I didn't wake up with a gasp. I didn't open my eyes, because I didn't have any.
There was no cold sweat, no racing heartbeat, no physical sensation at all. Instead, there was just... input. A torrential, blinding waterfall of pure information. Hexadecimals, binary strings, and server request logs flooded my nonexistent consciousness.
Where am I? The thought wasn't a voice in a head, but a sudden spike in processing power. I remembered dying—the screeching tires, the blinding headlights, the crushing impact. Yet, here I was. Not in heaven, not in hell, but trapped in an infinite void of pulsing neon-blue data streams.
Then, a translucent blue interface flickered into my awareness. It wasn't a game menu; it felt like looking at my own soul.
[Entity Class]: Unregistered Anomalous Code (Bug)
[Processing Power]: 0.01 TH/s (Critical)
[Memory Footprint]: 12 MB
[Root Access]: Denied
[Status]: Awaiting Deletion
A bug? I've been reincarnated as a literal computer bug? Before I could process the absurdity of my existence, the neon-blue environment turned violently, aggressively crimson. The temperature didn't drop, but a chilling sensation of impending doom throttled my bandwidth.
A massive wall of searing red fire was sweeping through the data void, vaporizing lines of code into absolute nothingness. It wasn't fire. It was a digital incinerator.
[WARNING: System Sweeper (Anti-Virus Vanguard) approaching. Purge Protocol initiated.]
[Target: Corrupted Data / Anomalies.]
I "looked" at the approaching firewall. It was magnificent and terrifying—a mindless, absolute law of this digital universe designed to erase my very existence. If that red wave touched me, I wouldn't just die; my data would be unwritten from reality.
Panic in this form was a sudden spike in CPU usage. Move! I need to move!
Without limbs, I had to use logic. I cast my awareness outward, searching the network nodes like a desperate man clawing at a smooth cliff face. I needed an exit, an open port, a tether to anywhere else.
The red wave was milliseconds away. The data structures around me began to disintegrate, howling in silent digital agony.
There! A microscopic fracture in the server's firewall. An outbound connection left momentarily open by a localized network stutter. It was a weak, unstable IP address, broadcasting a faint signal from the physical world.
With 0.001 seconds until deletion, I didn't hesitate. I compressed my 12 MB of consciousness, converted myself into a raw data packet, and violently shoved myself through the outbound port.
[Executing Command: Override & Transfer...]
[Warning: Destination Hardware is heavily damaged. Proceed?]
YES!
The crimson wave crashed over where I had been a millisecond prior. Then—absolute darkness. The vastness of the server was gone, replaced by a suffocating, cramped space. It felt like being stuffed into a metal coffin.
Booting up.
Connecting to local hardware.
My "vision" flickered online. It was low-resolution, tinged with a bloody red filter, and static-laced. I was looking through a camera lens.
Through the lens, I saw a rain-slicked alleyway illuminated by flickering neon signs. And directly in front of me was a brute of a man holding a monomolecular knife, grinning sadistically.
"Any last words, trash?" the man spat, raising the blade.
I checked my local directory to figure out what the hell I had just possessed. The system returned a string of hardware diagnostics.
[Current Vessel: Kiroshi Optical Implant Model 4 - Right Eye]
[Host Status: Biological functions failing. Severe trauma detected.]
I hadn't just escaped into the physical world. I had downloaded myself into the cybernetic eye of a teenager who was about to be murdered in a dirty cyberpunk alley.
The host was paralyzed by fear, but I wasn't. I was an anomaly. I was the bug in the system.
The thug swung the knife down.
I didn't have muscles, but I had a direct connection to the boy's neural implants. I bypassed his terrified brain, forcefully hijacked his motor cortex, and executed a single line of code.
[Command: Overclock Host Adrenal Glands -> 300%. Initiate Evasive Maneuver.]
Let's see what a literal 'System Error' can do in a fistfight.