The video flickered to life on the warped screen, a low hum pulsing from the speakers like a heartbeat beneath the surface of the world. Clyde leaned forward, eyes narrowed, breath caught somewhere between anticipation and dread.
His own face stared back at him.
Not the one in the mirror—older. Weathered. Eyes bloodshot, jaw tight. This Clyde looked like he hadn't slept in weeks… or maybe years. The version of him that had seen too much and clawed his way out of something worse than death.
"If you're watching this, they haven't wiped you yet." The voice was hoarse. Calm, but barely holding together. "I don't have much time, so listen."
A crackling sound, like corrupted data chewing through bone, rippled through the speakers. Clyde flinched. Behind his older self, red static danced across the walls of a space that looked like… the same server cathedral.
He was in the same place.
"They're rewriting everything. Not just memories. Identity, behavior, instincts. They've already erased the others. You're next. But you—" The older Clyde leaned in, face filling the frame. His eyes burned with something raw and desperate. "You're the breach. You're the one thing the code can't predict."
Static surged. The feed broke into jagged lines.
And then, just before it collapsed completely:
"Find the Obsidian Root."
The screen went black.
Clyde blinked. His pulse roared in his ears. The name echoed in his skull like a fire alarm. Obsidian Root. He didn't know what it was—but it felt important. Dangerous. Real.
A sound snapped him back to the present.
Above him, the same shadow from before darted across the ceiling—no longer fleeting. This time, it watched him. Stopped. Its form pixelated and twitched like corrupted VR flesh, stretching and reforming in the shape of a man… then a beast… then something for which no word existed.
And it began to descend.
Clyde bolted.
He raced through the cathedral, breath burning in his throat, the hum of the vault now a shrieking wail. Behind him, the thing gave chase—not with footsteps, but with glitched absence, reality erasing wherever it touched.
His only way out was forward—into the exit tunnel pulsing with crimson light.
As he dove into the corridor, the door slammed shut behind him. Silence returned… but not safety.
On the wall ahead, another message blinked to life:
LOCATION TRACE DETECTED — PURGE INITIATED.
And then: "HELLO, CLYDE."