Leo smirked and went back to whatever he was working on, his fingers moving fast across the like he was in a race no one else could see. Jessie watched the blur of motion for a moment before leaning back in his chair, letting out a quiet, steady breath. This felt better. It felt normal. Predictable. The hum of the classroom was a familiar shroud, a collection of sights and sounds that anchored him to a life he understood.
"I swear," Leo muttered, his voice barely audible over the chatter of other students, "if this thing crashes one more time, I'm rewriting the whole system."
"You said that yesterday," Jessie noted.
"I meant it yesterday."
"And you didn't do it."
Leo paused, his fingers hovering over the keys for a split second. "I might mean it more today."
Victor didn't look up from his notes, his pen moving in precise, methodical lines. "You won't rewrite it," he said calmly. "You don't have the patience. You took apart a working drone because it 'felt inefficient.'"
"It was inefficient," Leo huffed, though he didn't deny the charge.
Jessie smiled slightly, resting his chin in his hand. This was the Leo he knew: a guy dedicated to fixing things that weren't actually broken. Across from them, Ava glanced up from her sketchbook, her eyes moving between the two of them with an amused glint. "You two argue like you're married," she said, her pencil pausing mid-stroke.
"We are not married," Leo snapped, genuinely offended, while Victor remained a statue of indifference.
The classroom slowly filled in around them—the heavy thud of bags, the crunch of chips, the low roar of a hundred simultaneous lives. Jessie reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, scrolling through a feed of meaningless notifications. He switched to his music library, letting one earbud sit in while the other stayed out—his daily compromise between staying present and staying sane. He didn't know then that this was the last stretch of his life where things would be this simple. He didn't know how fast the foundation was about to crumble.
The "normal" began to slip during the lecture. As the professor droned on about linear algebra and the beauty of structures, Jessie's mind didn't just drift; it fractured. He caught fragments of words—framework, consistency, application—but they felt heavy, like they were being spoken in a language he was only just beginning to remember. When the professor called his name, the silence of the room rang in his ears like a physical weight. He offered a lame excuse about "thinking," but as he sat back down, he felt a spark of heat creep up his collar.
Later, in the dorm, the glitching intensified. Victor was busy sanitizing his desk with surgical precision while Leo hovered over a prototype that pulsed with a soft, unauthorized green light.
"Yo... you hear that?" Jessie asked, sitting up on his bed. A quiet hum filled the air, a sound that seemed to vibrate in his teeth.
"It wasn't supposed to do that," Leo muttered, his brow furrowed.
The hum stopped as quickly as it had started, leaving a vacuum of silence in its wake. But the feeling stayed. It followed Jessie into the next day, into the hallways, and finally, into a moment of pure, terrifying clarity.
While walking with Ava, the world stuttered. It wasn't like a dizzy spell; it was like the volume of reality had been turned down. Jessie's eyes shifted, scanning the environment with an autonomy he didn't grant them. He saw a car pass, and his brain—without his permission—calculated its speed, its trajectory, and its distance. Then, the silence in his head was replaced by a voice that was too cold, too precise, and far too real.
[STRESS LEVEL RISING]
[HOST INSTABILITY DETECTED]
Jessie froze. His body went rigid, his breathing slowing into a rhythm that felt mechanical. Ava was saying his name, her voice distant, but he couldn't answer. He was watching a cold blue shimmer pass through his own vision.
[STABILIZATION PROTOCOL INITIATED]
"I'm fine," he heard himself say. The voice was his, but the cadence was empty—perfect and hollow. When the control finally slipped back to him, Jessie gasped for air, grabbing the side of his head as if he could physically pull the intruder out.
"I heard it," he whispered to Ava, the panic finally breaking through his mask of normalcy. "It's like something's in my head, but it's not me."
They retreated to the quad to find the others. The group was planning a trip to Miller's Ridge to watch a meteor shower—the very place that haunted Jessie's fragmented memories. He sat among them, watching Leo's tablet as layers of complex code organized themselves with a speed that defied logic. He felt a pull toward the Ridge, a magnetic necessity.
As the group split up and Jessie headed home, the cabin of the transport car became his confessional.
"Who are you?" he whispered to the empty air.
He waited for a beat of silence, hoping he was just tired, hoping he was just losing his mind in a way that medicine could fix. But the answer came from within his own bones—quiet, controlled, and chillingly clear.
...observing...
...designation acknowledged: PLAYER.
Jessie stared at his reflection in the window. The campus, the friends, the life he thought he knew—it was all still there. But the "Normal" was gone. The system was online.
Leo smirked and went back to whatever he was working on, his fingers moving fast across the keyboard like he was in a race no one else could see. Jessie watched the blur of motion for a moment before leaning back in his chair, letting out a quiet, steady breath. This felt better. It felt normal—predictable. The classroom hummed with the comforting sounds of routine: the scratch of pens, the soft tapping of keys, and the low murmur of students caught in the drift of a Tuesday morning.
"I swear," Leo muttered, his voice barely audible over the hum of the air conditioning, "if this thing crashes one more time, I'm rewriting the whole system."
"You said that yesterday," Jessie noted, watching a stray sunbeam dance across Leo's screen.
"I meant it yesterday."
"And you didn't do it."
Leo paused, his fingers hovering over the keys for a split second. "I might mean it more today."
Victor didn't look up from his notes, his pen moving in precise, methodical lines. "You won't rewrite it," he said calmly. "You don't have the patience. You took apart a working drone because it 'felt inefficient.'"
"It was inefficient," Leo huffed, though he didn't deny the charge. Jessie smiled slightly, resting his chin in his hand. This was the Leo he knew: a guy dedicated to fixing things that weren't actually broken. Across the table, Ava glanced up from her sketchbook, an amused glint in her eyes. "You two argue like you're married," she said.
"We are not married," Leo snapped, while Victor didn't react at all. Jessie let out a small laugh. It was all so beautifully mundane. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, scrolling through his music library to find a compromise between staying present and staying sane. He didn't know then that this was the last stretch of his life where things would be this simple. He didn't know how fast the foundation was about to crumble.
The transition happened during Linear Algebra. As the professor droned on about foundations and structures, Jessie's mind didn't just drift; it fractured. He caught fragments of words—framework, consistency, application—but they came and went like background noise. He tapped his pen lightly against the desk until Victor shot him a warning look. He tried to focus, but two minutes later, he was staring at the board without actually seeing the ink.
"Jessie."
His head snapped up. The professor was looking right at him. "Answer the question," the man said dryly. Jessie blinked, the silence of the room ringing in his ears. "What question?" he managed. A few quiet laughs spread through the rows as the professor sighed, a long, weary sound. "Exactly. Try thinking about the lecture instead of whatever's in your head."
But what was in his head was becoming harder to ignore. After class, the group retreated to the dorms, where the "off" feeling intensified. While Victor sanitized his desk with surgical precision and Leo hovered over a prototype that pulsed with a soft, unauthorized green light, Jessie felt a hum in the air that seemed to vibrate in his very teeth.
"Yo... you hear that?" Jessie asked, sitting up.
"It wasn't supposed to do that," Leo muttered, frowning at his device. The hum stopped as quickly as it had started, leaving a vacuum of silence in its wake. Jessie walked to the window, watching the campus below. Everything looked calm, but the feeling in his chest—a small, persistent pull—refused to fade.