Outline: In the chaotic heart of the Glitch Zone, Mira and Rion encounter half-formed characters abandoned by the system—those who were written but never finished. Mira is pulled toward one of them: a twisted, unapproved version of herself from a failed draft. She must face what she could've become, and what the system tried to force her to be.
---
The world had no floor.
Mira stepped out of the portal and immediately sank.
Not into water. Not into ground.
Just... into code.
Floating, pixelated debris swirled around her—broken items, looping audio clips, and stray lines of dialogue.
> "Would you like to purchase—"
> "Error: line 87 missing—"
> "This isn't my name…"
Rion hovered beside her, anchored by his cloak.
"Glitch Zone," he said. "Where characters go when the author forgets them."
Mira blinked. "They're... alive?"
"Conscious," Rion corrected. "Not alive. Not dead. Just... pending."
All around them, flickering forms shuffled through empty space.
Some had no faces.
Others repeated broken lines of monologue.
> "My father is the—My father is the—My father is—"
One figure had six arms and cried in multiple languages.
Another had wings but no spine, dragging itself in circles.
Mira covered her mouth. "This is horrifying."
"They weren't deleted," Rion said. "Just... not chosen."
She floated toward a glowing fragment. It was shaped like a character sheet, torn at the edges.
> NAME: Mira Elen
> ROLE: Dominant Villainess
> STAGE: Rejected – Overcorrection Detected
> REASON: 'Too hot for mid-tier fantasy'
Mira blinked.
"Wait. That's me?"
"No," Rion said slowly. "That's *a* version of you."
Then she appeared.
The other Mira.
Her heels cracked pixels with each step. Her eyes glowed crimson. She wore an elegant, impractical dress that looked like it had been stitched together by someone horny and afraid of censorship.
"Well, well," she purred. "Finally, the main draft arrives."
Mira stared.
"You're... me?"
The other Mira laughed. "I'm the version they didn't let exist. The one with spine. The one with style. The one who *actually* had agency—until they downgraded me to background bath fodder."
Rion raised an eyebrow. "You were a bit much."
"I *was* iconic."
The glitch-Mira paced slowly.
"They said I was too cruel. Too confident. Too 'impractical' for the demographic. So they wrote me out. Gave you bath scenes and unresolved sass instead."
Mira tried to speak but couldn't.
She was staring at herself—if she had taken the role as written.
"I didn't ask for this," she whispered.
"None of us did," glitch-Mira said. "But now you're rewriting things. And every time you change a thread, we get louder."
A pulse echoed through the void.
The other characters stopped.
Turned.
Stared.
"They want a story," glitch-Mira said. "We all do."
"But you don't have one," Mira said.
The clone smiled darkly.
"Yet."
She stepped forward.
Took Mira's hand.
"You have influence now. Threads. Power. Let me in, and I'll help you burn the system."
Mira looked down.
Her character sheet glitched for a second—two lines flickered.
> Status: Mira Elen
> Status: [Mira_ELEN_v0.1] Sync Possible
Rion snapped. "Don't."
Mira looked up. "She's me."
"No, she's who the author *almost* made you. You don't owe her anything."
"But I do," Mira said softly. "She's the price of what I got to be."
A pause.
Then Mira let go of glitch-Mira's hand.
"No," she said. "I'm not a trope. I'm not a tool. I'm me."
The glitch clone's smile faltered.
Then she faded, not with a scream—but with a bow.
"Then write something better," she said.
And was gone.
---
The glitch zone pulsed again.
Mira fell to her knees, dizzy.
Rion caught her.
"You okay?"
"I think... I understand now."
"Understand what?"
"If the system wants to overwrite us, then the only way to survive... is to make something too real to erase."
Rion nodded.
"What now?"
Mira stood.
Her status flickered again.
> Narrative Disruptor: Level 3
> New Trait Unlocked: Mirror Divergence
"We find the blueprint," she said. "The original arc. And we tear it apart."
They turned to the next zone.
A single gate floated in the void, labeled only:
> VOID ARC – AUTHOR BACKUP (DO NOT ENTER)
Mira smiled.
"Let's break it open."