Kai wakes to the creak of old wood and the faint drip of water leaking from the roof. His back aches from another night on the uneven barn floor. Morning light filters through the cracks in the boards, dust motes swirling in pale beams.
His arm throbs — the one clawed yesterday. The makeshift bandage, just a strip of torn cloth, clings stiff and dark against his skin. He winces as he shifts, remembering how close that encounter had been.
He yawns, rubbing his eyes.
(Still here. Still alive.)
As he stretches, the corner of his vision flickers.
[Day 3 – 8 Days Remaining Until Global Activation]
He crouches beside his scavenged supplies — a few cans, a lighter, and what's left of his cloth scraps. When he unwraps the bandage, a faint shimmer ripples through the air. The dirty strip of cloth dissolves into golden motes — despawning, like the game's old healing animation — leaving the wound cleaner but not gone. The pain's still there. Real.
"…Game logic… seriously?" he mutters under his breath, flexing his arm. The sensation feels half digital, half human — like his body can't decide which world it belongs to anymore.
Before he can think further, translucent text flickers in his vision.
[ADMIN MESSAGE – KAI/KATY]
Katy… your wound's stable, but don't ignore it. The system adapts to pain.
He frowns. The tone isn't automated — it's familiar.
"Elara?"
[ADMIN MESSAGE – KAI/KATY]
I should've stopped this. I never should've let the neural node connect. I'm so sorry.
He exhales slowly.
(Forget about it. I signed up to be a beta tester anyway. Would've arrived here sooner or later.)
[ADMIN MESSAGE – KAI/KATY]
The Director's aware of you now. Victor Hale — he runs the project. He's obsessed with stability data. You're the only stable neural sync we've ever had.
Kai stiffens. (So what? He wants to use me?)
[ADMIN MESSAGE – KAI/KATY]
Worse. He's trying to reach you from inside. If he can inject rogue code into the simulation, he can rewrite you — make you part of the system itself.
He looks toward the open barn door, the world outside still blanketed in mist. (That's insane.)
[ADMIN MESSAGE – KAI/KATY]
It's real. I'll find a way to pull you out. Just—
The message cuts abruptly. Static fills his HUD for a split second, followed by a final, broken line of text.
[ADMIN CONNECTION LOST]
Control Room – Real World
Elara's fingers fly across the keyboard. Her terminal floods with cascading red text.
Unauthorized process detected.
Administrative rights overridden.
Her eyes widen as a file flashes across her monitor — USER_0001: ADMIN PRIVILEGE GRANTED (Auto-Flagged).
"What…? He has admin authorization?"
Before she can isolate the process, the door behind her bursts open. Victor Hale steps in — tall, composed, his voice calm like a surgeon's.
"Ms. Cho. You've done enough."
Elara stands, trembling. "He's gaining control in there — you can't just cut him off! He's still human!"
Victor's smile is cold. "Exactly why he needs to be contained. The system recognizes balance… and now it's learning from him."
Security personnel step in behind her. She backs away from the console.
"You're turning him into data!"
Victor glances at the screen, watching Kai's vitals pulse in a perfect line.
"No. I'm teaching the system how to survive."
"Don't—"
But the guards are already pulling her away. The last thing she sees before the door slams shut is Victor's reflection in the monitor, eyes glinting as the console hums to life.
Inside the Simulation
Kai steps out into the clearing. The mist hangs low, heavy and metallic, almost humming. The forest feels… distorted.
Then the air splits.
Something crawls out of the distortion — a twisted figure, flesh pulsing with threads of glowing code. The smell of decay hits first, then the glitching noise — a garbled mess of growls and static.
Kai stumbles back, raising his hatchet. (Not infected… not human either.)
The thing jerks toward him. Its skin flickers between corrupted textures and raw muscle, like the world can't decide what it's rendering. Every time it moves, the ground fractures — tiny squares of data lifting and collapsing.
Kai swings. The blade hits air — and yet, the creature flinches, pieces of its form shattering into pixelated fragments that hiss before re-forming.
(What are you…?)
The creature lunges again, faster this time. Kai ducks, rolling into the mud, heart pounding. He brings the hatchet up and slams it into its torso. This time, it connects — partially. The blade cuts through corrupted flesh, but instead of blood, a burst of golden light explodes outward.
The creature howls — a digital shriek — then collapses into static and vanishes.
Kai breathes hard, gripping the hatchet, staring at the space where it stood.
The ground is scorched with faint code symbols that quickly fade away.
He looks around the misty clearing.
(That wasn't just a glitch. Someone sent that thing.)
Lightning flashes across the horizon, illuminating his reflection in a puddle — Katy's face, fierce but shaken.
(If this is the Director's way of testing me… I'll survive it.)
He looks down at the hatchet. The metal hums faintly — a low, residual vibration, almost alive.
Far above, unseen, the system records everything.
End of Chapter 4