The moment didn't last.
Behind me, something exploded with a noise like a bard being dropkicked through a lute.
> "Aaaaand Hana's awake," I muttered.
I turned just in time to see a puff of glitter and aggressive whimsy rocket up from the trees. A butterfly with antlers and what might've been a monocle flapped by, looking offended.
The UI flickered back into view — no longer crisp and corporate, but… enchanted. Cursed with calligraphy.
> [FANTASY MODE ACTIVATED]
Font Pack: Pretentious Scroll v3.7
HUD Accent Color: Unicorn Blood (Diluted)
✨ Welcome to the Mystic Beast Mode Expansion™! ✨
Please enjoy your mandatory existential subplot.
I blinked hard. Tried to scrub the sparkles off my retinas. Failed.
> [CHARISMA +1: You Did Not Drool in Your Sleep]
[STRENGTH -1: Existential Crisis Aura Active]
[INVENTORY NOTE: You are still wearing the hoodie. It clashes.]
Below, the forest pulsed like a fantasy biome designed by someone whose only reference was high-end terrariums and mood boards.
Ezra sat at the base of a tree, sharpening a stick with grim, quiet rage, like he was preparing for war against the entire genre.
Hana, naturally, was trying to befriend a mushroom.
"This one's name is Philip," she announced. "He's bioluminescent and emotionally unavailable. A classic."
The mushroom shivered. The antlered butterfly tried to rescue it. Failed.
"Why," I said, slowly, "does that tree smell like heroic foreshadowing?"
No one answered.
Because of course it did.
We kept walking. Or wandering. Or fate-strolling. Hard to say.
The forest unfolded like a stage play written by a Dungeon Master going through a breakup. Everything felt a little… placed. A bit too symmetrical. Like we were walking through someone's Pinterest board for "Epic Quest Vibes 💀✨."
Birdsong trilled overhead — in minor key.
> [UI TOOLTIP]
You are now entering: Narrative Zone – Light Dread
Tone Setting: Faux-Magical Unease
Bonus Trait: Mistrust of Squirrels (Passive)
Ezra was muttering under his breath, carving "I hate this place" into the stick. Hana was humming. The mushroom now had a leaf hat. His name, apparently, was still Philip.
Then we saw it.
Slumped against a gnarled willow, a knight — half-covered in moss and regret, armor cracked and flickering like corrupted code.
The breastplate read, in faded dev-text:
> "Property of Tutorial Boss Arena."
"Please return to Dev Folder if accidentally deployed."
One pauldron was literally textured as firewood. His gauntlet had "Insert Weapon Here" stenciled on the wrist.
Ezra stopped cold. "Either that's a corpse or the worst cosplay I've ever seen."
The knight stirred.
"…prologue loop… break script… they're watching… from Act Two…"
His voice sounded like a VHS tape dying slowly.
The UI pinged — reluctantly.
> [UNKNOWN ENTITY DETECTED]
Role: Scrapped Hero Template
Status: Quarantined
Dialogue Tree: 2/8 branches corrupted
Emotional Stability: ✨ERROR✨
Hana stepped closer, her glitterbombs humming.
"Maybe he's friendly?" she offered.
The knight's head twitched. "Off-script," he rasped, jerking back from me. "You're off-script. They'll notice—they always notice."
> "Okay, but like—" I squinted, "do I still get XP if I save you, or is this a philosophical side quest?"
His eye sockets flickered like a blue screen of death. Then—he slumped, body crashing like a corrupted save file.
A stat panel fluttered across the screen:
> [ROLE: Scrapped Hero Template]
[STATUS: Crashed | Respawn Pending Narrative Approval]
[Backup Plotline: Denied]
Silence.
Ezra crossed his arms. "Well. That was hauntingly unhelpful."
Hana patted the knight's shoulder gently. "He's doing his best."
> [UI HINT]
Would you like to Investigate:
A) The armor
B) The phrase "Act Two"
C) Your life choices
(You may select all three.)
I exhaled.
> "First we get dumped into an off-brand fantasy zone, then we find Glitchy McBackstory sobbing about Act Two. What's next—sentient sword therapy?"
Behind us, a rock whispered, "Soon."
I did not turn around.
We buried the knight under a tree that looked suspiciously like it wanted to become symbolic.
His armor didn't rust — it de-rezzed, pixel by pixel, until all that remained was a faint loading wheel in the dirt and a tutorial tooltip that read:
> "Your hero has been removed. Please update your narrative drivers."
No music played. No pop-up quest reward. Just silence and the sound of a butterfly sobbing into a mushroom.
The forest thickened as we pushed deeper, the trees growing too symmetrical, the colors aggressively painterly. Birds chirped in tritones. Even the moss looked curated.
Hana twirled ahead, leaving a trail of glitter behind her like some kind of ✨deranged breadcrumb system✨.
We stopped at a small clearing beside a stream. I dropped my bag, Ezra sharpened a stick (again), and Hana announced she was making "camp aesthetic" instead of a fire.
That's when we heard it.
Soft footsteps. A chime.
And then — a squirrel. Glowing. Majestic. Wearing a tiny, glimmering cape. It stood on a stump and raised one paw like it was about to swear us into a sacred order.
