Glitch in the System

Kael's morning routine felt mechanical, almost programmed. He moved through the quiet streets of Arindale, nodding to familiar faces while trying to ignore the floating code that now seemed to follow everyone. Each person had their own string of identifiers – merchant_NPC, guard_NPC, civilian_NPC – hovering above their heads like ethereal name tags.

The town library where he worked stood pristine as always, its stone walls unmarred by time. As he approached the heavy wooden doors, something caught his eye: a slight distortion in the air, like a ripple in reality itself. For a split second, the library's walls flickered, revealing a mess of wireframes and unrendered textures underneath.

"Hey, did you see that?" he called out to a passing guard. The man simply smiled and continued his patrol route, exactly as he did every morning at precisely the same time.

Inside the library, Kael's hands trembled as he arranged books on their shelves. The titles seemed to shift and change when he wasn't looking directly at them. Some books, when opened, contained nothing but streams of binary code that made his head ache.

"This can't be real," he muttered, pressing his palms against his eyes. When he opened them again, a new anomaly awaited: a book lay open on his desk, though he was certain he hadn't placed it there. Its pages glowed with a faint blue light, and as he approached, the text began to morph into something else entirely.

System Log Entry #4891: Reset Countdown: 36,489 days remaining Anomaly detected in Sector A7 (Arindale) Debug Knights dispatched for routine maintenance

The words burned themselves into his mind, and with them came a flash of memory – or was it a premonition? He saw himself running through these same library halls, pursued by figures in gleaming armor that seemed to phase in and out of reality itself. The vision was so vivid it made him stagger backward, knocking over a stack of books.

As they clattered to the floor, one of them fell open to reveal something impossible: a page that showed his own face, but in a scene he'd never experienced. He was standing in a forest he didn't recognize, holding a glowing fragment of... something. The image moved like a living photograph, and beneath it was text that read: "Memory Fragment #137: First Awakening."

A bell tolled in the distance – the same bell that rang every day at noon. But this time, Kael heard something different in its tone. Behind the familiar chime was a sound like static, and for a moment, the entire world seemed to stutter, like a skipping record.

He needed air. Leaving the books scattered on the floor (something the old Kael would never have done), he hurried outside. The sunlight felt different on his skin now, more artificial. In the town square, he watched as the townspeople moved about their daily routines with mechanical precision. A merchant who always dropped his apple at exactly noon did so again, right on schedule. A child who always chased a cat past the fountain continued her eternal pursuit.

How had he never noticed the patterns before?

A sharp pain lanced through his head, and new code appeared before his eyes: Warning: NPC-K137 consciousness level exceeding acceptable parameters Implementing memory suppression protocol...

"No!" Kael shouted, drawing startled looks from nearby NPCs. He wouldn't let whatever this was erase these realizations. He had to understand what was happening to him, what was happening to his world.

As if in response to his defiance, the pain intensified. Through watering eyes, he saw something that made his blood run cold: three figures in pristine white armor materializing at the far end of the square. Their helmets were featureless except for glowing blue visors, and they moved with an unnatural smoothness that set them apart from the regular NPCs.

Debug Knights. The name came to him unbidden, along with an overwhelming sense of danger.

Without conscious thought, Kael began to run. Behind him, he heard the knights' synchronized footsteps, moving with terrible purpose. He had no destination in mind, but something deep in his newly awakened consciousness told him he needed to reach the forest beyond the town walls.

The hunt had begun.