Chapter 4: The Real Feels Wrong, and the Wrong Feels Normal
Friday came with clear skies and glitchy shadows.
Yuuya walked to school like normal. Passed the same vending machine. The same billboard. The same broken streetlamp. And yet… the shadow of the pole leaned one degree off from the sun.
He didn't comment. He just noted it.
He was getting used to this. Not the system. Not the changes. The drift.
Every day, the world behaved a little more like a simulation that forgot how to simulate.
> [Sync Ratio: 0.21% – Baseline Integration Achieved]
Today, he could see the data ripples in passing cars. Not their parts or their speed—their likelihood. The blue one should've stopped at the light. It didn't. It almost ran over a cyclist.
He wasn't surprised.
He was already a second ahead.
---
In class, the windows flickered once.
Just once.
No one noticed. Not even the teacher. But Yuuya saw the outline of a node symbol in the glass. Only for a frame. Then gone.
He started writing in his notebook again. Not notes. Just numbers. Predictions. Corrections. Coordinates.
> "Hey, Yuuya, you hear about that new AI prototype company?" Haruto asked. "People say it's like... way past what Elon Musk was doing."
Yuuya nodded without looking up. "I know."
Because the idea for it had formed in his mind three nights ago while he was syncing with the moon's oscillation data.
> [Construct Log Registered – Tech Blueprint Seed Created]
He knew now: if he wanted to change the world, he wouldn't need explosions. He'd just think hard enough and the world would catch up.
---
That night, he opened his laptop and sketched a rough prototype: a neural interface with zero delay. It didn't need a keyboard. Didn't need voice commands. It just read your intention and built results.
> "It's like reading your thoughts," he muttered.
He didn't realize the system was syncing his sketch into real data.
The next morning, someone on the internet posted about a "leaked tech schematic" that could disrupt the mobile industry.
He didn't leak it. He didn't tell anyone.
But the data wanted to be found.
> [Echo Spread: Public Node Contact — Undetected | Influence Level: 0.003%]
He shut the laptop. Looked at his hands.
> "Is this how they started?" he asked. "The ones who bent reality until it believed them?"
Outside, a bird blinked at him sideways. Not both eyes. Just one.
> [Observer Present – Passive Scan Complete]
---
In the afternoon, he watched football highlights on his phone. Messi ran like time didn't apply to him. The other players moved like lagging background assets.
He slowed the clip manually, 0.25x speed. Then let the system overlay his own sync data.
Messi's foot moved before the pass came.
> "That's not instinct," Yuuya said. "That's partial indexing."
He stared at the field. Wondered how many others were already touched by the system, unaware.
Ronaldo. LeBron. Musk. Hawking. Serena. Were they chosen? Or were they just the ones who listened hard enough?
---
By evening, he was building something with spare parts. A device. Nothing special. A motion tracker, maybe. Except it read intent drift instead of motion.
He aimed it at the cat that sometimes glitched in and out. The meter read "Present – 67%."
He smiled.
> "Even you're not fully here anymore."
He turned the device on himself. It read: "User: 91% / Observer: 9%."
Something in him had already stepped outside the simulation.
> [Node Expansion: Observer Consciousness Active]
He didn't panic. He opened a second window in his mind. And watched the world with both sets of eyes.
---
That night, he ate dinner with his parents.
They talked about nothing.
His father read news headlines aloud—cryptocurrency crashes, an earthquake nobody felt, a leaked video of someone throwing a punch that phased through another person.
Yuuya looked up. "Play that again."
His father frowned. "What?"
"That last headline. The one with the punch."
"Oh, it's just a TikTok edit. Probably fake."
> [Echo Interference Suspected – Source: Civilian Device]
His spoon floated for a second before he gripped it again.
"You alright?" his mother asked.
"Just tired," he said. "Long week."
He left the table early and went to his room.
In the dark, he watched the video. Replayed it. Slowed it.
Frame by frame, the punch passed through like the man was coded differently.
And behind the blurred face—an Observer outline.
---
He went to the roof that night.
Sky was too clear. Moon too symmetrical. Clouds stopped moving once every five seconds.
Just a pause. Then resumed.
> [Environmental Lag – Local Sync Drift: 0.7 seconds]
He lay on the rooftop tiles. Looked up. The sky blinked.
And in that blink, he saw something far above.
Not a satellite. Not a plane. A shape.
Something… watching Earth.
> "If I'm syncing… what are they doing?"
He fell asleep to that question. And dreamed in system code.