The air snapped like electricity. I stumbled forward, gasping, the residual static clinging to my skin like cobwebs. One blink — I was in the dark cavern beneath the Citadel. Another — I stood under a burning red sky, metallic towers twisted like melted glass around me.
The glitch had triggered again.
System Warning: Unauthorized Spatial Reassignment Detected. Cooldown Engaged.Timer: 71 hours.
My knees hit the ground, and I pressed my hand into the coarse sand. It was real. Not a dream. I could smell the rust in the wind, feel the oppressive heat. And yet, my HUD flickered like an unstable hologram, struggling to interpret where the hell I was.
"Welcome back, Kael," I muttered, sarcasm dry on my tongue.
The world was broken — and I fit right in.
It took me half an hour to regain my bearings. I was somewhere deep in the Sector Wastes — a dead zone, where neither the simulated citizens nor their puppet-masters dared to tread. The architecture looked like it had survived five apocalypses and was patiently waiting for the sixth.
And still… something pulsed beneath the surface.
I followed the feeling — a hum in my chest, like my blood was vibrating.
Then came the voices.
"He shouldn't be here."
"The Glitchwalker broke containment again."
"What does the Architect want us to do?"
I froze behind a collapsed pillar. Shadows slithered across the broken ground, but there were no bodies attached. Just silhouettes. Transparent, shifting, echoing voices without faces.
I should have run.But I didn't.Because one of the shadows… sounded like me.
A sharp jolt of pain lanced behind my eyes. Flashback.
Swords clashing. Screams. Fire raining from the sky.
A voice — soft, melodic, familiar.
"Don't trust them, Kael. Not even the gods."
Then—black.
When I came to, I was no longer alone.
A boy — maybe 12 — stood in front of me. Pale skin, bright violet eyes, a tattered cloak that shimmered between real and illusion. He tilted his head like a curious cat.
"You're not supposed to be alive," he said plainly.
I snorted. "Get in line. Everyone keeps saying that."
He didn't smile. He didn't blink."I watched you die."
That knocked the air out of me. "...You were there?"
"In the war," he said. "When you fell. You weren't supposed to come back. Not here."
"Then maybe you should tell the System that."
He stepped closer. "You're a bug. But bugs like you… they evolve."
Before I could respond, the ground trembled. A low hum echoed through the ruins. The pillars around us shimmered — and from their cracks emerged something horrifying.
Not beasts. Not men.
Codeborn.
Creatures made of fragmented data and forgotten pain. Faces that weren't faces. Limbs that bent wrong. They saw me — and screamed without mouths.
The boy vanished in a blink. Of course.
[New Mission Unlocked: Survive the Echospawn]
System Level: 3.Recommended Level: 19.
Well, that's fair.
I didn't wait. I sprinted.
The Echospawn chased like demons unchained. Each step they took glitched reality. Buildings phased in and out. Debris reversed in time, only to collapse again.
I jumped over a broken wall, twisted midair, and landed in a combat roll. HUD flickered. The combat log failed to load. My weapons were locked.
But I had something better.
Instinct.
The first creature lunged. I slid beneath its swipe and drove my elbow into its neck — or where a neck should be. It screamed like a corrupted audio file. Another swung a blade of raw code. I ducked, grabbed its arm, twisted — and it unraveled in pixels.
I was faster. Stronger.
They didn't expect me to fight like I remembered pain.
Minutes blurred into chaos. I took hits — real ones. A claw sliced across my ribs, and warm blood spilled. I tasted copper, gritted my teeth, and kept going.
Somewhere between the sixth and seventh kill, I felt it.
A pulse in the air.
A trigger in the code.
And then —
Boom.
The world fractured.
I awoke on my back, coughing dust. My hand trembled as I sat up. The Echospawn were gone. Disintegrated. So was half the ruin. The blast had leveled it all.
"Guess I found the bug," I muttered.
The boy was there again. Watching from a distance.
"You're changing," he whispered. "Too fast."
"Not fast enough," I growled. "What did they do to me?"
He hesitated. "They made you a mirror. A reflection of a world they can't control anymore."
I stood slowly. My body screamed. My soul felt… disjointed.
"And who the hell are you?"
He gave a sad smile. "Someone who remembers."
Then he was gone.
Back in the system, the cooldown ended.
I was yanked back into the Citadel.
Same hallways. Same flickering lights.But something was wrong.
People stared at me. Whispered.My name buzzed across terminals and comms.
Kael Revan. Back from the dead.
Not just once… but again.
[New Title Unlocked: Echobound][Status Updated: Anomaly Level - Class Red][Surveillance Increased by 300%. Location Tracked at All Times]
Well. That's not concerning.
I went to my quarters and locked the door.
The mirror cracked when I looked into it. Not from damage. From rejection.
I didn't belong here.And maybe that was the point.
I pulled up my HUD again.
Buried in the system logs, hidden beneath encryption layers, I found a phrase — over and over again.
"Protocol: Rebirth Failed. Subject retention unstable."
"Subject ID: Kael Revan - Deceased. Memory fragments unresolved."
I whispered the words to myself.
"I died... but didn't stay dead."
And somewhere, deep beneath layers of broken code, something whispered back.
"Because gods don't die, Kael.They just reboot."