Kelechi hadn't slept since he left the vault. Every time he closed his eyes, static filled his ears—sharp, crackling sounds like insects chewing through metal. Shadows whispered in binary, half-code, half-curse.
He stood now at the edge of the slums, where the city's code thinned out like skin stretched too far. Streetlights flickered without rhythm. The ground trembled beneath him, as if warning him not to proceed.
Yet he stepped forward.
A boy had gone missing here three nights ago. Or so they claimed. But when Kelechi searched for his name in the archive, there was… nothing. No record. Not even a blank space where a name should have been.
It was as if the boy never existed.
He walked into the narrow alley where the last signal was traced. Walls were tagged with forbidden symbols—crude spirals, crossed-out eyes, a barcode smeared in blood. The deeper he walked, the heavier the air became, like breathing through wet cloth.
Then he heard it.
A humming—faint and metallic, like a machine trying to remember how to sing. It was coming from a broken vending unit, its screen shattered, its speakers twitching.
"Hello?" Kelechi called.
The humming stopped. The machine blinked once, then displayed a single word:
"RUN."
Kelechi turned, heart racing—but the alley behind him had shifted. The walls now bled wires, tangled and pulsing. The exit was gone. The shadows were thicker here, moving in slow, deliberate patterns.
From the darkness came footsteps—small, barefoot, and uneven.
Then… the boy appeared.
His eyes glowed white, too bright for a human. His mouth opened, and Kelechi braced for a scream—but instead, the boy spoke in lines of broken code. It wasn't language. It was corruption made audible.
"Help me," the boy finally whispered in human tongue.
Kelechi stepped forward. "What happened to you?"
"I was debugged," he said. "They took my identity. I don't exist in their system anymore. I'm… forgotten."
The boy's skin glitched—flickering between flesh and pixelated static. He raised a shaking hand and pointed behind Kelechi.
"They're coming for you next."
Before Kelechi could ask who, the vending unit exploded into sparks. A distorted scream echoed through the alley, followed by the heavy thud of mechanized boots.
The Enforcers.
Kelechi grabbed the boy, but his hand passed right through him.
"Save yourself," the boy said. "Or you'll end up like me. Lost in the archive. Erased."
Kelechi ran.