> "Child of Sparkle," it intoned, eyes blazing with divine exposition, "the time has come. You must undertake the Trial of—"
"No thank you," Hana said, immediately and cheerfully, like she was rejecting a timeshare offer.
The squirrel glitched.
Froze mid-sentence. Buffering wheel in its pupils.
> [DESTINY ERROR: USER DECLINED FATE]
Narrative Continuity: Compromised
Please consult your assigned Plot Technician
Rebooting Minor Arc in… 404 seconds
The squirrel twitched. Its tail pixelated. Then it keeled over backward with a small puff of glitter and trauma.
Leo just blinked.
> "That… was the most powerful move I've ever seen."
Ezra looked vaguely offended on behalf of genre mechanics everywhere. "She rejected a divine quest like she was unsubscribing from spam mail."
Hana just shrugged and patted the squirrel. "If fate wants me, it better send snacks next time."
> [UI ALERT]
🌀 Prophecy Thread: Discarded
✨ Destiny Recalibration In Progress
⏳ Side Effects May Include: Narrative Whiplash, Wandering Subquests, Sudden Identity Crises
Somewhere in the distance, a harp chord screeched off-key and a tree violently shed all its leaves in protest.
I sat back down beside the not-fire.
"Cool. So now even the plot's having an existential breakdown."
We sat around a sad little fire Ezra made by scowling at sticks.
Nobody said much.
By the time the third log gave up on burning, the forest had changed.
The mushrooms, once cheerful and aggressively bioluminescent, faded to a dull biobeige. The butterflies were gone—no fluttering, no sparkle trails, not even an antler in sight.
Only the silence remained.
A thick, buzzing quiet, like the world was buffering.
Ezra stared into the dark between trees, unmoving.
Hana was curled up under her cloak, muttering in her sleep about "sparkle taxes" and "emotional rent control."
I, being the emotionally mature one, was poking the fire with a stick and pretending not to be unnerved.
Then—
crack.
Not a branch. Not a twig. Something heavier. Slower.
I froze.
Ezra was already standing, crowbar in hand, eyes narrow.
> "Leo," he said quietly, "don't look directly at them."
I turned.
Beyond the tree line: figures. Humanoid. Too still. Their outlines jittered, like corrupted sprites on a laggy server.
And then—
Eyes.
Not glowing. Not natural.
Cursored.
Little red circles hovered over them like selection boxes in a debug mode.
> [UI ALERT]
[STORYLINE THREAT DETECTED]
[Alignment Check: Inconveniently Neutral]
Suggested Action: Panic, but aesthetically
I stood slowly.
"Ezra, what are we—?"
> "They're not in the story," he whispered. "They're watching it."
Something clicked.
Or maybe it was the vine trap.
One second we were grounded.
The next, the earth vanished under us with a polite pop, and we were rising—tangled in magical vines and floating inside what I can only describe as a glitch-chic terrarium.
Arcane script rotated around the bubble like a loading wheel designed by cultists with a flair for UX.
Leo squinted.
> "Ah yes. Nothing says 'friendly locals' like magical kidnapping."
Hana, upside down and still half-asleep, blinked blearily. "Are we ascending? Or just being emotionally elevated?"
The figures below didn't move. But the cursor-eyes tracked us.
One raised a hand.
Not to attack.
To wave.
The containment orb pulsed once—then launched sideways into the trees with a gentle whoosh, like a plot hook delivered by pneumatic tube.
> [UI UPDATE]
You have been politely abducted.
Destination: Off-Canon Encampment
Estimated Arrival: 2 plot beats
Please remain inside the narrative at all times.
Ezra exhaled through his nose. "If this is another isekai tutorial, I'm fighting God."
The containment field didn't drop.
It teleported.
One second we were dangling mid-air over ominous forest mulch. The next—Reality hiccupped.
Then slammed us onto cold metal flooring.
The lights were low. The air smelled like ozone, ink, and backup plans. All around us, consoles flickered with glitched code and system diagnostics that were absolutely not FDA-approved.
We'd landed inside a vast, high-ceilinged chamber — part command center, part refugee camp for broken plotlines. Holograms crackled overhead. A mural of shattered narrative cliches stretched across the wall: a broken hero's sword, a melted magical girl wand, a journal labeled "Unchosen One."
[UI STATUS: NULL] Questline Anchor Lost. You are currently: Off-Canon. Please stop improvising. It's making the genre nervous.
Footsteps echoed.
Figures emerged from the shadows — cloaked in patchwork armor, woven from glitch-code and discarded genre mechanics. Some had capes that flickered in and out of visual style. One wore a helmet made entirely of rejected trope tags.
Their leader stepped forward.
Eyes glowing like corrupted cursor data. Voice calm. Too calm.
"Truck-kun. Ezra Drake. Hana Minase."
They paused. Took us in like a lineup of unstable code modules.
"Welcome to the Resistance."
The UI tried to load a quest.
Failed.
[NEW QUEST: ???] Objective: Unknown. But Personal.
My heart did something uncomfortable in my new mortal chest. The UI flickered. Hana clutched Philip the mushroom like a stress toy. Ezra's grip on the crowbar never loosened.
I took a step forward.
"…Okay," I said, glancing between them. "Now I'm interested."
"Terrified. But interested."
---
END OF CHAPTER 8