Teaser: Inside the eye of the storm, nothing made sense. And that was exactly the point.
Mira had jumped into the Patch a swirling mess of abandoned tropes, clashing genres, and half-coded arcs hoping to reach Elaria's signal. Instead, she landed in an unstable world where rules flickered like cheap magic and nothing stayed the same for more than thirty seconds.
This wasn't a test.
It was narrative purgatory.
And something inside it… was watching her.
---
Mira landed face-first into a pile of glitter.
Glitter.
She wiped her mouth. "Why does it taste like musical filler episode?"
> [WELCOME TO: THE PATCH]
> [STATUS: NON-STABLE GENRE PLANE]
> [DANGER LEVEL: YES.]
The landscape rippled around her like mood swings.
One second she stood on a giant chessboard made of teen drama clichés.
The next, she was knee-deep in a battlefield of unused mecha.
Then… silence.
A perfectly normal living room.
Soft lighting. Jazz. A cat.
Mira spun. "What the—"
"Shhh," whispered the cat. "You'll scare the tropes."
The cat exploded into a puff of smoke.
Mira didn't even flinch anymore.
---
She followed the signal through a forest of concept trees:
> "Unresolved Sexual Tension"
> "Lost Mentor Plot"
> "Power Up That Came Too Late"
> "Best Friend Who Should've Been The Main Character"
Every branch whispered regrets.
Every leaf hummed with wasted potential.
And somewhere in the distance…
Elaria's tag flickered.
Still active. Still hers.
---
Then came the shifting.
The Patch glitched again, harder this time.
Mira's body flickered between three forms:
- High school transfer student with secret powers
- Tsundere barista in a murder café
- Alien gladiator with memory loss and a forbidden romance arc
She groaned.
"System, pick a struggle!"
> [YOU CHOSE THIS.]
> [ENJOY.]
Suddenly, the storm slowed.
A platform rose beneath her feet—shaped like a giant writer's desk.
And across from her… a throne.
On it sat a boy.
Wearing a hoodie that said *"Plot Happens"*, surrounded by floating pens and monitor screens.
"You made it," he said.
Mira narrowed her eyes.
"Who are you?"
He smiled. "I'm the Draft God. Author of authors. Creator of concepts that never made it past brainstorming."
"You're not real."
"Neither are you."
---
She tried to run. The floor typed itself beneath her feet.
> [DIALOGUE INSERT: "Wait, don't leave!"]
> [CHARACTER ACTION: Grab wrist dramatically]
A ghost-hand tried to follow the prompt. She burned it with a glitch spike.
"I'm done playing by the rules."
The boy stood.
"You came into my zone, Mira. And now, I'll show you why stories need *structure*."
The entire storm twisted.
Scene after scene clashed together:
- A slowburn enemies-to-lovers turned into a horror comedy
- A pirate ship broke into a k-drama office party
- A revenge saga transformed into magical girl idol auditions mid-sentence
Mira ducked under a flying hairdryer.
Then she saw it.
At the center of it all—
**Elaria.**
Frozen in place. Trapped in an in-progress "best friend betrayal" plot.
"No," Mira whispered. "You're not turning her against me."
> [NEW SCENE: FORCED RIVALRY]
"Oh I *hate* that one," Mira growled.
---
She jumped into the scene.
The sky turned hot pink. Rain fell upward. Dialogue floated around like flies.
Elaria's eyes glowed. Her hands were raised, mid-sparkle. The system was *trying* to overwrite her into a boss fight.
"Elaria!"
She blinked.
"Mira…? I—I didn't want to…"
"I know." Mira grabbed her hand. "So let's rewrite it."
They focused.
Closed their eyes.
And *broke the scene manually*.
---
The world screamed.
The Patch turned white.
Then shattered.
All around them, tropes collapsed like dominoes.
Mira and Elaria fell again—this time together—into something colder, darker, but more focused.
A corridor of hard lines.
The Narrative Core.
And at the end?
A voice said,
"Welcome to the Main Story."
But it didn't sound human.
It sounded… *hungry*.