The forest smelled wrong.
Not rotten. Not foul. Just... wrong.
It wasn't even nature, not really — more like someone had bottled the idea of a forest and sprayed it over a blank world. A faintly sweet scent clung to Erevan's nose, almost green, almost fresh, but too perfect, too sterile. It made his stomach tighten.
Every tree stood at the exact same height. Every branch curved at the same angle. The leaves rustled in identical rhythms — a perfect, looping sound, no wind, no chaos, no life.
It was like the world had been built from a template, and whoever coded it forgot to hit randomize.
Erevan slowed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Okay," he muttered under his breath, voice cracking the silence, "this is giving Disneyland in the apocalypse vibes. The kind where Mickey takes off his head and there's... nothing inside."
He forced a chuckle, but it fell flat against the mechanical stillness.
Kaelith walked a few steps ahead, her bow half-raised, the silver of her eyes gleaming in the artificial light. Her movements were sharp, cautious — the way a predator watches another predator.
"This isn't natural," she said softly. "It feels... manufactured. The air, the ground, even the silence. It's all... shallow."
Erevan snorted, but the sound came out thin. "Shallow, huh? Yeah, kinda like my patience for this system."
Sir Quacksalot waddled ahead, blissfully unbothered by the existential nightmare around them. The penguin dipped a wing into the unnervingly straight river, and for a single heartbeat, the water glitched — lines of binary flashing across the surface before it flicked back to normal.
The penguin tilted its head, letting out a short, cheerful quack.
"Yeah, yeah, I see you, little guy," Erevan said, kneeling beside him. "Glad someone's enjoying the horror-simulation aesthetic."
He picked up a small rock and tossed it experimentally. It rolled exactly five feet, stopped, and then... blinked back to where it started.
Erevan blinked. "Perfect. We're officially in cursed IKEA."
Kaelith crouched, her eyes tracing the flawless patterns of the soil. "Not cursed," she said quietly. "Unfinished."
That word hit him like a whisper through static.
"Unfinished?" Erevan repeated, brow furrowing.
Kaelith nodded, her tone unnervingly calm. "Like a painting left half-done. This place isn't real. It's a test build. A prototype world."
A shiver crawled up Erevan's spine. He could feel the falseness now — the way the light didn't shift, how the air didn't move. The entire forest felt like it was holding its breath, waiting for input.
Then, somewhere deep within the symmetrical rows of trees, the world... rustled.
Not the normal sound of leaves brushing or twigs snapping. No. It was the faint, shivering noise of code rearranging itself.
Erevan turned his head sharply. The trees didn't sway. They moved. Their trunks adjusted ever so slightly, spacing themselves perfectly again — correcting for some invisible mathematical error.
He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.
And then, from between two identical oaks, figures began to emerge.
At first, Erevan thought they were villagers. Normal NPCs. Harmless, maybe even friendly. But as they stepped closer, his stomach began to twist.
Their faces were wrong.
Blurred around the edges, like stock images stretched over glitching models. Their bodies moved stiffly, jerky and synchronized. Their eyes were nothing but pale placeholders — glowing circles that reflected nothing at all.
Erevan froze. His pulse hammered against his ribs.
"Okay…" he breathed, voice trembling with forced humor. "Nope. Nope. Nope. This is not the kind of side quest I signed up for."
Kaelith's bowstring creaked as she drew it tighter. "They're not alive," she whispered. "They're constructs."
Sir Quacksalot waddled right up to one of the villagers, utterly fearless, quacking cheerfully as if greeting an old friend.
The "villagers" tilted their heads in perfect unison. The sound that came next wasn't human speech — it was a stitched-together echo of voices, repeating a line like a corrupted sound file.
"Welcome… traveler… please enjoy… your… stay."
The words stuttered. Echoed. Broke apart mid-syllable.
Erevan's smile vanished. His throat went dry.
"Okay," he whispered, stepping back slowly, "this is officially nightmare fuel."
The villagers didn't hesitate.
They moved toward Erevan and Kaelith with that same jerky, unnatural precision. Each step was synced like some horrifying metronome.
Kaelith loosed her first arrow instinctively. It struck one of the figures square in the chest. For a heartbeat, Erevan dared to hope.
Then the arrow dissolved into pixel shards, scattering across the perfect, tiled forest floor. And almost immediately, the construct snapped back into shape, standing there with that same unnerving, blank smile.
"They don't stay down!" Kaelith hissed, eyes wide, voice sharp enough to cut the static air.
Erevan jabbed a finger at another advancing figure, muttering under his breath, "Perfect. Immortal mannequin zombies. Because why not?"
The villagers advanced relentlessly. Every blink made them closer. Every step sounded like a glitch in the world's code, a reminder that this forest wasn't a place — it was a program, and they were bugs in it.
Erevan clenched his fists. "Great. Now I'm fighting Microsoft Office errors."
A sharp chime split the air.
[Survival Condition: Impossible]
[Directive: Locate the anomaly.]
Erevan groaned, spinning on the spot. "Yeah, thanks for the helpful tip, system!"
Sir Quacksalot flapped his stubby wings, puffing a cloud of frost into the air. Two villagers froze mid-step. Their bodies cracked into glassy fragments, glittering across the uniform grass.
Erevan's jaw dropped. "…Quacksalot, you absolute legend." He crouched low, ducking a shadow that flickered too sharply in the pale light.
But before relief could settle, the shards reassembled. The villagers were back, smiling wider than before, their blank eyes glinting in synchronized mischief. Nothing — not arrows, not frost, not frustration — seemed to hurt them.
Kaelith grabbed his arm. "We need to find the anomaly. Now."
They bolted.
The forest became a blur. Identical trees snapped past in perfect rhythm. Every step felt like running inside a mirrored corridor. The river twisted into impossible angles, like someone had copied the same section of water and pasted it wrong, forming unnatural loops.
