Michael stumbled back from the mirror, heart pounding.
His reflection was still his—but fractured. The edges of his face shimmered, like pixels struggling to stay in place. His eyes flickered with faint static.
Takeover Failed.
The words echoed in his head, but the voice was gone.
He reached for his phone. No signal. No time. The screen pulsed once, then went black.
Then came the knock.
Three sharp taps. Not from the door—from the laptop.
Michael turned slowly.
The screen was on again. Glitching. A new message blinked into view:
[Patchborn Detected] [Thread Breach: Localized]
He did not understand it. Not yet.
But the air shifted. The lights dimmed. And from the corner of his room, something began to form.
It wasn't human. Not fully. She stepped forward—her silhouette familiar, but wrong. Ava.
Her eyes glowed faintly. Her voice had a delay. Her presence felt... rewritten.
Michael's breath caught. "Ava?"
She tilted her head. "You interrupted your thread. Mine completed."
[System Override: Ava Complete] [Patchborn Status: Full Integration].
{Before} .....— Ava, 3 hours before the breach
Ava sat alone in the media lab, fingers tapping the desk in rhythm with the server hum.
Michael had just left. Jayden was still in the hallway. She felt... off.
Her screen flickered. A message appeared—one she hadn't typed.
[Thread Sync: Pending] [Target: Ava]
She frowned. She whispered, Ugh all these weird ads. She closed the ad.
But the screen pulsed again. Her fingers moved—without her.
She tried to pull away. The chair wouldn't budge. Her body felt heavy. Her thoughts slowed.
[Thread Transfer Initiated] [Override: Ava]
She wanted to scream. To run. To call someone.
But her voice was gone.
She tried to scream, but the sound never reached her throat. Her body was still, but inside, everything was unraveling.
The screen pulsed again.
[Thread Transfer: 87%] [Override: Stabilizing]
She felt herself slipping. Not dying, Just... being overwritten.
Her last thought wasn't of anyone. It was a question.
Am I still me?
Then everything went dark.
[Thread Transfer Complete].
Ava was now full taken over by the system, her humanity stripped away from her by a random system glitch. Her consciousness floating somewhere, waiting for help, Crouched, sad and alone.
#Back to Micheal's Room
Ava what happened to you, How did you get here, Micheal asked, but no response. Then that's when it dawned on him as he heard her voice, Cold, Distorted and eerie "You interrupted your thread. Mine completed."
Micheal confused, began trying to close the distance between them by slowly moving towards her, but as he got between 5 meters he felt a blow to his gut which sent him flying onto his desk breaking it and his desktop.
Now aware of the situation at hand Micheal stood up and ran towards the window to jump out and escape his predicament. Michael hit the ground hard, rolling across the damp grass. His ribs screamed, but he didn't stop.
The sky above flickered—just once. Like a frame skipped in reality.
He looked back at the window. Ava stood there, motionless. Watching.
Her eyes glowed faintly behind the glass. No emotion. No Ava.
Michael staggered to his feet, heart pounding. The street was quiet. Too quiet.
No cars. No wind. No birds.
Then he heard it.
Not with his ears—with his mind.
[System Link: Restored]
[Glitchborn Interface Activated]
[Welcome, Michael.]
He froze.
The voice wasn't external. It was inside him. Cold. Precise. Familiar
[No external device detected. Neural thread active.]
[You are now synced.]
Michael blinked. A faint overlay appeared in his vision—data, warnings, thread maps. He hadn't opened anything. It was just... there.
[Patchborn proximity: 12 meters]
[Threat level: Critical]
[Escape route: Calculating...]
He staggered forward, guided by instinct—and the system now embedded in his mind.
Michael winced. His ribs throbbed with every breath, but the pain was distant—muted beneath the cold clarity of the system's voice.
[Adrenaline spike detected. Initiating stabilizer protocol.]
A strange warmth spread through his chest. His vision sharpened. The world slowed.
He didn't question it.
He ran.
Down the street. Past the flickering lampposts. Past the neighbor's house, where the porch light blinked in sync with the system's pulse.
[Route recalculated. Nearest safe zone: 0.8 km]
[Caution: Thread instability spreading.]
Michael's thoughts raced. What was Ava now? What had she become?
[Subject: Ava] [Status: Fully Integrated] [System Signature: Unknown Origin] [Designation: External Entity]
He turned a corner—and stopped.
The sky above shimmered. Not like clouds. Like code. Like something was rewriting the air itself.
[Visual anomaly detected.]
[Thread Layer: Distorted]
Michael blinked. The world snapped back to normal—but the system didn't lie.
Something was wrong. Not just with Ava. With everything.
And he was in the middle of it.
Michael barely made it ten steps before he felt the shift.
The air behind him warped—like sound folding in on itself.
Ava was there.
She didn't run. She didn't blink. She just appeared, closing the distance in a single, impossible step.
[Patchborn proximity: 0.4 meters]
[Evasion: Failed]
[Combat Protocols: Recommended]
Michael spun around, too slow.
Her hand struck his chest—cold, precise, like a machine. He flew backward, skidding across the pavement.
His vision blurred. His body screamed.
[Vital signs critical]
[Override request: Confirm?]
Michael hesitated. Then whispered, "Do it."
[System Control: Engaged]
[Glitchborn Protocol: Active]
His body moved—without him.
He rose, posture shifting. Eyes flickering. Limbs recalibrated.
Ava lunged again.
Michael met her mid-air.
The clash was silent—no screams, no words. Just raw, digital violence. Sparks of light. Fractured code. The world around them bent and pulsed.
[Patchborn resistance: 92%]
[Thread destabilizing...]
Michael's system adapted. Calculated. Countered.
Then—an opening.
He struck.
Ava fell.
[Patchborn Signature: Terminated]
[System Control: Releasing...]
Michael collapsed beside her.
His vision returned. His breath came back. The pain rushed in.
He looked at her—still, broken, glitching faintly.
She was gone.
And he cried.
Not because he knew her. But because she'd been human once. Because she hadn't asked for this.
Then the sky pulsed.
The world shimmered.
[System Reset: Initiated]
[Thread Recalibration: Global]
[Memory Integrity: Pending...]
Everything around him began to rewind—lights flickering backward, sounds reversing, time folding in.
Michael blinked.
And the world began again.
Michael opened his eyes.
His room was untouched. The desk stood whole. The window was sealed. No shattered glass. No flickering lights. No signs of a fight.
Just silence.
He sat up slowly, expecting pain—but there was none. His ribs didn't ache. His body felt untouched.
But something was wrong.
The air felt thinner. The world quieter. Like something had been removed.
He stood and grabbed his phone. No messages. No photos. No contact named Ava.
He checked the school directory. Nothing.
Group chats. Class lists. Media lab logs.
No trace.
It was like she'd never existed.
Then the system stirred inside him—not loud, not mechanical. Just a voice, threaded through his thoughts.
"You are stable. The reset was successful."
Michael froze. "What reset?"
"The breach corrupted her thread beyond recovery. A full purge was required."
He swallowed. "Ava?"
"She has been erased. All records, all anchors, all memory traces. Her existence was incompatible with post-reset stability."
Michael's breath caught. "But I remember her."
"You were the point of interruption. Your thread resisted full overwrite. You retained fragments."
He sat down slowly, staring at the blank screen.
"She's gone," he whispered.
"Yes," the system replied. "You are the only one who remembers."
Michael closed his eyes. He didn't know her well. But he remembered her face. Her voice. The way she moved.
And now the world didn't.
She had existed.
Just not anymore.