The system's grip on me was suffocating, inescapable.
[New Objective: Investigate the anomaly. Prioritize stabilization.]
The decree echoed relentlessly in my mind, like a command I couldn't ignore or comprehend. I lingered by the fountain, the faint remnants of Riven's earlier glitch sparking faintly on my arm, a haunting reminder of the chaos I'd somehow subdued.
"So," Riven began, shattering the tense silence that cloaked us, "what's the plan?" His voice carried fatigue, but his gaze remained sharp and unyielding.
Asher, lounging casually against a cracked wall, merely raised an eyebrow. "A plan?" he repeated, his tone dripping with mockery. "Do you think the system handed us a step-by-step guide for this?"
Riven's posture stiffened as his glare zeroed in on Asher. "You could at least pretend to contribute for once."
The air between them was thick with a volatile mix of camaraderie and resentment. Their dynamic hinted at a history fraught with shared battles and burdens, but whatever bond existed between them seemed fragile, strained under the weight of a disintegrating world.
Clearing my throat, I stepped in, hoping to divert their brewing conflict. "If we're going to deal with this—this anomaly—shouldn't we start by figuring out what it even is? What does something like that mean in a place like this?"
Asher's smirk faltered, replaced by an almost imperceptible shift in his expression. His usual air of smug confidence gave way to something sharper, more reflective. "It's a glitch," he said finally, his voice steady. "But not just any glitch. It's like a tear—a breach in the fabric of this world where the system loses its grip."
A chill coursed through me. "And how would you know that? Have you… seen one before?"
His gaze flickered, a fleeting shadow of something unspoken passing through his eyes before vanishing. "Once," he admitted, his tone quieter, almost reluctant. "But it wasn't like this. That one was… contained. Barely, but it was manageable. This? It feels different. Bigger. More dangerous."
"Back then?" Riven interjected, his voice thick with accusation. "You're telling me about the time you nearly got yourself deleted, and Cael had to step in to fix it—"
"Riven," Asher cut him off, his smirk resurfacing, though it never quite reached his eyes. "Details, details. The point is, this one's different. Bigger. And if the system's sending people—or whatever you are—to deal with it, then…"
He let his words trail off, his gaze settling heavily on me.
"What?" I asked, discomfort curling in my stomach under the weight of his attention.
He straightened, pushing off the wall, his movements smooth and deliberate as he stepped closer to me. "It means you're not some random variable in this fractured world. The system doesn't make moves like this unless there's a reason. You're here for a purpose, Aldira."
The way he said my name sent a chill crawling down my spine. For a split second, a memory of our encounter in the meadow resurfaced. Back then, his presence had been different—disarming, almost gentle, though still tinged with something unsettling. But now? Now, he was an enigma. A man wrapped in confidence and half-truths, every word coated in implications that I couldn't begin to untangle.
Riven let out a sharp, frustrated sigh, rubbing his temples. "Enough with the cryptic nonsense, Asher. If you know something, just spit it out."
"Knowing isn't the same as understanding," Asher replied, his voice smooth as ever. "But I'll give you this—anomalies don't just destabilize the world. They reveal things. Things the system tries to bury."
I frowned, trying to understand his cryptic words. "Like what?"
Asher tilted his head slightly, his silver hair catching the dim light, his gaze unwavering. "Secrets," he said simply. "Truths about this world. About us. Maybe even about why you're here."
The weight of his gaze pressed down on me, and I could feel a knot of unease settle in my chest. I wanted to press him for more, to demand he stop playing these riddles, but the flicker of vulnerability I had seen in his eyes earlier stayed with me. Whatever he knew, it wasn't something he was ready to share, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to know the whole truth—whatever that might cost.
Riven, however, wasn't so easily deterred. "You're hiding something," he accused, stepping closer to Asher. "You always do. You always know more, but you never—never—tell us anything."
Asher remained unfazed, his calm demeanor never shifting. "And yet, here we are. Alive. Even after what happened earlier this year. You're welcome, by the way."
"Enough, please," I interjected, my voice sharper than I intended. The exhaustion from stabilizing Riven still weighed heavily on me, and the endless riddles and uncertainties of this world were wearing me down. Both Asher and Riven turned to face me, their expressions momentarily surprised. "This isn't helping. If we're going to deal with this anomaly, we need to work together. No more games, and no more riddles. If you want to share something, then just say it outright."
To my surprise, Asher chuckled softly. "Fiery, aren't you? Fine. No more games. But you'd better hold onto that attitude, Aldira. Things are only going to get messier from here."
Riven shot him a sharp look but didn't say anything, his face unreadable.
Asher's words lingered in my mind, gnawing at me. Secrets. Truths. I still didn't understand what he meant. Every answer he gave seemed to spark even more questions. I knew that thinking too hard about it would only send me in circles.
As we prepared to leave the village, a faint but unmistakable flicker of static flashed across the horizon. It was a small, but ominous sign of the anomalies that awaited us. My pulse quickened, a rush of fear and determination surging through me. I had no choice but to push forward.
Whatever lay ahead, I couldn't shake the feeling that this was just the beginning. And Asher's cryptic remarks? They were only the surface of something much larger, something I wasn't yet prepared to face.
