The cursor blinked.
Ethan stared at the screen, fingers hovering over the keyboard. Line 247 had a bug—something subtle in the logic that would only surface under specific conditions. Most programmers would miss it. He wouldn't.
He typed three corrections, ran the compiler, and watched the green success message appear. Clean. Efficient. Done.
"Ethan, lunch?"
He glanced at his coworker, Marcus, who was already shrugging on his jacket.
"Go ahead. I'll grab something later."
Marcus shook his head with a grin. "You and that screen, man. She's not gonna love you back."
Ethan's phone buzzed. A text from Sarah: Miss you. Dinner tonight? I'll cook.
He allowed himself a small smile and typed back: Sounds good. 7?
Her reply was instant: Perfect. ❤️
He pocketed the phone and returned to his code. The bug was fixed, but there were optimizations to consider. If he restructured the function tree, he could shave off another few milliseconds of processing time. Not necessary, but better. He always preferred better.
By the time he looked up again, the office was half-empty. 2:47 PM. He should eat something.
Ethan stood, stretched, and grabbed his jacket. The small café two blocks down made decent sandwiches. Predictable. Reliable. He appreciated that.
The street was busy—usual lunch-hour traffic, people hurrying between errands. Ethan walked with his hands in his pockets, mind still half on the code. If he refactored the database calls, he could reduce server load by—
A woman's scream cut through his thoughts.
His head snapped up.
Across the street: a man stepping off the curb, looking at his phone, oblivious. A car—sedan, black, speeding—wasn't slowing down. The driver's head was turned, arguing with someone in the passenger seat.
Ethan's mind calculated instantly: distance, speed, trajectory. Three seconds until impact. The man wouldn't see it in time.
His body moved before the thought finished.
He sprinted into the street, footsteps hammering pavement. The man looked up, confused, just as Ethan's hands slammed into his chest and shoved.
The man tumbled backward onto the sidewalk.
The car swerved.
Tires screamed.
And then—
The sickening crunch of metal meeting flesh.
Ethan turned.
A woman. She'd been crossing from the opposite side. The car, veering away from the man, had hit her instead. She lay crumpled on the asphalt, her grocery bag split open, apples rolling across the street.
She wasn't moving.
The world seemed to slow.
People were shouting. Someone was calling 911. The driver stumbled out of the car, pale and shaking. The man Ethan had saved stood frozen on the sidewalk, staring.
Ethan walked toward the woman.
He already knew. The angle of her neck. The stillness.
Dead.
A life saved.
A life taken.
His hands were trembling. He looked down at them, confused. His hands never trembled.
"You—you saved me," the man stammered, approaching. "Oh God, you saved my life—"
Ethan didn't respond. He was staring at the woman.
I killed her.
No. The car killed her.
I pushed him. The car swerved because of me.
No. The driver was distracted. It was already going to—
One life. For another.
The ambulance arrived. Paramedics confirmed what Ethan already knew. The man who'd almost died kept thanking him, over and over, tears in his eyes. Police took statements. Witnesses called him a hero.
Ethan stood apart from it all, silent.
The sky was bright and blue. It felt wrong.
He was walking home—he didn't remember leaving the scene, didn't remember the officers saying he could go—when it happened.
First, a sound.
Not a sound, exactly. More like the absence of sound, a hollow ringing in his ears that made the world feel distant.
Then his vision flickered.
Like a monitor losing connection. Static at the edges.
Ethan stopped walking.
People passed by him, but... wrong. Their movements were stuttering, frames skipping. A woman on her phone glitched three feet to the left. A child's laugh looped, the same two seconds repeating.
"What—"
His voice sounded muffled, like speaking underwater.
And then he saw it.
Floating in his vision, translucent text in a font he'd never seen:
[SYSTEM ALERT]
KARMA VALUE DETECTED: 0.000
ERROR: PARADOX IN MORAL ACCOUNTING
RESOLUTION: ENTITY REMOVAL REQUIRED
Ethan blinked. The text remained.
"What the hell is—"
The world rippled.
He reached for his phone, fingers clumsy. Unlocked it. Opened contacts.
Sarah's name was gone.
He scrolled frantically. His parents. Marcus. Everyone.
Empty.
His breathing quickened—the calm cracking.
He looked up.
People were walking through him. Not around. Through. Like he wasn't there.
"Hey!" He grabbed at a man's shoulder. His hand passed through cloth and flesh like smoke. "HEY!"
No response.
Panic surged—true panic, the kind his analytical mind had always kept at bay.
"No. No, this isn't—this doesn't—"
The world lost color.
Buildings faded to gray, then to outlines, then to nothing.
The ground beneath his feet dissolved.
He was falling—
No.
Not falling.
There was no up or down.
No ground to fall toward.
Just...
Nothing.
Ethan tried to scream.
No sound came out.
He tried to breathe.
No air. No lungs. No body.
He couldn't see. Not darkness—darkness was something. This was the absence of sight itself.
No sound. No touch. No sensation.
Just thought.
Just... him.
Where am I?
The question echoed in a space that had no dimensions.
What happened?
He tried to remember. The woman. The car. The—
The text. ENTITY REMOVAL REQUIRED.
Did I... die?
No. This wasn't death. Death was an end. This was...
Nothing.
He existed, but nowhere. He thought, but had no brain. He was aware, but of what?
Time passed.
Or maybe it didn't. There was no way to tell.
How long had he been here? Seconds? Hours?
Stay calm. Think logically.
But logic required information, and he had none.
He tried to move. Nothing moved.
He tried to speak. Nothing spoke.
He tried to feel something—anything—
Nothing.
The calm he'd maintained his entire life began to crack.
I'm alone.
Completely.
Utterly.
Forever?
The thought stretched into the void.
No response.
No echo.
Just him, and the infinite, crushing silence of No-Where.