There was a problem.
And it wasn't just in the air, or in their heads.
No—it was in the code.
Like the world itself had glitched, skipped a frame, and never recovered.
The sky shimmered unnaturally.
Colors flickered like broken pixels.
Sound lagged—off-beat, distorted, like a memory being chewed up and spit back out by a corrupted drive.
Alepou stood stiff, hands clenched, eyes scanning everything like she was stuck in a debug screen.
Yuki stood beside her, chest heaving. And Taiyo—not Gabrielle, not the prince, just Taiyo—was as still as a frozen statue, like someone had just unplugged his sense of self.
"Something's wrong," Alepou muttered.
Her voice was low. Clipped. Terrified.
"This isn't memory loss. This is… overwrite."
Yuki spun, panic in her voice.
"Is it this world? Or is it us? Are we the ones being changed?"
Alepou shook her head.
"No. I think... we're remembering too much."
She stared straight into Yuki's eyes.
"And someone out there doesn't want us to."
Taiyo finally moved. His voice was hoarse.
"Wait. You're saying none of this is real?"
"Worse," Yuki said softly.
"What if it is real—but built on top of a lie? What if everything we remember is just… a patch? A rewrite to keep us from waking up?"
The silence hit like static.
Not peaceful.
Paralyzing.
Alepou's voice came out hollow.
"When we woke up here… do you remember where we were before that?"
Yuki's breath caught.
First dungeon.
First quest.
First blood.
But… before that?
Blank.
Like a VHS tape that had been wiped.
"No house. No school. Not even a goodbye," Yuki whispered.
"Just... static."
Alepou's jaw tightened.
"Exactly. Someone erased the start of our story."
Taiyo stepped back, hand trembling.
"You're saying we're NPCs? Fake people in a fake world?"
"Not fake," Yuki said quietly.
"Just... rewritten."
And then—like a switch flipped—
Yuki screamed.
Pain tore through her skull like a jackhammer against glass.
The world melted.
Her vision collapsed into noise:
> Glimpses of a younger Taiyo smiling.
A classroom that never existed.
A family with faces scrubbed clean.
A voice whispering: "Don't look back."
She dropped to her knees, gasping for breath that didn't feel real.
Alepou caught her.
"Yuki! Stay with me! Fight it!"
Yuki's eyes widened. Tears fell—but not from fear. From truth.
"It's them."
Her voice was a rasp.
"They're watching. They're listening. Every time we remember something real, they scramble it. Erase it."
Alepou's grip tightened.
"Then we tear the blindfold off."
Taiyo swallowed hard, eyes blazing with new resolve.
"So what now?"
Yuki stood. Shaking. Furious.
"We stop playing by their rules. We find the cracks. We force the system to break."
Alepou grinned like a wolf.
"If this is a simulation… let's make it crash."
And then—like the world was reacting to their rebellion—
The ground shook.
The air rippled like water.
The sky glitched—once. Twice.
The system knew.
It had seen them.
> This wasn't a memory problem.
It was a containment protocol.
And they were finally waking up.
---
What now?
Yuki's memory crash is the first sign of total system resistance.
Alepou suspects external interference—possibly a time or dimensional entity.
Taiyo may not be Taiyo anymore—or might be split across versions.
Reality is breaking down.
And the next loop… may not give them another chance.