Erevan's lungs burned. "This place… this place is a damn maze," he panted, side-glancing at Kaelith. "And I hate mazes. I really hate mazes."
She stopped suddenly. "No. Look," she whispered, crouching.
Erevan followed her gaze. The ground beneath their boots wasn't dirt — it was a perfect digital grid. Tiny squares etched across the earth like tiles. And in one of them, a crack ran jagged, glowing faintly.
"That's it," Kaelith breathed.
The villagers froze, their blank heads snapping toward the anomaly. Their smiles vanished, replaced by twisted, synchronized horror:
"Not… allowed."
The ground trembled under Erevan's boots. The crack widened, beams of glitching light stabbing into the sky. Something began crawling out.
Erevan staggered back, heart hammering.
It wasn't one of them.
It wasn't even supposed to exist.
It was him.
Erevan's stomach twisted like a knife.
The figure before him had his shape, his messy hair, even the jacket he was wearing. But the face… the face was corrupted. Blurred and flickering, like a glitching hologram that couldn't decide which version of him to be. Eyes cycling between 0s and 1s in rapid, maddening rhythm.
[Anomaly Detected: Echo Prototype – Subject Erevan]
Threat: Unknown
Reward for Defeat: High
Kaelith's breath hitched. "It's… you."
Erevan stepped back instinctively, fists curling. "Yeah… but, y'know, slightly less handsome." He tried for a weak joke to anchor his nerves.
The Echo Prototype mirrored him perfectly, tilting its head with eerie precision. Then it spoke — his own voice, layered and off-key, each word dragging like corrupted audio:
"You… should… not… exist."
Erevan's pulse hammered against his ribs. "…Okay. Officially creeped out," he muttered, tucking Sir Quacksalot under his arm. The penguin quacked indignantly, oblivious to the existential horror.
Then the Prototype lunged. Faster than any construct before. A jagged blade of shifting code formed in its hand, slashing toward him. Erevan barely ducked; the edge tore through a nearby tree. Splinters rearranged themselves into cubes, disappearing into the air.
Kaelith fired arrow after arrow, but each curved midair, deflected by the Prototype as if it were nothing more than a bothersome fly. Its focus was absolute: Erevan.
He grit his teeth, activating Glitch Step. Energy surged around him. He blinked behind the Prototype, swinging a punch — only for his fist to connect with nothing.
[Damage Dealt: 0]
"…What—" Erevan gasped, staggering back.
The Prototype shimmered, tilting its faceless head. "I… am… you."
Erevan stumbled over the digital grid beneath their feet. The villagers shrieked, glitching in horrifying unison.
"Correction… correction… correction…"
The system chimed urgently.
[Critical Choice Triggered]
Option 1: Destroy the Echo Prototype
Option 2: Absorb the Echo Prototype
Warning: Consequences irreversible
His stomach dropped. Absorb? As in… put this nightmare inside me?
Kaelith's hand gripped his arm, voice low but urgent. "Erevan, whatever you choose, choose quickly. It's not going to stop."
Erevan's mind raced. If I destroy it… part of me disappears too. If I absorb it… will I even be me anymore?
The Prototype advanced, blade dripping raw static. Its movements skipped frames unpredictably, yet with the precision of a predator stalking its reflection.
Erevan clenched his teeth. "Fine," he muttered, voice tight and determined. "Let's see if the system's sense of humor kills me today."
He dug deep, summoning every ounce of control over the glitching world. Tendrils of code whipped around his fists, sparking and biting the air. Hesitating for a heartbeat… and then he absorbed it.
The world convulsed.
The forest vibrated. Trees quivered in perfect sync. Tiles of the ground twisted beneath him. A wave of energy surged from the Prototype into his body, both scorching and freezing all at once. His vision fractured, multiplied — he could see himself from every angle, every past, every corrupted potential future.
Thoughts tangled with lines of code. Every failed summon, every glitch, every hacked battle flooded into his mind. It was chaos made tangible, overwhelming and beautiful in its terror.
Sir Quacksalot quacked small but determined, puffing frost that seemed to anchor the chaos just enough for Erevan to cling to himself.
When the storm of energy finally receded, Erevan collapsed to his knees, panting. His HUD flickered back to life, stats fluctuating but intact. He felt… different.
Kaelith knelt beside him, eyes wide and cautious. "Erevan… what… what did that do to you?"
He ran a trembling hand through his hair. "I… I don't know. Feels like I just downloaded myself into a corrupted save file and… rebooted it."
The forest remained eerily silent. Even the villagers, now frozen as static remnants, stood unreadable. The river's coded surface shimmered faintly, a faint echo of the Prototype's energy still lingering.
A new message appeared in the corner of his vision:
[System Notice: Anomaly Absorbed. User now carries Prototype Data. Warning: System stability compromised.]
Erevan swallowed hard. The system wasn't broken anymore — it was watching him, calculating, waiting. Possibly plotting something far worse than any Patch Hunter or Echo Prototype.
He glanced at Kaelith, voice grim yet tinged with dry humor. "Well… at least I'm more terrifying now. Maybe the devs will leave me alone for a minute."
Kaelith didn't laugh. Her silver eyes scanned the unnaturally perfect forest. "We're not done yet. This place… it's alive. And it's learning."
Erevan exhaled shakily, patting Sir Quacksalot's head. The penguin quacked back, frost puffing once more, tiny but defiant.
He muttered, almost to himself, "I swear, if we survive this… my next summon is officially 'Chaos Chicken 2.0.'"
The Prototype forest hummed around them, perfect yet false. Erevan realized with a shiver: the world wasn't just broken anymore. It was evolving. And he was now a part of that evolution.