— DELETED
The world trembled.... literally.
This wasn't' an earthquake, not really—this was more like the worl itself had forgotten how to hold everything together. The mountains slowly shed light before turning to ash, slowly wiping out of existence.
The huge and mighty rivers lifted from their beds and scattered into vapor, blurring the light from the sun making rainbow streaks all over the sky.
A very beautiful but very regretted end...
The ground beneath Aris's boots gradually cracked open, then simply… began fading.
And above all the beautiful seize of existence, came that voice again.
> [Notice: Pawn World 819 has failed its
tutorial.]
[Consequence: Total deletion in 60 seconds.]
It wasn't loud. Neither did it echo. But it was everywhere—inside his head, inside his chest, behind his eyes. It was the voice of something that didn't care. Just Cold, mechanical, and final.
No one else seemed to hear it—except him and although it surprised him it was obviously the last thing he could think about at that point.
Aris stood among the ruins. His armor hanging loose from where it had cracked, each breath scraping against the dented plates, as he leaned on his sword just to stay upright. The blade trembled as much as his hand did, with it's blunted edges from a very long term battle.
Around him, were the last few survivors who screamed into the wind. Some called for help, even when they knew there wasn't hope for any.
Some shut their eyes awaiting their fate, while others cursed the system itself, as their voices faded under the sound of reality. At this point, the sky had begun to break into square fragments as pixel-like shards drifted upward before vanishing.
Everything was unraveling.
Aris watched a woman he'd fought beside dissolve mid-scream, her body scattering into small cubes of white light. He didn't flinch... he was unable to. He could just watch, too tired to look away.
> [HP: 0 / 500.]
[Mana: Empty.]
[System: Failure.]
A bitter laugh escaped his throat. "Failed the tutorial," he muttered, his voice cracking halfway through. "Guess that makes me the shittiest existence alive."
The words didn't sound angry as frustrated as he was —just hollow. "It shouldn't end like this. It cannot". He said with authority even at his helpless state.
Light poured down like liquid, washing over the ruins. It touched what was left of the earth, and each place it touched vanished. The world was being erased, line by line.
> [Deleting world data…]
[Deleting player Aris Vane—]
His time was about now.
He took a step back, but his body gave out before he could move again. His knees hit the ground, then the rest of him followed. The impact didn't really hurt—nothing did anymore. It was like the pain had already been deleted.
Half the world was gone. The horizon folded in on itself, curling like burnt paper. Aris looked up at it, eyes half-closed, as his sword slipped from his fingers. It hit the ground with a weak clatter that was quickly swallowed by the static hum of the end.
He could feel the deletion creeping toward him—his body thinning at the edges, as if his existence was losing resolution. He wanted to close his eyes and let it happen.
Then the system stuttered.
> [Error 404: Data not found.]
[System anomaly detected.]
The voice glitched.
It repeated, it once again, then cut off.
Everything stopped moving.
The wind froze mid-gust. The falling light hung in the air like frozen rain. Even the sound vanished, leaving behind a silence so deep it pressed against eardrums. Aris felt the stillness of it like the world itself held its breath.
Then the light changed.
White turned to crimson red.
A pulse ran through the ruins, deep and low, like the heartbeat of something enormous. Aris barely had time to lift his head before the crimson glow surged toward him. It wasn't heat—it was weight. He felt it pour through his armor and into his body like molten metal, filling every corner of him until he couldn't breathe.
He tried to scream but couldn't. The sound died in his throat as the world collapsed into him. He felt every fragment of the dying world—every collapsing pixel, every fading scream—slamming into his consciousness all at once. Pumping more than too much pressure in his being.
And then.... nothing.
No light. No sound. No pain.
Just stillness, and a very fast black out.
*
*
*
*
A day, two, a week, a year, a decade...
He didn't know how long he had been here Time didn't seem to exist anymore. His body felt light, almost absent. The silence around him was cold. It felt like floating in the pause between two heartbeats.
When sensation returned, it was faint—a breath, a thought, a flicker of awareness. He finally opened his eyes which felt invincible for some reason.
Though he wasn't sure he had eyes anymore, the world around him was gray. Not darkness, not light—just static, moving in slow waves like smoke made of glass. Lines of glowing symbols drifted past him, strings of code that shimmered faintly before vanishing into the void.
He wasn't standing. He wasn't even falling. He just… existed, suspended in the middle of nothing.
> [Welcome, anomaly.]
[Designation: BUG #000.]
That voice again. Still cold. Still distant. But this time, it sounded more aware of his presence.
"Bug?"
Aris rasped. His voice echoed in the void, thin and broken.
"What the hell does that even mean?"
> [Privilege unlocked: Inspect / Modify.]
[Restriction: None.]
He stared at the floating text, too drained to make sense of it. His fingers twitched—if they were still fingers—and faint trails of light followed the motion. His skin wasn't skin anymore; it was made of faint patterns, shifting like water.
"What is this?" He asked himself I'm awe.
"Inspect… modify," he murmured. "Since when does a failure get privileges?"
He didn't get an answer.
He exhaled slowly. The air—if it was air—felt cool in his lungs. The emptiness around him stretched endlessly, silently, and for the first time since the deletion began, Aris felt the strange awareness that something big and out of the ordinary was about to happen.
> [Awaiting command, BUG #000.]
He blinked.
He hesitated, staring into the gray expanse. For a moment, he felt small again, the same useless player who couldn't even survive a tutorial. But something inside him—something new and raw—stirred.
He clenched his hand. The light responded, threads of data bending toward him.
"I don't know what you are," he said softly, his voice steadier now, "but if I'm still here… then deletion failed, didn't it?"
The void rippled faintly, as if answering.
Aris took a slow breath, the first that actually felt real. The static around him shivered, like it was listening.
"Alright," he said". Still looking unsure of everything happening at the moment.
He knew he was supposed to be dead.