Adam's lungs seized mid-laugh.
For three heartbeats, no air came. His vision whited out at the edges, fingers clawing at his own throat
then oxygen flooded back, sharp and too cold, like breathing in broken glass.
"What the fuck—?" His voice cracked.
He stared at his hands. Veins pulsed black beneath his skin, squirming like worms. When he flexed his fingers, the bones clicked wrong.
The mirror showed a stranger.
A hollow-cheeked man with sunken eyes and hair streaked with static-white. Adam blinked—
—and for one shattering second, it was his old face, neck severed, mouth stretched in a silent scream.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
"User: Adam. Status: Deceased. Contradiction detected."
"Initializing [ERROR] protocols."
Adam punched the reflection.
The glass didn't break. It pixelated, shards freezing mid-air before clattering down like dying fireflies.
"This isn't—" His breath hitched. "This can't—"
A memory flashed: Janna's cold eyes as the poison burned through him. Lucas' axe falling.
His fist clenched. The static under his skin buzzed louder.
"I'm alive," he whispered. "Aren't I?"
BANG. BANG. BANG.
"Y'owe me coin, bastard!" A slurred snarl through the door.
Adam ripped it open.
A hulking mercenary filled the frame, dagger already drawn, breath reeking of rot.
"Pay up," the man spat, "or I'll carve ya open an' take it!"
Something in Adam snapped.
He grabbed the man's wrist—and his fingers sank in like wet parchment.
The mercenary's eyes bulged.
"W-what the fuck—?!"
His arm dissolved, flesh unraveling into black mist. The horror spread—shoulder, chest, face—
—then he was gone.
No blood. No scream. Just empty air and the smell of ozone.
Adam staggered back, heart pounding like a trapped animal.
"Did I just—?"
Downstairs, the tavern buzzed on. No one remembered. No one cared.
Except—
A child's whisper:
"You made him disappear."
A little girl stood at the stairwell, her left eye flickering like a broken screen.
Adam's throat closed.
She sees me.
The girl bolted, her doll tumbling behind her.
----
The street rejected Adam's footsteps.
Cobblestones warped under his boots. Voices looped ("Fresh pies! Fresh— Fresh—"). A beggar's face glitched between three different people.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
"Warning: [ERROR] corruption at 19%."
"Suggest immediate self-termination."
Adam swiped at the text—it burned his fingertips, leaving blistering symbols.
"Fuck you," he rasped. "I don't wanna die twice!."
Then—the sky tore open.
A wound of black code split the clouds. From it descended three drones—smooth, eyeless, their movements too fluid.
"ERROR located," they chimed. "Beginning purge."
Adam ran.
His legs moved wrong, knees bending backward for one nauseating stride before the System forced them back.
The alley walls bled pixelated rust. A drunkard vomited black sludge that crawled back into his mouth.
Dead end.
The drones hummed, circling.
"No hostiles detected," one lied sweetly. "Only corruption to be cleansed."
Adam's laugh came out distorted—his voice and the System's overlapping.
He grabbed a broken bottle.
[SYSTEM LOCK DETECTED: IMPROVISED WEAPON]
[USER LEVEL INSUFFICIENT]
"Eat glass," Adam snarled, and stabbed the drone's face.
It screamed in binary, shell peeling back to reveal squirming black tendrils.
The other drones froze.
"Direct contamination detected," they droned. "Emergency quarantine."
They vanished—but not before Adam saw it.
For one fractured second, their smooth surfaces flickered, revealing human faces stretched beneath.
Adam collapsed, his fingers melting into the cobblestones before reforming.
The girl's doll landed at his feet.
She stood silhouetted in moonlight, her flickering eye fixed on his chest.
"They'll keep coming," she whispered. "Until you give it back."
Adam touched the lump under his ribs—the cold, sharp thing buried there.
It pulsed.
For the first time since waking, Adam felt real fear.
"What am I?" he asked—but the girl was already gone