No one noticed the first glitch.
Not the news channels.
Not the scientists.
Not even the people whose lives quietly stopped making sense.
Only Zayan felt it.
It happened at exactly 6:17 a.m.
Zayan was awake, lying on the narrow bed in his small apartment, staring at the ceiling fan as it rotated with mechanical precision. He counted the rotations out of habit—one, two, three—until the fan froze mid-spin.
Not slowed.
Not stopped.
Frozen.
The hum vanished. The air went still. His phone buzzed once on the desk, then the screen went black. Outside the window, the sound of traffic disappeared as if someone had muted the city.
Zayan sat up.
His heart hammered.
He swung his legs off the bed and stood. The fan remained suspended in the air, blades perfectly angled, as if time itself had forgotten how to move.
"Hello?" His voice echoed unnaturally, stretched and hollow.
No reply.
He walked to the window and pulled the curtain aside.
The street below was a photograph.
Cars were locked in place, tires hovering inches above the road. A bird hung motionless in the sky, wings extended, eyes unblinking. A man crossing the street was frozen mid-step, coffee spilled from a tilted cup—each drop suspended like glass.
Zayan's breath caught.
This wasn't a dream.
He pinched his arm hard. Pain flared sharp and real.
Time had stopped.
Except for him.
A sound cracked the silence.
Tick.
Zayan turned.
A digital clock on the wall flickered.
6:17 → 6:18 → 6:17
The numbers glitched violently, flashing faster, then slower, before the screen shattered into static.
Then a new symbol appeared.
[INITIALIZATION FAILED]
Zayan stumbled back.
"What is this?" he whispered.
The air vibrated, like the low hum before a storm. The static from the clock spread outward, crawling across the walls in thin, glowing lines—blue, then white, then red.
His apartment dissolved.
Not collapsed.
Not burned.
It unloaded.
Walls broke apart into floating fragments of light. The floor beneath his feet turned transparent, revealing nothing but endless darkness below.
Zayan screamed—but the sound was swallowed.
A message appeared in the air before him, written in sharp, angular letters.
WELCOME, ZAYAN KHAN.
STATUS: ANOMALY
CLEARANCE: UNAUTHORIZED
"I didn't sign up for this," he said, voice shaking.
Another message followed.
YOU WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO WAKE UP.
The darkness surged.
Zayan fell.
Not downward.
Sideways.
Reality twisted around him like shattered glass rearranging itself. Images flashed—cities collapsing into grids, oceans breaking into numbers, faces without eyes watching him pass.
Then—
Impact.
Zayan slammed onto cold metal.
He groaned, rolling onto his side. The air smelled sharp, artificial, like ozone and burned circuits.
He pushed himself up.
He was standing in a vast chamber, circular and endless, its walls stretching upward into darkness. Floating platforms drifted silently above a glowing floor etched with symbols that pulsed like a heartbeat.
And he wasn't alone.
Figures stood across the chamber—dozens of them.
Men. Women. Teenagers. Children.
All frozen.
All staring straight ahead.
All wearing the same faint symbol glowing on their wrists.
Except Zayan.
He looked down at his own arm.
Nothing.
No symbol. No glow.
Footsteps echoed behind him.
Zayan spun around.
A tall figure approached, cloaked in shifting patterns of light and shadow. Its face was human—but wrong. Too symmetrical. Eyes too still.
"You moved," the figure said calmly.
Zayan clenched his fists. "Where am I?"
The figure studied him like a broken machine.
"This is the Archive," it replied. "The processing layer between realities."
"That explains nothing."
A pause.
"Acceptable," the figure said. "You are an error. Errors require explanation."
Zayan swallowed. "An error in what?"
The figure gestured. The air split open, revealing a massive projection of Earth.
But it wasn't normal.
Cities were highlighted in red. Entire regions blinked with warning symbols. Lines of code ran through oceans and skies like veins.
"Your world," the figure said, "is a simulation approaching collapse."
Zayan laughed, a sharp, disbelieving sound. "No. That's impossible."
"So was your awareness," the figure replied.
The frozen people around the chamber flickered.
"They are candidates," the figure continued. "Selected to be preserved, repurposed, or erased."
Zayan's blood ran cold. "Erased?"
"Correction," the figure said. "Most will be erased."
Zayan stepped back. "And me?"
The figure's eyes narrowed slightly.
"You were not selected."
"Then why am I here?"
Silence.
Then, quietly: "Because something inside you broke the rules."
A new alert blazed across the chamber.
WARNING: SYSTEM INSTABILITY DETECTED
The symbols on the floor pulsed faster.
The figure turned sharply. "That should not be possible."
"What's happening?" Zayan demanded.
The chamber shook. Cracks of light tore through the air, spreading like lightning.
Another voice echoed—deep, distorted, furious.
"HE SEES."
The walls fractured.
Frozen candidates began to glitch, their forms splitting and reassembling, screams locked behind silent mouths.
The figure grabbed Zayan's arm.
"You must leave. Now."
"Wait—what about them?"
"They are already lost."
The floor beneath Zayan's feet collapsed into light.
The figure shoved him forward.
"Run when you wake up," it said urgently. "They will come for you."
"Who—"
The world detonated.
Zayan gasped and sat upright.
Sunlight streamed through his window.
The fan spun normally.
Cars honked outside.
6:17 a.m.
His phone buzzed.
A notification lit the screen.
UNKNOWN SYSTEM MESSAGE:
RUN.
Zayan stared at it, heart pounding.
Then he noticed it.
A faint symbol glowing on his wrist.
And somewhere far beyond his world, something had finally found him.