The Last Fragment

The stillness of the room pressed on Dayu like an oppressive weight, each second stretching out as if the air itself was holding its breath. His mind was still reeling from the revelation that he might be the last human left on Earth. The terminal had gone dark, his attempts to reconnect with any kind of network had failed, and now, it was just him alone in the unraveling world. He had tried to make sense of it all, tried to piece together some explanation, but all that remained was an unsettling void, both inside and outside his mind.

A faint hum reverberated through the air, so soft that at first, Dayu thought he might have imagined it. But the sound grew louder, resonating like static cutting through the dead silence of the room. His heart began to pound in his chest, his eyes darting around the control room. Not again, he thought. Not now.

Then, the flickering began.

The lights above him buzzed erratically, and the shadows around him seemed to stretch unnaturally. It was the same feeling, the same sickening distortion he had felt earlier. The air felt thicker now, as though reality itself was being bent, twisted, and pulled into strange, unrecognizable shapes.

Dayu's eyes snapped to the door. There, standing in the entrance, was the girl. No... the glitch. Her fragmented form hovering just beyond the threshold. She was worse than before. Her figure flickered violently, her body distorting and collapsing into jagged lines of static, only to reassemble again into something barely resembling a human. Her face was half-formed, flickering in and out of existence, her hollow eyes locked onto his with an intensity that made his skin crawl.

The moment he saw her, a chill ran down his spine. He wanted to scream, to run, but his legs felt frozen to the floor. The world was unraveling around him, and yet here she was again, this unearthly being who seemed to exist outside of time and space. It wasn't real. None of this was real. But even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew it didn't matter.

The glitch raised a hand, and the room around them seemed to bend, as if the walls themselves were warping. The air grew cold. The lights flickered again, brighter this time, then dimmed entirely.

Dayu's pulse quickened. He didn't know what to do, but he knew he couldn't just stand there. He had to move.

He lunged forward, pushing past the distorted version of the girl, but his hands passed through her like she wasn't even there. It was like trying to touch smoke, his fingers slipping through her form with no resistance. She was nothing but a projection, a fragment of something that didn't belong. And yet, she was here.

She smiled then, a distorted, unnerving grin that stretched too wide for a human face. Her voice cut through the silence, garbled at first, like a radio signal losing its signal.

"You can't escape," she said, her voice warping with each syllable. "You never could. You're part of the puzzle now."

Dayu's eyes darted around in desperation, his mind racing to find a way out. His hands balled into fists, his body trembling with anger and fear. "What do you want from me?" he demanded, his voice breaking through the distortion.

The glitch's smile widened even further. She reached toward him, her hand moving with a speed that felt unnatural, and before Dayu could react, her fingers grasped his arm. It was a cold grip, like ice running through his veins, and before he could pull away, everything around him began to blur. The air around him fractured, bending like glass.

And then, in an instant, he was no longer in the control room.

He stood on a surface that was not the ground, but felt just as solid. It was as if he was suspended in the air, surrounded by nothing but a swirling expanse of stars. The sky stretched endlessly around him, an infinite black canvas dotted with pinpricks of light. There was no horizon. No earth beneath his feet. Only a vast void.

It was the moon.

Dayu took a staggered step back, his chest tightening with panic. His breath came in shallow gasps, the coldness of the air biting at his skin. This was impossible. He had never been here. He didn't belong here.

The glitch was standing beside him now, her form still warping, distorting, as if she was half-there, half-not. She tilted her head, her hollow eyes studying him like a specimen under a microscope.

"This is my place," she said, her voice cold, detached. "I live here, in the space between the pieces. Where reality bends and breaks." She stretched out a hand, and as she did, the moon's surface cracked. A jagged line split the ground beneath them, revealing a swirling void underneath. She let the crack grow wider, as if showing him the destruction she was capable of.

Dayu stumbled back, his heart pounding in his chest. "You're... you're not real," he whispered, trying to convince himself that what he was seeing couldn't possibly be true.

She chuckled, the sound distorted and broken, as if it were coming from some far-off, unreachable place. "Real? I'm as real as the end of everything. I am the glitch—the absence between the pieces. I am the one who removes them."

She lifted her hand once more, and the ground around them began to crumble, the surface of the moon splintering like broken glass. Slowly, piece by piece, fragments of the Earth: cities, mountains, oceans, appeared before them, suspended in midair, like a jigsaw puzzle torn apart. The glitch's hand reached out and gently touched one of the fragments: a piece of land, half-submerged in water.

With a soft, almost imperceptible sound, the piece of the Earth began to disappear, crumbling into dust, as if the very essence of it was being erased from existence. Slowly, she began removing more pieces, one by one, letting them fall into the void around them.

"No," Dayu whispered, his chest tightening as he realized what she was doing. "Stop it. Stop please!"

But the glitch only smiled, her face distorted further. She was enjoying this, savoring the destruction she was causing.

"You don't understand," she said, her voice now dripping with malice. "I am the end. The end of all things. Each piece I remove takes the Earth closer to nothing. To emptiness. To the void."

Dayu tried to move, to grab her and stop her, but his body refused to cooperate. He reached out, desperate, but his hand passed right through her again. She was a mirage. A phantom. And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't touch her. He couldn't stop her.

As the fragments of the Earth continued to disappear around them, Dayu felt himself sinking into despair. There was nothing he could do. Nothing he could say to change what was happening.

"Why?" he choked out, his voice raw. "Why are you doing this?"

The glitch looked down at him with pity, her form flickering and shifting. "Because it's time," she said softly. "Time to let go. Time to make room for something new."

A final piece of the Earth: the last remaining fragment of civilization, began to fade, turning to dust and falling into the void. And as it vanished, Dayu felt the weight of the world collapse with it, leaving him in an endless void with no way back.

The glitch reached out one last time, her fingers brushing the air, and the last piece of Earth was gone.

And Dayu was left, standing in the void, alone.