Falling into the glitch-well didn't feel like falling through air. It felt like being dragged through a sea of thick, freezing oil that tasted like copper and old batteries.
One moment, I was screaming Vax's name; the next, the sound was stripped from my throat, replaced by a low-frequency hum that vibrated in my very marrow. My vision didn't go dark. It shattered. The silver sky of Oros was replaced by a kaleidoscope of neon-green code and floating pieces of the desert that refused to obey gravity.
THUD.
I hit a surface that felt like cold glass. I gasped for air, but the atmosphere was thin and smelled of ozone. I scrambled to my feet, my hand going instinctively to my kinetic-baton.
"Vax? Bjorn?" I croaked.
Silence.
I wasn't in the desert anymore. I was in a "Data-Pocket." The ground was a grid of glowing white lines, stretching infinitely into a black void. Floating above me were massive, jagged chunks of the Temple—pillars of silver stone that were half-real and half-pixelated, flickering like a dying lightbulb.
[ SYSTEM WARNING: REALITY COHERENCE AT 64% ]
[ BODY INTEGRITY: STABLE (BIOLOGICAL ADVANTAGE) ]
"Bloop..."
A small, weak sound came from my pocket. I reached in and pulled out Pod. He looked terrible. His neon-blue jelly was flickering, and small black "static" squares were dancing across his surface. He looked like he was being erased.
"Hey, hey... stay with me, buddy," I whispered, holding him close to my chest. I could feel his heart—or whatever served as his core—beating in a panicked, irregular rhythm. "I'm biological, remember? The King said I'm the anchor. Use me."
I focused on the warmth of my own skin, the weight of my boots, the sting of the ozone in my nose. I poured that "reallness" into Pod.
Slowly, the black squares on his body vanished, and he settled into a steady, comforting violet glow.
"Fuen! If you are a hallucination, I am going to be very cross!"
I spun around. About fifty feet away, Vax was clinging to a floating silver pillar. He was horizontal, his body defying gravity, his four eyes spinning in four different directions.
"Vax! Stay still!" I yelled, running toward him.
But the grid beneath my feet shifted. Every step I took felt like walking on a trampoline made of light.
"I can't... stay... still!" Vax shrieked. "The coordinates are shifting! My goggles are telling me I'm currently three miles underground and also inside a toaster! My brain is melting, Fuen!"
"Don't look at the goggles! Look at me!" I reached the edge of his "gravity-bubble" and grabbed his hand.
The moment we touched, the "glitch" around Vax snapped. He fell out of his horizontal position and landed hard on the grid-floor. He curled into a ball, shaking.
"The data... it was screaming, Fuen. The parasite... it doesn't just eat code. It feels hungry."
"Where are the others?" I asked, pulling him up.
ROOOOOOARRRRR!
The sound came from below us. I looked over the edge of the grid-platform. About a hundred feet down, in a pit of swirling black static, I saw a flash of white fur and a honey-glazed ham.
"Bjorn!"
The polar bear was standing in the center of a swarm of static-scorpions. He was swinging his metal pillar like a madman, but the monsters were flickering in and out of existence so fast he couldn't land a blow.
And in the corner of the pit, huddled against a flickering wall, was the girl—Luna Lone.
She was fading. Her arm was already transparent, the white and gold fabric of her dress turning into a stream of falling numbers.
"We have to go down there," I said, my voice hardening.
"Down there? Fuen, that's the 'Delete-Zone'!" Vax cried. "If we fall into that static, our systems will crash!"
"Pod and I will stabilize the landing," I said, looking at the little slime. "Pod, you ready for a big burst?"
Pod let out a determined Bloop! and synced with my arm. My HUD flared to life, glowing with a violet intensity I'd never seen before.
[ NEW SKILL EVOLVED: RESONANCE SHIELD ]
I didn't wait. I grabbed Vax by the collar and jumped.
The fall was a nightmare of sensory overload. The static bit at my skin like millions of tiny needles. But as we fell, I slammed my fist into the air. A sphere of violet energy erupted around us, a bubble of "reality" that pushed the static back.
We landed in the pit with a shockwave that sent the scorpions flying.
"Small Bear!" Bjorn cheered, his armor sparking with blue electricity. "You brought more snacks!"
"Not snacks, Bjorn! Combat support!" I yelled.
I turned to Luna. She looked up at us, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and hope.
She wasn't just a normal girl ; she looked like a girl who had been running for her life for a very long time.
"Who... who are you?" she whispered. Her voice was a glitchy echo, like two people speaking at once.
"We're the Null-Squad," I said, stepping between her and the approaching System-Eater—the massive black giant we'd seen at the Temple door. "And we're the only ones who can't be deleted."
The System-Eater didn't move. It stood at the edge of our violet bubble, its red "Error" text scrolling faster and faster. Then, it did something that froze my blood.
It didn't roar. It didn't attack. It spoke.
But it didn't use a voice. The message appeared directly on the white grid-floor in massive, burning red letters:
[ SUBJECT: FUEN ]
[ TRASH-BORN DETECTED ]
[ SEARCHING FOR PARENTAL TRACE... ]
[ ERROR: MOTHER_NOT_FOUND ]
[ ERROR: FATHER_NOT_FOUND ]
I stared at the floor. My heart stopped. How did this... this thing know my parents were dead? How did it know I was a trash from the Pit?
The System-Eater raised its hand, and the violet bubble around us began to crack.
[ INITIATING:
FAMILY_REUNION_PROTOCOL ]
From the black static behind the giant, two shapes began to form. They were made of the same flickering black code, but their silhouettes were unmistakably human. One was a tall man , the other a woman with a kind smile that was being distorted by digital noise.
"Fuen...?" the male shape whispered, its voice sounding exactly like a man I barely remembered.
"Fuen, come home," the female shape added, her hand reaching out through the static.
I froze. My baton lowered. My mind went blank.
"Fuen! It's a trick!" Vax screamed, pulling on my arm. "It's hacking your memories! It's not real!"
But the shapes kept coming, their pixelated eyes looking right into mine.
[ REALITY COHERENCE: 30% ]
[ WARNING: COMMANDER IS SURRENDERING ]