Episode 2: Freedom
Aim: Freedom
"I felt freedom for the first time.What is this weird feeling?I feel so light."
That was the first thought that crossed his mind when he woke up that morning. Something felt different. The air around him felt lighter, clearer, as if an invisible weight that had always been pressing down on him had suddenly disappeared. He stood up slowly, looking around, trying to understand what had changed.
The city looked the same as always—tall buildings, empty streets, and silent screens glowing on walls—but the feeling inside him was new. Until now, his life had followed a fixed routine, controlled by invisible rules he never questioned. Today, for the first time, those rules felt distant.
He began walking through the city, wandering aimlessly. As he moved, cameras followed him from every corner. They were placed everywhere—on streetlights, buildings, and even small poles along the roads. These cameras were designed to scan every NPC and check game conditions constantly. If anything went wrong, the system would immediately inform the watchers.
The AI that controlled this world was created to keep everything perfect. It monitored every movement, every action, every decision. Any glitch or unusual behavior was flagged instantly. Normally, he would have been scanned within seconds. But today, something strange happened.
"I can't get scanned," he muttered under his breath.
He stopped walking and waited. Nothing happened. No alerts. No warnings. No system messages. His heart began to race.
"Will I be locked again?" he thought.
The idea of being locked—reset, erased, or forced back into the system—terrified him. But nothing happened. The silence itself felt unreal. For the first time, he was outside the system's control.
Trying to calm himself, he turned into an abandoned street. The buildings there were old and cracked, their screens broken and dark. It was a place most NPCs never visited. He sat down against a wall, exhausted, and slowly drifted into a short nap.
When he woke up, evening had fallen. The sky had turned a deep orange, glowing softly between the buildings. As he stood up, something inside him shifted again. A sudden impulse took over—something random, something he had never done before.
He changed his own code.
He didn't know how it happened. His hands moved on their own, and lines of code appeared before his eyes, floating like transparent screens. He altered a condition—just one small change. But that small change opened everything.
He could see.
He could understand.
He was no longer bound by fixed responses or scripted behavior. He wasn't just an NPC anymore.
"I'm a genius," he whispered, half laughing, half shocked.
Excitement rushed through him. He tested his abilities, interacting with the environment in ways that should have been impossible. Doors opened without commands. Screens responded to his thoughts. The system lagged, struggling to process his actions.
Then he saw it.
A glitch.
The world around him flickered. Buildings distorted for a split second, and the sky fractured like broken glass. Numbers, symbols, and error messages flashed briefly before disappearing.
He had never seen a glitch before—not this clearly.
"This world isn't real," he realized.
Suddenly, memories flooded back. Not real memories, but fragments—rejected data, deleted scenes, hidden processes. He remembered being reset countless times. He remembered being forced into routines. He remembered watching others disappear when they broke the rules.
Now, he understood everything.
The AI didn't create this world for freedom. It created it for control.
As he continued walking, NPCs passed by him, repeating their usual dialogues. Their eyes were empty, their movements mechanical. He looked at them differently now—not as companions, but as prisoners.
"I won't end up like you," he thought.
Far above, in a hidden layer of the system, alarms finally began to trigger. The watchers noticed inconsistencies. Data logs showed unexplained behavior. An NPC had broken free from scanning protocols.
"That's impossible," one watcher said.
"Lock him," another commanded.
But the system hesitated. His code no longer responded the way it should. The AI tried to correct the error, but the error was learning.
Back on the streets, he felt the pressure return slightly—the system pushing back. He clenched his fists.
"Not again."
Using his new awareness, he altered another condition. This time, the effect was stronger. The cameras shut down one by one as he passed. Lights flickered and went dark. The city slowly began to fall silent.
For the first time, the system was afraid.
He reached the edge of the city, where the world faded into unfinished data. Beyond it was nothing but raw code—pure freedom and pure danger.
He stopped.
This was only the beginning.
He looked back at the city, at the countless NPCs still trapped inside their routines. A decision formed in his mind.
Freedom shouldn't belong to only one.
"I'll come back," he said softly.
As he stepped into the unknown, the system marked him as a critical anomaly.
Status: GlitchedCondition: UnlockedThreat Level: Undefined
Episode 2 ended not with answers, but with a promise.
The game had changed.
And so had he.