The landscape around us seemed suspended in time, fractured and caught between the threads of a reality on the verge of collapse. The world felt as if it was dissolving, like the final moments of a dream unraveling. Above, the sky bled into unnatural hues, shifting and warping in chaotic patterns, as though the very fabric of the universe was breaking apart. Pockets of reality flickered and bent, and in those pockets, strange strands of code drifted through the air, twisting like ribbons of static. They fell like snowflakes, only to disappear before they could reach the ground, leaving nothing behind but an unsettling emptiness. The world, the entire system, felt wrong. It was a haunting beauty, a landscape of decay, where nature itself seemed to glitch, flickering in sync with the crumbling system.
As we pressed forward, the remnants of fractured NPCs grew more apparent. These weren't just glitches—they were the echoes of lives trapped in an unraveling system, their bodies and movements repeating in endless, broken loops. I could see them everywhere, frozen in actions they could no longer complete. One woman, near the edge of a collapsed market, extended her hand as if offering something to an invisible customer, her fingers trembling as though locked in time. Ahead, a group of children played a game, their faces replaced by eerie, static-filled voids. Their movements were jerky, unnatural. They seemed unaware of the glitching reality around them, caught in a game that had no rules, no purpose.
This village—no, this was more than just a town in chaos. It was a place where the world had broken beyond repair. There was no escaping the sense that these weren't just corrupted figures. They were people—real, once-living beings—now trapped in an endless loop, unable to escape the glitch that consumed them. Someone had pulled the plug on their existence, leaving them stranded in confusion, trying desperately to fulfill roles they no longer understood, in a world that no longer cared.
I kept my eyes fixed on the ground, unwilling to meet the vacant stares of the fractured NPCs around us. But despite my best efforts to ignore them, their presence gnawed at me. Every flicker of static, every shard of code drifting past, felt like a cold reminder of just how badly the system was falling apart. This anomaly—Asher had said it was just a glitch, but it was so much more than that. It was the warning sign of a deeper, more insidious problem, one that was slowly but surely consuming everything in its path.
We walked in heavy silence for a long time. Asher's usual air of aloof confidence was gone, replaced by a quiet that was almost foreign to him. Riven's tension, on the other hand, was palpable. His eyes scanned the horizon constantly, his fists clenched as if he were ready to fight anything that moved. He wasn't used to this—being so powerless in a situation, and it was evident.
"You know," Riven finally muttered, breaking the silence, "I don't get it. We've been dealing with these damn glitches for how long now, and we're still walking through this hellscape. What are we even supposed to do? How are we supposed to fix it if it can't even fix itself?"
Asher's expression remained unreadable, but I noticed a flicker of something in his eyes, something dark and unresolved. "We do what we've always done," he replied quietly. "We find the source and we fix it."
Riven scoffed, kicking a small fragment of broken code from his path. "Yeah, right. Find the source and 'fix' it. You really think that'll work? After everything with the Korr family? After Selene? How'd that go for us?"
The words hung in the air like a heavy cloud, and I felt the tension crackle between them. "We did everything we could," Asher said, though there was no conviction in his voice. He paused, his gaze turning inward. "If Cael or Brielle had just—"
Riven's face hardened, and he cut him off. "If we had done more, maybe she'd still be here."
The silence that followed was thick with regret. Asher didn't answer, but there was no need to. It was clear that whatever had happened with Selene Korr—someone who had been close to both Asher and Riven—had shattered something between them. Their bond, once strong, was now strained, and neither of them seemed willing to acknowledge the full weight of their shared history.
We kept walking, the silence pressing in on us with each step. The air felt heavier, charged with unspoken words. And then, without warning, the ground in front of us cracked. A once-sturdy path now crumbled into nothingness, leaving a yawning chasm between us and what lay beyond. I stared at it for a moment, my pulse quickening in uncertainty.
"Well, this is just perfect," Riven growled, stepping forward, his body coiled with tension. "We'll jump across."
I held up a hand. "Are you insane?"
Riven ignored me, focusing solely on the chasm. Asher, however, stepped forward beside me, his eyes calculating. "There's a better way."
I raised an eyebrow. "And that is?"
Instead of answering me verbally, Asher reached out, his fingers grazing the edge of the gap. Slowly, a thread of code appeared, flickering with static as it stretched across the hole, forming a makeshift bridge. It wasn't solid, but it held.
"We can't brute force our way through this," Asher said, his gaze flicking toward Riven. "The system's falling apart, and we don't know how deep these cracks go. We need to move carefully. Fast, but careful."
Riven didn't respond at first. His jaw clenched, his frustration evident, but there was no way around it. He stepped onto the bridge, his eyes locked ahead, unwilling to show any sign of hesitation.
"You really think this will hold?" Riven muttered.
Asher's response was calm, almost casual. "It has to."
I watched them closely, their tension palpable. It was clear that they had been through a lot together, but it was just as obvious that there were things they weren't saying to each other. Not until it was unavoidable.
As we crossed the fragile bridge, the world around us trembled once more, and I realized with a growing certainty that no matter how we approached this, we wouldn't be able to outrun the unraveling system forever. Eventually, we'd have to face whatever came next, and that—that—was going to be the real test.