A Place That Shouldn't Exist
MC's breathing was uneven as they pulled themselves up from the cold, shifting ground. The world around them wasn't stable. The sky flickered between endless void and fractured reflections of places that looked both familiar and alien. The air felt thick—like wading through water, yet perfectly breathable.
Then, the system message appeared, its text broken and flickering.
> LOCATION: UNKNOWN.
WARNING: You have entered an Unmapped Zone.
ERROR: This Area Does Not Exist.
MC frowned. How could something exist if even the System itself didn't recognize it?
The last thing they remembered was diving into the unstable portal, escaping the Code Reapers. But now, they were somewhere beyond even the System's reach. An anomaly within an anomaly.
For the first time, they felt truly alone.
Then, the silence broke.
A whisper.
Faint. Distant. Echoing from nowhere and everywhere at once.
> "…You're not supposed to be here."
MC spun around, heart pounding. The voice wasn't robotic like the System's messages. It was… human.
They weren't alone.
---
The First Encounter
A shadow moved in the distance. A figure, barely visible through the shifting haze of the Unmapped Zone.
MC hesitated. Was it another enemy? Another enforcer sent to eliminate them? Or someone like them—another anomaly?
The whispering grew louder.
> "You shouldn't have come here. It's waking up."
Before MC could react, the world shifted violently. The ground beneath them twisted, becoming something else—dark, pulsating, alive. A deep, reverberating sound filled the air, something primal, something wrong.
Then came the eye.
A massive, floating eye formed in the sky above, its iris swirling with symbols and unreadable text. It locked onto MC, and a cold system message appeared.
> WARNING: ??? Detected.
ENTITY CLASSIFICATION: UNDEFINED.
ERROR: DATA CORRUPTION IN PROGRESS.
MC's body froze—not by choice, but by something deeper than fear. Something fundamental was pressing down on them, like reality itself was trying to crush them into nonexistence.
The whispers turned into screams.
And then, a hand grabbed MC's wrist.
---
The Mysterious Guide
The grip was firm—human, warm. Someone real.
"Move, or you'll be erased," the voice ordered.
MC barely had time to react before they were yanked into motion. The figure pulled them away from the floating eye, deeper into the unstable landscape. As they ran, the world around them continued to distort. Structures formed and unformed, spaces overlapped, and the very concept of distance broke apart.
The eye did not chase them, but its gaze never left them.
Finally, after what felt like both seconds and hours, they reached what looked like the ruins of a shattered city. The ground here was stable—or at least, more stable than anywhere else.
The figure let go of MC's wrist and turned to face them.
They were human—or at least, they looked human. A young man, early twenties, with dark, unkempt hair and piercing silver eyes that seemed to reflect the shifting world around them. His clothes were a mix of scavenged armor and tattered fabric, as if he had been surviving here for a long time.
He studied MC with an unreadable expression.
"You're new," he said. "And judging by the fact that you haven't turned into static yet, you're like me."
MC caught their breath, still shaken. "Like you?"
The stranger nodded.
"An anomaly."
---
Secrets of the Unmapped Zone
The man introduced himself as Kain. He wasn't part of the System. He wasn't a Reaper. He wasn't even a glitch.
He was someone who had been erased—but refused to disappear.
"This place?" Kain gestured to the broken city. "It's where things the System can't delete end up. People, places, even entire realities." He smirked grimly. "Welcome to the graveyard of forgotten things."
MC's mind raced. If the System couldn't recognize this place, then what else was here?
They glanced back at the sky, where the eye had been. It was gone—but the unease it left behind remained.
Kain followed their gaze.
"Yeah," he muttered. "You saw it, didn't you?"
MC nodded slowly. "What was that?"
Kain's expression darkened. "Something worse than the Reapers. Worse than anything the System has. It's been here longer than the System itself."
MC frowned. "You mean… it's not part of the System?"
"No." Kain's voice was quiet. "It's what's left of the thing the System replaced."
A chill ran down MC's spine.
Before they could ask anything else, a new system message appeared—but this one was different. The text was corrupted, fragmented.
> INTRUDER DETECTED.
YOU HAVE BROUGHT THE SYSTEM HERE.
IT WILL FIND US.
Kain's eyes widened. "Shit. You used Rewrite, didn't you?"
MC's blood ran cold. "I had to. It was the only way to escape."
Kain grabbed them by the shoulder, voice urgent. "You don't get it. Every time you Rewrite something, the System tracks it. You just led them here."
A new error message flooded MC's vision.
> SYSTEM ALERT: CODE REAPERS DEPLOYED.
ANOMALY LOCATION COMPROMISED.
PURGE IMMINENT.
Then, from the sky, the first Reaper descended.
And this time, they weren't alone.