Dayu's fingers hovered uncertainly over the console. The silence of the control room pressed down on him, thick and suffocating. He'd been here before, countless times. But now, everything felt... wrong. The screens, once full of data streams, were now just static. A distortion that mirrored the growing unease in his chest. The once bustling hum of the airfield outside had been replaced by an unnatural quiet, a stillness that seemed to stretch on forever. The only sound was the occasional flicker of lights overhead, creating sharp shadows that twisted the room into something alien.
The systems should have been functioning by now. His mind refused to accept that the communication network was still down. But no matter how many times he ran diagnostics, no signal came through. Every attempt to reconnect with the outside world, the Earth, ended in a harsh, mechanical Connection Lost message. The same bleak message that had flashed countless times since he first arrived. He couldn't bear it anymore. Something had to be wrong.
Without thinking, Dayu pulled out his communicator and tried again. This time, he dialed his father. He could always count on him to calm his nerves, to offer some semblance of order in the chaos that his life had become. But there was nothing. The screen blinked, failed, and again, Connection Lost filled the screen. The same result.
His heart thudded in his chest. He tried again. There was no reason for this. His father's connection should have been solid. He always had the best satellite relay. He should be able to reach him. And yet... there was nothing. The absence of sound was maddening. Dayu slammed the side of the device, frustration bubbling up inside him.
It can't be...
Dayu dialed his mother. The screen blinked, the connection attempt started, but just like the others, it failed. The same, unyielding message. His breath hitched in his throat.
"Mom," he whispered to himself, a sense of growing dread curling deep in his gut. He tried again, but no matter how many times he dialed, no matter how many variations he tried, there was nothing but emptiness. His eyes started to burn, but he wiped the tears away quickly, not willing to let them fall. He didn't have time for weakness.
His mind snapped back to reality, shaking away the fleeting moment of vulnerability. He couldn't afford to waste time. Dayu turned his gaze back to the massive screens in front of him, searching for answers. The satellite feed was still up, but the image was distorted, as though the planet was being gradually consumed. Shifting. Breaking apart. The map of the Earth was slowly crumbling like an old puzzle, its pieces scattering into the unknown.
It was happening before his eyes. The entire world was disintegrating.
He zoomed in, trying to focus on one area. The Pacific Ocean, once vast and endless, was now nothing but blackened gaps and empty spaces. The once-fluid boundaries of continents now appeared as fractured, jagged shapes. Parts of the land, entire countries, were vanishing in real time—dissolving, disappearing into nothing. The puzzle pieces of Earth weren't just drifting away. They were actively being erased, leaving behind only voids.
His hands trembled as he reached for the controls to zoom in further. As the image became clearer, the enormity of what he was seeing took his breath away. Cities were falling apart. Mountains cracked open and spilled into empty air. Whole forests... gone. The oceans were shrinking, as if the water itself were abandoning the planet.
Dayu's stomach turned. He stumbled backward, his heart pounding in his chest. Was this... Was this the end of the world? The realization hit him with full force. His mind raced, trying to piece together any kind of explanation. The glitches. The breakdown of communications. The trembling earth beneath his feet. This wasn't a natural disaster. This was something else entirely. Something beyond his understanding. He had to get to the heart of the station. If there was anything left, any trace of what was causing this, it would be there.
But as he moved toward the door, the ground trembled again, more violently this time. Dayu stumbled, catching himself on the edge of the console. His eyes shot to the window, expecting to see the same slow unraveling of the world. But what he saw instead made his blood run cold.
Out in the distance, near the research facility, something was moving. But it wasn't human. No, it couldn't be. Dayu's breath hitched as he saw the flicker of movement. The figure was indistinct, shifting in a way that defied the natural laws of physics. The person or thing, was glitching. Distorting. Almost as if it was being torn apart and reformed with every step. Every movement was jagged, every motion fragmented, like a corrupted signal that couldn't quite stabilize.
Dayu's instincts screamed at him to stay away, but the curiosity, the need to understand what was happening, pushed him forward. He had to know what was causing this. He had to understand.
The hallway of the facility was dark, illuminated only by the flickering emergency lights. His footsteps echoed through the corridor as he approached the source of the disturbance. His breath caught in his throat as he turned a corner and saw her standing there.
She was young, no older than him. But the girl before him wasn't real, not in any sense he understood. Her figure was transparent, flickering like a corrupted video file—glitching in and out of reality. Her face was familiar, but distorted, shifting constantly, as if it was struggling to maintain its form. Her eyes, dark and hollow, stared at him with a cold, detached gaze, her lips curling into a faint smile that seemed entirely out of place.
"You're the one," she said, her voice soft but garbled, as if a thousand signals were converging in a single moment. "The one who should have known."
Dayu felt his heart skip a beat. He opened his mouth to speak, but his words caught in his throat. Something in her presence made him feel both terrified and mesmerized. He tried to move closer, but his feet seemed glued to the floor.
"You… you're the cause of all of this." His voice cracked as he finally found the strength to speak.
The girl's smile widened, a cold, disjointed grin that sent a chill running through him. Her form flickered again, distorting more violently this time. For a moment, her body split into multiple shapes, each more fractured than the last.
"You were never meant to understand. I am the glitch," she said, her words distorting with each syllable. She spoke in a strange language, an unnatural, electronic cadence: synthesized static that sent his mind into a frenzy. It was almost like a code, a language not meant for human ears. Dayu's brain struggled to decipher it.
But then, something in his pocket vibrated. His transmitter.
He pulled it out in a panic, quickly adjusting the frequency. The machine hummed to life, translating the cryptic language into something intelligible. "I am the glitch, the cause of this unraveling. You are the last piece. And now you are mine."
The words felt like cold steel sinking into his chest.
Dayu's hands clenched into fists. His mind screamed to act. To do something. Anything. He couldn't just stand there. He charged at the girl, his heart racing. But the moment he reached her, his body froze. His hand passed straight through her. She wasn't there. She was... a distortion, a presence without a true form.
"You cannot stop me," she said, her voice vibrating in his skull. "This is the end, the beginning. The glitch consumes all."
Dayu staggered back, his breath coming in shallow gasps. His hands shook. He couldn't strike her. He couldn't do anything. He was helpless.
The girl's form began to fragment further, dissolving into static. Then, with one final, distorted flash, she was gone, leaving only the silence behind.
The world outside was still crumbling. The Earth was no more than a memory, pieced together by glitches, disappearing, fragmenting, and fading. And yet, there was still something left. The void was closing in.
And Dayu was left standing in the aftermath. A world unwinding. A puzzle with too many missing pieces.
And somewhere in the fractured space around him, the glitch was waiting to finish what it had started.