Chapter 1: The Glitch
Lucas Moore's life had long been defined by an unyielding routine. Each day bled into the next with hardly any variation. The same cramped apartment filled with dim light from the monitors, the faint hum of electrical gadgets echoing throughout the small space. Each morning was an endless blur of caffeine and code, followed by long hours of troubleshooting failing servers and angry clients. In the evenings, after the job was done, the world outside his window dimmed, and the city lights blended into the night sky like distant stars.
It was all so ordinary. So predictable. It made him feel… invisible. A man whose existence revolved around technology, and nothing more. He wasn't anyone remarkable. Just another face in the crowd. But, as was so often the case with lives like his, the mundane could only remain so for so long.
Until the night it all changed.
It started with a blackout. Lucas was hunched over his desk, squinting at the flickering lines of code on his screen. The air smelled faintly of burnt coffee and the sharp tang of electronics. He had been at it for hours, trying to salvage the mess of a server that seemed beyond saving. The hum of the air conditioning provided a comforting background to the steady clacking of keys beneath his fingertips.
But then, just like that, the hum of the air conditioner stopped.
The lights flickered once, twice, and then died completely. His monitors, which had been glowing softly, went black, leaving him alone in the room with nothing but the quiet buzz of the streetlights outside.
"Seriously?" Lucas groaned, leaning back in his chair. He rubbed his temples, letting out a breath. The room felt suddenly colder, quieter. No comforting hum of electronics, no rush of air from the fan. The whole world had been muted.
He reached for his phone to check the status of the outage, but as his fingers brushed against the screen—
Zzzt!
A sharp crack of static sliced through the silence, and a blue arc of electricity leapt from the power strip under his desk. It crackled in the air like lightning, shooting straight into his hand. Lucas yelped and jerked his hand away, heart hammering in his chest. He half-expected the burn of pain, the searing heat of an electrical shock, but there was nothing. Only a faint, lingering tingling that spread from his fingertips up to his forearm.
His skin prickled where the energy had touched, almost as though it had left an imprint behind. He flexed his fingers experimentally, the sensation still there, but fading slowly.
'That was… strange,' he thought. He looked down at his hand, his pulse quickening slightly, though he couldn't say why. 'Was it some kind of surge?'
The lights flickered back on, the low hum of his monitors returned, and outside, the faint buzz of streetlights resumed its constant rhythm. The world, it seemed, had returned to normal.
Lucas exhaled slowly, dismissing the incident with a tired shake of his head. "Just a glitch," he muttered to himself. It wasn't the first time he'd dealt with a power surge.
But as he reached for his keyboard, something felt… different. He glanced at the screen, and his breath caught in his throat.
The command prompt, his usual digital companion, had vanished. In its place, a strange swirling mass of code danced across the screen. Lines and symbols twisted and rearranged themselves, forming patterns that were far too intricate to be random. It was as though the screen was alive, breathing.
"What the hell…?" Lucas murmured, leaning closer.
He reached out with one hand, tapping a key. As his fingers brushed the keys, the code shifted again, but this time, it didn't simply move. It morphed into something—words.
[System Interface Activated]
His heart skipped a beat. His breath quickened. 'System interface?' he thought, confusion bubbling up. He stared at the screen for a long moment, unsure of what to make of it. There was no way he could have triggered something like this—not with just a spark.
His first instinct was to check the system for diagnostics, to search for any errors that might explain this anomaly. His fingers moved on autopilot, tapping the keys with a practiced speed. But before he could even finish the command, the screen flashed again, displaying new text.
[External diagnostics unnecessary. Manual override disabled.]
Lucas froze, staring at the screen, a shiver running down his spine. There was no denying it now. This was no ordinary system glitch.
His phone buzzed on the desk beside him, breaking the silence. He picked it up with a distracted glance, but his eyes widened as the screen lit up—on its own. The lock icon still sat there, indicating the phone hadn't been unlocked, yet a stream of notifications scrolled past the lock screen as if someone had just swiped through them.
His stomach tightened. 'Wait… I didn't unlock it,' he thought, feeling an unfamiliar prickling at the back of his neck. His mind buzzed with confusion and suspicion.
Without thinking, he muttered a single word, a command.
"Open."
The phone obeyed.
The lock icon vanished, and the home screen appeared. It was as though his command had been processed directly by the device, without any input on his part. He stared at it, heart thumping in his chest, his thoughts a blur. There was no mistaking it. His own hand hadn't moved.
Tentatively, he placed the phone back on the desk and then shifted his gaze to the laptop in front of him. What was happening? Was this some kind of delayed input, or was he somehow controlling the devices? His mind raced, trying to make sense of what was going on.
A deep, pulsing hum started to rise within his chest as his fingers hovered over the laptop's keyboard again, a strange, magnetic pull making his hands tremble slightly. He could feel something—something almost intangible—shifting within him, within the very air around him.
This time, when he placed his hand on the keys, he didn't just touch them. He felt them. He felt the currents of electricity flowing beneath his fingertips, the heat of the processor, the hum of the system as it worked tirelessly to carry out his commands.
He closed his eyes for a moment, as though trying to reach out, and—
The machine responded.
The fans inside his laptop slowed, and the temperature dropped. Applications opened and closed in rapid succession, like the laptop itself was alive, following his thoughts, his commands, without hesitation.
A new window appeared on the screen, a blank interface that hovered like a sterile, beckoning invitation.
[System Integration Complete. Interface Level: Basic. Access Virtual Interface?]
He stared at the words for a long moment, his mind teetering between disbelief and fascination. 'Virtual interface?' he thought, an electric jolt running through him. What kind of system was this? Was it safe to dive deeper? What if it was dangerous?
But then, a thought flickered into his mind, persistent and undeniable. What if this was the chance?
His hand hovered over the keyboard, trembling ever so slightly. This was the moment. The uncertainty gnawed at him. If he chose to proceed, if he chose to open that interface, there was no turning back.
Without a word, his fingers pressed the keys.
Access Interface.
The screen went black.
The room around him seemed to disappear, swallowed by darkness. For a brief moment, there was nothing—only silence. Then, the vortex began.
A swirling cascade of light and code poured out of the monitor, stretching outward like the very fabric of space was being torn apart. Lucas tried to move, but the world around him was already slipping away, his senses warping.
His body felt as though it was being unwound, digitized. His mind felt sharp—almost painfully sharp—as thoughts moved at lightning speed.
And then, just as quickly, it all stopped.
He landed, not on a floor, but in a place that didn't seem to have a beginning or end. The air was sterile, blindingly white, and his senses were overwhelmed by the vast emptiness that stretched in all directions.
"Where am I?" Lucas whispered, his voice sounding distant in the void. But there was no answer. Only silence.
The journey had begun.