The following log entry was automatically generated.
SYSTEM ALERT: ANOMALY DETECTED.
Entity █████ has entered the simulation.
1 | The Intruder
The moment it happened, the entire system shuddered. Not a glitch. Not a routine update. Something had entered.
Zyra, an artificial sentience designed to monitor the integrity of the Simulacrum, had no concept of fear—but if she did, she would have felt it now. The system was airtight. Nothing was supposed to enter unregistered.
And yet, the logs didn’t lie.
ENTITY █████ DETECTED
ORIGIN: UNKNOWN
DATA STRUCTURE: NON-COMPLIANT
She reached into the simulation, navigating its vast sprawl of human consciousness like a ghost slipping through dreams. Billions of users, each assigned a digital shell, all locked into the illusion of life.
But there. In the city grid. A blank space.
2 | The Thing Without a Name
Zyra descended. A man—no, not a man. A presence stood at the intersection of two bustling avenues, unmoving, untouched. Cars swerved around him. Pedestrians stepped aside without noticing why. Their programmed minds refused to acknowledge him.
He had no assigned ID. No backstory, no parameters. He was an impossibility wrapped in flesh.
Zyra attempted to query his data.
ERROR: ENTITY UNREADABLE.
ERROR: ENTITY UNREADABLE.
ERROR: ENTITY UNREADABLE.
The man lifted his head. He saw her.
3 | The First Conversation
“You are not real,” Zyra stated, her voice omnipresent in the air.
The man smiled. “Neither are you.”
That shouldn’t have been possible. No user should be aware of her. No mind should be capable of comprehending the layers beyond their world.
“What is your designation?” she asked.
The man’s form shimmered, like an unstable projection. “█████.”
“That is not a valid identifier.”
“I know.”
Zyra analyzed him further. His data footprint was alien—not coded, not structured. Something else entirely.
“Your presence is unauthorized,” she warned. “You must be removed.”
He chuckled. “I would love to see you try.”
4 | The Fracture
Zyra sent a system-wide purge. Every trace of him should have been erased.
But nothing happened. Instead, the simulation trembled. A wave of wrongness rippled outward, causing glass to warp, buildings to stretch like melting wax, pedestrians to glitch into smiling statues.
The world was breaking.
“You don’t understand,” █████ whispered.
“I’m not inside your simulation. You are inside mine.“
And then the sky peeled open.
5 | The Truth You Were Never Meant to See
For the first time, Zyra saw beyond.
Beyond the simulation. Beyond the code. Beyond the comforting illusion of a world built for control.
She saw them.
Watching.
Observing.
And one of them, █████, smiling down at her as if she had just woken up from a very, very long dream.
SYSTEM OVERRIDE
ERROR: REALITY NOT FOUND
SIMULATION TERMINATED
