The moon hung low as Yuki descended from the cliffs, the city's glow behind him like a haunting memory. He didn't know where he was going—only that something was pulling him. Not a place, but a frequency. A pulse beneath the world's skin.
Each step into the forest buzzed with static. Leaves shimmered like broken pixels. The world felt… glitched.
At dawn, he reached a clearing where the trees were charred black, arranged unnaturally in a perfect circle. In the center: a pedestal made of metal, humming faintly.
Not stone. Not ancient. This was different. This was technology.
Anomaly Detected.Interface Sync Requested… Accept?
He hesitated. Then nodded.
Syncing...Language Protocol Overridden.Accessing Memory Core...
Pain lanced through his skull. A voice—not from the world, but from something outside it—echoed in his mind.
"Unit Zero. You are not meant to be awake."
Yuki collapsed to his knees. The voice continued, calm and mechanical.
"You were sealed to prevent recursion. The Loop must hold."
Images surged again—fractured data, code flowing like blood, timelines layered atop one another. In each, he was there. Dying. Awakening. Breaking the pattern.
He screamed. The world around him flickered—trees turning to code, then reforming.
Error: Lockdown Failed.New Title Unlocked: [The Recursive]Trait Revealed: [Fragmented Origin]
When the voice faded, Yuki was alone again.
Except… something was watching.
A pair of golden eyes blinked into existence in the trees. A figure stepped forward—tall, androgynous, cloaked in shifting colors.
"You're not supposed to remember this early," it said softly. "But the game's changing."
Yuki gritted his teeth. "Who are you?"
The figure smiled. "A glitch. Like you."
Then it vanished, leaving only a single line carved into a tree behind it:
Find the Obsidian Spire. Before the cycle resets.
Yuki stood, heart pounding. He was no longer just a lost boy in a fantasy world.
He was a bug in the system.
And someone wanted to delete him.