grabbed Iris' arm and instantly started glitching out. Kagura pixelated. Her movements lagged. Her face froze half-smile, half-terror.
"Kagu—?!" Shinatsu rose from her seat. But the glitch had already spread.
Kagura's hair flickered between twelve different physics states. Her limbs looped like a broken GIF. She floated slightly above ground.
Chifuyu screamed: "KAGURA HAS BEEN CORRUPTED!!"
"WHY AM I FLOATING?!" Kagura cried as her body rotated.
Ariel clapped her hands to her cheeks: "It's spreading!! Iris is bugging the entire cafe!!"
Beatrice: "This is quite the turn of events."
Yuji: "Everybody get away from her!"
Shinatsu tried stepping away and Iris appeared inches from her face.
"SHI—!!" Iris' glitch aura crackled and caught Shinatsu. Her eyes became two black dots like low-resolution placeholders. Her twin tails jittered in random directions. Nicholas tried backing away, but the glitch caught him too. He was inverted upside-down.
"WHY AM I ON THE CEILING?!" Nicholas screamed.
Caesar tried helping him down, but he soon became 2D. He flapped like paper.
Ariel: "Chifuyu… the objects…"
He looked. The chairs were glitching. The tables were glitching. The floor was glitching. One table was floating. Another was rotating. A chair was clipping halfway into the wall like a corrupted model.
Diego tried running but was inevitably caught. He froze mid-air. Then duplicated into 5 Diegos, each yelling something different. Iris screamed and glitched straight through the wall, leaving pixel trails.
Chifuyu: "Ariel! We need to run!!"
They bolted toward the door as the cafe walls became corrupted code. Pixels fell like snow. Reality flickered in and out. Behind them, everybody else had been devoured by the glitch.
Ariel: "WE'RE GETTING OUT OF HERE!!"
They dove outside. Just in time to see the entire Odd Jobs building shift into a digital mosaic glitch shape. A horrific electronic sound echoed. The sign flickered. Then the entire building popped like a corrupted memory file.
Ariel: "Odd Jobs!"
Chifuyu: "Iris is glitching everything!"
They ran.
But the glitch followed. Houses pixelated. Lamp posts flickered. Streets spazzed out. Vehicles duplicated in mid-air or froze at impossible angles. Dogs turned into floating cubes. Cats phased through fences like ghosts. Mailboxes teleported randomly.
Ariel covered her head: "CHIFUYU THIS IS THE END OF THE WORLD!!"
Chifuyu: "Can we even outrun this?!"
They sprinted through the neighborhood as reality unraveled behind them. Pixel waves rolled forward, corrupting everything. Then, a portal ripped open in front of them. The strongest Hunter stepped out.
Chifuyu: "Shoyo!"
Shoyo: "What on earth is going on?!"
Chifuyu: "IT'S IRIS. SHE'S GLITCHING AND TAKING EVERYTHING WITH HER!!"
Shoyo: "I see. I feared thus would happen."
Then Iris appeared directly behind him like a horror game jumpscare. Reality around Shoyo wavered.
Shoyo: "Crap!"
And then Shoyo too became a glitch. His hair flickered between normal and neon blue. His jacket looped mid-flutter. One eyebrow desynced from his face. And then he glitched into a frozen T-pose.
Chifuyu and Ariel screamed.
Ariel: "WE HAVE TO RUN!! CHIFUYU RUN!!"
They sprinted. But it didn't matter. The glitch spread faster like an unstoppable virus rolling through houses, streets, parks, and trees. The sky and clouds pixelated. The sun turned into a rotating cube.
Ariel cried: "We're not going to make it!"
Chifuyu yelled: "We can't afford to die yet!"
But they were engulfed. A pixelated wave swallowed them whole. Everything became static. First the entire district, then, the entire continent of Shioto collapsed into a glitchy digital void.
The world was filled with darkness.
***
Chifuyu shot upright in his bed, drenched in cold sweat: "HUFF, HUFF, HUFF…"
Ariel startled awake beside him: "Chifuyu, what happened?!"
Chifuyu clutched his chest: "I — Iris — glitched — the whole world — corrupted— Shoyo T-posed — everyone gone — it was— it was—"
Ariel blinked sleepily: "…You had a nightmare."
Chifuyu stared blankly at the wall: "I don't think it was a nightmare." His voice was hollow. "That felt too real. Too possible."
Ariel patted his shoulder: ""…Chifuyu. Iris is many things. But she is not a reality-breaking entity."
Chifuyu stared at the ceiling: "Ariel… I saw the end of the world. Not by vampires. But by Iris's social anxiety."
Ariel sighed and laid back down: "Get some sleep, dummy."
Chifuyu didn't move. He whispered to himself: "We need to prevent this from happening."
Ariel closed her eyes and went back to sleep. His nightmare clung to him like static. He couldn't shake the feeling that somewhere in the future… The Glitch might not stay a nightmare.