Ethan awoke in a dimly lit void, his body floating weightlessly in a space that defied logic. Glitching fragments of code spiraled around him, shifting between colors and shapes, forming incomplete images of places he half-remembered. A whisper, soft and haunting, brushed against his ears.
"Ethan…"
His heart clenched at the voice. Eve.
He turned, searching for her, but instead, he was met with himself—or rather, his doppelgänger. The reflection of his own face smirked, eyes gleaming with something unnatural. "You always run," the double murmured, stepping forward with slow, deliberate steps. "You always hesitate."
Ethan gritted his teeth, fists clenching. "You're not real."
The doppelgänger tilted his head. "Aren't I?"
The space around them flickered violently. Ethan gasped as visions overtook his senses—Eve smiling, then crying; Rina standing alone in a field of digital wreckage; The Entity's tendrils closing around him. The images disappeared as quickly as they had come, leaving him breathless.
"You don't belong here," the doppelgänger whispered. "This world is breaking, and so are you."
A sharp pain lanced through Ethan's mind. He stumbled backward, gripping his head. A presence—Eve's presence—pushed against the edges of his thoughts.
I'm here.
The words echoed in his skull, and suddenly, a warm hand grasped his. His real one. Ethan blinked, finding himself standing next to Eve in the remains of the fractured city. The void was gone. His double was gone. But something was still wrong.
The Entity loomed above them now, no longer just a formless mass of code. It had taken shape. A monstrous, shadowy figure with tendrils stretching into every corner of their digital prison. Its face was blank, but its voice rang clear.
"You cannot fight what you do not understand."
Eve gripped Ethan's arm tightly. "We have to leave. Now."
The ground beneath them began to collapse, revealing an abyss of shifting, corrupted data. Ethan swallowed hard. He didn't need any more convincing.
He ran. Again.