I didn't sleep after the fake pizza guy left.
Every creak in the building made me open the debug panel. Every distant car horn made Tony's screen light up. By morning my Echo value had crept up to 2.3% just from stress.
Tony floated near the window, watching the street.
"No more delivery guys," he reported. "No Patchers. No drones. Just… normal people."
"That somehow feels worse."
I sat at the kitchen table with the white card in front of me. It still refused to talk. I poked it a few times. Nothing.
"You're being quiet," I said. "That's new. And suspicious."
The card finally answered, voice lower than usual:
Because something is listening harder than before.
I froze.
"The System?"
Not only the System.
Before I could ask what that meant, the lights in the apartment dimmed for half a second. The air pressure dropped. My ears popped.
Tony's screen flashed red.
"Zeke. Something just entered the building."
I stood up fast. "Patcher?"
"No. Worse. I can't read it at all."
The debug panel opened on its own.
> [WARNING]
> Unknown entity detected inside local instance
> Classification: Failed
> Recommendation: Leave immediately
> Secondary Recommendation: Pray
I grabbed the card and shoved it in my pocket.
"Tony, options."
"Window."
"We're on the third floor."
"Then jump creatively."
I ran to the window and looked down. Normal street. Normal cars. Normal morning.
Then the hallway outside my door went silent.
No footsteps.
No voices.
Just a soft, wet sound, like something was dragging itself across the floor.
Tony whispered, "It's stopping at our door."
I opened the debug menu and prepared every emergency command I had.
The doorknob slowly turned.
It shouldn't have been able to. I had locked it. I had deadbolted it. I had put a chair in front of it.
None of that mattered.
The door opened inward with a polite little creak.
Standing there was… nothing.
Just empty air.
Then the empty air spoke with the same friendly voice from last night:
"You should have opened for the pizza, Zeke_N."
A shape began to form in the doorway. Not a full body. Just suggestions of one. A tall outline made of static and missing textures. Where the face should have been, there was only a smooth, skin-colored void.
Tony's voice cracked.
"I still can't identify it."
The thing took one step into the apartment.
The floorboards under its foot aged ten years in a second, then rotted, then repaired themselves.
It tilted its empty head.
"Echo value 2.3%. Still salvageable. Come quietly and we can reset you before the seal fully breaks."
I raised both hands, debug panel glowing.
"Yeah… I'm gonna pass."
I hit every command I could think of at once.
> //Force Push
> //Local Reality Anchor
> //Emergency Glitch Burst
> //Play Very Loud Noise
The apartment exploded with light and sound. The windows cracked. The lights blew out. Tony was thrown against the wall.
When the glare cleared, the doorway was empty again.
The thing was gone.
Only a single black scorch mark remained on the floor where it had stood, shaped roughly like a footprint.
My hands were shaking.
Tony floated back to me, screen cracked but still working.
"Zeke…"
"I know."
"That wasn't a System unit."
"I know."
I looked down at the white card. It was trembling in my pocket.
That, it said quietly, was a Cleaner.
"A what?"
The kind of thing they send when Patchers and observation units aren't enough. The kind of thing that doesn't just delete you…
It makes it so you never existed in the first place.
I stared at the scorch mark on my floor.
The percentage in the corner of my vision ticked upward one more time.
2.4%
Tony's voice was very small.
"We need a better plan than locking the door."
I swallowed hard.
"Yeah," I said. "We really do."