The first thing I noticed was the absence of air.
No breeze. No temperature. No sensation against my skin at all — as if my body had been left behind while my mind tumbled into an endless void of static.
Then, the second thing hit me.
I could see everything.
Not with my eyes, no — it felt like my entire consciousness had unfolded, spread thin across a plane of pure data. Glowing threads of code drifted through the darkness, wrapping around one another like constellations in a corrupted night sky. Lines of command sequences arched and twisted, weaving into fractured architectures of worlds.
[Backend Environment: Access Granted.]
[Warning: Unauthorized User Detected.]
[Stability: Critically Low.]
I staggered, or at least my mind told me I did, as I tried to make sense of my surroundings. If this was the backend of reality — the root code of existence itself — then it looked less like a sterile server room and more like a dying cathedral built out of collapsing equations.
"Welcome to the backend," Lys's voice came from somewhere beside me.
I turned, and there she stood — or floated, maybe, if "stood" meant anything here.
The glow from the data streams cast her face in shifting light, her expression unreadable but her eyes sharp as ever.
"This is it?" I asked, my voice strangely clear despite the absence of any air to carry it. "The backend of the narrative?"
She nodded once. "The raw architecture. Everything that makes the story tick. Before characters are born, before worlds are written — it all starts here."
My gaze drifted across the endless expanse of crumbling commands and suspended variables. Some of the threads frayed and snapped right in front of me, dissipating into the void like ashes caught in a cold wind.
"Looks like it's already falling apart."
"It is," Lys confirmed grimly. "The purge isn't just targeting you. It's destabilizing the entire framework."
That was when I saw it — a ripple across the plane of data. At first, it looked like another collapsing string of code, but then it took shape. Figures began emerging from the shifting mists of corrupted script, hunched and malformed, faces frozen in screams of silent agony.
Failed protagonists.
Twisted echoes of those who'd once held the title of 'hero' but had been discarded by their own narratives. I recognized the empty stares of characters trapped in endless loops, forced to repeat their tragic endings until even the system itself forgot them.
"They're trapped here," I murmured.
"More like abandoned," Lys said. Her voice was tight, as if holding back something heavier than simple explanation. "The backend is a graveyard for forgotten stories."
One of the figures twitched, its hollow eyes locking onto me. A shrill screech, like tearing metal, reverberated across the space as it lunged.
Instinct screamed at me to defend myself.
Without thinking, I raised the corrupted blade — still flickering between code and steel — and swung it through the attacking fragment of a protagonist.
The impact sent a violent shockwave through the backend.
[Narrative Fragment Deleted.]
But as the figure disintegrated into cascading strings of light, more began to stir. One by one, the failed protagonists turned their gaze toward me, as if my presence alone had reawakened their dormant hatred.
"They recognize you," Lys said softly.
"Why?"
"Because you've done what they never could," she replied, her gaze dark. "You rewrote your fate. You became something outside their endless loops."
The horde began to move.
Not shambling. Charging.
Panicked code screamed across the environment as the backend itself buckled under the weight of their pursuit.
[System Alert: Fragment Overload Imminent.]
"They'll swarm us!" I shouted, slashing at the air to ward them off. "Is there no safe zone here?!"
Lys hesitated only a heartbeat before she extended her hand toward me.
"There's one place left," she said. "Deeper than the backend. Deeper than even the Admin layers. But once we go, there's no turning back."
Her eyes burned with something fierce — hope and terror intertwined.
"Where?" I demanded.
"To the Root Directory," she answered. "The origin of the script."
My pulse — or whatever counted as pulse here — pounded in my ears.
Go deeper? Past the backend? Was that even possible?
Another wave of corrupted protagonists surged toward us, their forms fracturing, leaking unstable code like blood.
No time to hesitate.
I took her hand.
The moment our fingers touched, a cascade of system errors erupted all around us, folding reality in on itself like a collapsing data stream.
[Manual Override: Initiated.]
[Deep Layer Transfer: Executing.]
The backend disintegrated into a storm of fragmented commands, and as we fell — or were pulled — into the abyss beneath existence, I caught one last glimpse of the dying space.
The failed heroes watched us go, their hollow eyes burning with envy and despair.
They weren't just watching.
They were following.