The message appeared without warning.
Not in front of Noel.
Not above him.
It slammed through him.
The world juddered, every surface around him flashing red for a fraction of a second, like a fatal error propagating across reality itself. The frozen torches reignited—only to shatter into sparks of crimson light. The broken UI panels all turned toward a single point in space.
Toward him.
A box unfolded in midair, larger than any status window he'd ever seen. Its edges were sharp, angular, and wrong, as if they'd been designed for a different resolution than the world was running.
The color alone made his instincts scream.
Not blue.Not green.Not gold.
Error red.
Text scrolled rapidly, far too fast to read at first, lines stacking and overwriting each other like a system log gone feral.
// SYSTEM DIAGNOSTIC MODE ENABLED// DEVELOPER ACCESS: LIMITED// CRITICAL EXCEPTION DETECTED
The scrolling stopped.
The box stabilized.
And for the first time since he'd awakened, the system spoke to him directly.
ERROR 404: ENTITY NOT FOUND
Noel's mouth went dry.
The message didn't float politely at the edge of his vision like a player prompt. It dominated everything, anchoring itself to reality as if it had more right to exist here than he did.
New lines appeared, slower now. Deliberate.
AFFECTED INSTANCE: Tutorial_Alpha_01ERROR TYPE: Missing Data ReferenceFLAGGED OBJECT: [ UNREGISTERED ENTITY ]
A blinking cursor appeared at the end of the line.
Then it moved.
ATTEMPTING ENTITY IDENTIFICATION…RESULT: FAILURENAME: NULLCLASS: NULLLEVEL: NULLHP: NULLEXISTENCE STATE: UNSTABLE
Noel felt a pressure in his chest—not pain, not fear, but something colder. Like being looked at under a microscope by something that didn't care whether the sample survived.
"So that's what I am," he whispered. "A null value."
The system didn't acknowledge the sound. It continued its report.
ENTITY STATUS: MISSING DATALIKELY CAUSE:– Improper instantiation– Interrupted player creation– External insertion (UNVERIFIED)
That last line flickered, as if even the system wasn't comfortable with it.
A new header burned into place, boxed and underlined twice.
ERROR RECOVERY PROMPT
Noel's heart skipped.
Recovery meant fixes. Fixes meant changes. And changes, in a system that already couldn't decide whether he existed, felt… dangerous.
Text populated beneath the header, slower still, each line appearing with a heavy thud that he felt in his bones.
UNREGISTERED ENTITY HAS BEEN DETECTED WITHIN A CORE SYSTEM INSTANCE.THIS CONDITION MAY RESULT IN:– Logic corruption– Instance collapse– Cross-system conflict
The pressure in the air increased. The darkness beyond the platform stirred again, restless, as if drawn to the instability like predators to blood.
RECOMMENDED ACTION:INITIATE ROLLBACK TO LAST STABLE STATE
Noel's breath hitched.
Rollback.
He knew what that meant.
Reset the instance. Restore from backup. Revert to a point before the error occurred.
Before him.
The message continued, indifferent.
ROLLBACK PARAMETERS:– Tutorial_Alpha_01– All non-persistent entities– All anomalous data structures
Noel laughed, a short, sharp sound. "You mean erase me."
The cursor blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Then the system asked the question.
CONFIRM ACTION:[ YES – INITIATE ROLLBACK ][ NO – MAINTAIN UNSTABLE STATE ]
The options hovered there, stark and merciless.
No timer appeared.
No warning countdown.
This wasn't a player choice.
This was a developer decision—and somehow, impossibly, he was the one being asked.
Noel stared at the glowing red text. If he chose yes, the system would fix the problem cleanly. The tutorial would reset. The error would be gone.
So would he.
If he chose no…
He glanced at the fractured panels, the half-awake system, the darkness beyond the platform that now pulsed with slow, heavy intent.
Maintaining an unstable state meant continuing as an error inside a system that hated errors.
"I don't have a save file," Noel said quietly. "I don't have a backup. I don't even have a name."
The cursor blinked again, waiting.
He straightened, forcing his shaking hands to still. Whatever he was—player, bug, anomaly—he was here now. He could think. He could choose.
"I exist," he said, voice firm despite the fear clawing at his spine. "Even if you don't know how."
The red light intensified, bathing the platform in crimson.
WARNING:DECLINING ROLLBACK MAY RESULT IN IRREVERSIBLE SYSTEM DIVERGENCE
Noel met the message head-on.
"Then diverge," he said.
The cursor froze.
For a moment—just a moment—the system hesitated.
Then the option boxes flickered.
SELECTION REGISTERED: NO
The red message fractured, lines tearing apart as alarms—silent but felt—rippled outward. The ground beneath Noel cracked further, runes burning and failing at the same time.
UNSTABLE STATE MAINTAINEDERROR STATUS: UNRESOLVEDINITIATING CONTAINMENT PROTOCOLS…
Containment.
Noel swallowed as the darkness surged closer, the dungeon finally reacting to the decision he'd just made.
He had refused deletion.
Now the system would try something worse.
And somewhere deep in its broken logic, a line of code had just been written for the first time:
The error was not going away.