The warning from the system seared against Riko's skin under his sleeve: FAKE. NOT HUMAN. He barely registered the message before the student, the one who wasn't real, moved like a puppet with its strings yanked. Its head snapped up, shoulders jerked, outline blurred. Pixels flickered around it, like the thing couldn't decide what it should look like. Then, it was on him.
No windup. No pause. Just pure, instant action.
One second, it was sitting, acting normal.
The next, it was flying across the cafeteria in a messed-up jump that paid no attention to how bodies are supposed to work. Its legs didn't push, they exploded, sending it straight at Riko. It was fast—way too fast. Its mouth stretched wide, a silent scream, but its jaw didn't move right.
Riko didn't think, he just moved. He kicked his chair back, the legs screeching on the floor. The chair crashed, loud enough that people looked over, but nobody saw the fake student. It was too fast, too jerky, just wrong. Its shape flickered. Riko saw bits and pieces—an elbow here, a messed-up hand there—before he dove under a nearby table.
Plastic trays rattled as he slid beneath. Some students complained about spilled food, still clueless about the nightmare sprinting toward them. The fake student followed, smashing into the underside of the table hard enough to shake the whole thing. Juice sloshed. A kid yelled when soda splashed on him.
Riko didn't stop. He grabbed the thing by the collar—if that's even what it was anymore, the shape shifted between fabric and fuzz—and dragged it further under the table. Its body scraped across the floor, moving like a broken video.
Hey! Riko?! a student yelled, but Riko didn't care. He slammed his shoulder into the thing's chest, pinning it down.
The thing's face went crazy. Its left eye stretched sideways, a blur of pixels, then snapped back. Skin colors changed, patterns appeared, wrong shapes formed. It wasn't even trying to look normal now. Its jaw opened way too wide, and it made a clicking sound, like a CD skipping. The noise vibrated through the metal table legs.
Riko covered its mouth, but its flesh changed under his hand—soft, then hard, then gone. Be quiet, Riko hissed, even though he wasn't sure it understood words the way people do.
Around them, students laughed, talked, argued, not knowing a fight was happening right under their noses.
The fake student jerked, trying to bite Riko's hand. Riko pulled back just in time, the thing's teeth snapping shut with a loud click. Someone above said, What was that?
His screen buzzed again, filled with scrambled warnings. He couldn't read them. He tightened his grip on the thing's body. It felt like holding a bag of mismatched parts, each movement wrong in a new way.
The fake student's arm shot up. Its hand turned into a flat blade of pixels and sliced through a lunch tray above. Sandwiches fell apart. Students gasped. Dude, what did you do? someone yelled, blaming the wrong person.
Riko cursed and pulled the thing's arm down before it could slice again. Stop—moving, he said, tight-lipped.
But the thing's body twisted weirdly, spine bending like a wet towel. Its legs kicked, hitting another table. More clattering. More yelling about spilled juice.
Seriously?! Who's kicking stuff?
Riko tried to shove the fake student deeper under the tables, trying to hide its glitching form in the shadows. It fought with jerky, messed-up strength, its arms and legs changing into different shapes. Riko grunted as he wrestled it toward the edge of the floor, crawling to keep it trapped.
He threw his weight on it again, pinning its body with his knee. The table legs rattled. The thing snapped its head toward him, its face flashing through different looks—child, adult, dummy, shadow—like it forgot what it was supposed to be. Its mouth opened way too wide, showing blackness, then static, then pixel teeth.
Riko slammed its head back into the tile. Stop that!
The creature twitched, a broken breath escaping it. The cafeteria noise covered most of the sound, but a couple of kids peeked under the tables, squinting. Riko quickly blocked their view, pretending to look for something he dropped.
Sorry! Lost something, he mumbled.
The kids shrugged and went back to eating.
The fake student took that chance. Its claws—or fingers, or whatever they were—stabbed at Riko's side. Riko twisted, dodging them just barely. One of the claws sliced through the bottom of the table, and a piece of metal fell on his back.
He bit back a yell.
The thing surged up again, but Riko pushed down harder, grabbing its shoulders. Its body bucked, glitching so hard that its upper half turned into a blur, like someone was trying to erase and redraw it at the same time.
Then, it froze.
Not because Riko was stronger.
Not because it gave up.
But because something inside it seemed to reset.
It pushed its face close to Riko's. Its breath smelled like electricity and dust. Its mouth twitched. Its voice glitched, changing tones—child, adult, whisper, roar—before settling into something thin and broken.
User…
Riko swallowed.
"…found."
That phrase again. Always that phrase. Like a messed-up greeting it couldn't forget.
The thing's hand floated up, passing through the shadows and brushing against Riko's sleeve. Its fingers flickered, trying to copy the shape of his arm. Riko jerked away.
Don't touch me, he hissed.
The thing tilted its head at a weird angle. It studied him, like it was memorizing him—counting bones, checking muscles, feeling his pulse. Its eyes went crazy, switching between black and white like a loading screen.
Then, it spoke again.
User… target…
Riko tightened his grip. Yeah? I got that part.
The thing twitched, like electricity ran through it. Its limbs got stiff. Its jaw glitched.
And then, in a whisper that sounded like many voices mixed together—
It said the words that made Riko's blood run cold.
More are coming.