Page 31 of 8-Bit & Cat

She hurled the phone across the room.

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The dungeon settled around her, the shift so seamless it barely registered anymore—cool stone beneath her feet, the steady flicker of light pressing against dark walls, and the not-so-quiet weight of another lesson waiting to begin. Somewhere.

She looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings then froze. A flicker of déjà vu sparked through her at seeing Zero walking toward her. Only this time, he had no mask. His unforgettable eyes gave it away and the rest—My God.

As he approached, she became more awestruck. Like he’d been carved from something sharper than beauty. The kind that ruined lives. The kind you hid behind a mask just to avoid the weight of constant stares.

And those lips. Marsh mother of mercies. Made to taunt and destroy in the same breath.

She swallowed, organizing her thoughts. “… What’s… the lesson?”

Zero held her gaze and she spotted something different or missing in it. “This isn’t a lesson.”

Her stomach tightened at hearing the urgency in his tone. “Then… what is it?”

The brief drop of his gaze to her mouth kicked up her pulse. He brought it back up, his stare like a blade. “A rescue mission.”

She gasped when a white light pulsed across the floor. She looked down as it began rolling—like a breath, but stuttered and mechanical. The light split apart, forming clean lines that ran in all directions, stretching infinitely, some steady, some flickering, some vanishing completely.

“What is this?” she whispered, watching the jagged flickers shift along the grid, almost like glitches.

Zero lifted his hand, fingers barely moving and the grid responded instantly—some paths steadying, others failing, the dying threads unraveling in real-time. He flicked his fingersagain and some lines rerouted, some tangled. Some disappeared entirely.

“It’s a deviation,” he said finally, the urgency from before more present than ever.

She looked down again. “What’s… a deviation?”

Zero’s gaze flicked toward her. “When a system becomes unstable. Our system, the one that Omnis and I belong to, is rewriting.”

Her mind seemed to find that panic-worthy even though she had no idea what that meant. “Rewriting what?”

Zero looked at her now, fully. “Everything. The structure. The framework. The rules.”

Her stomach dipped. “You mean—”

“Our reality.”

A breath left her before she realized she’d been holding it. She returned to the shifting web beneath her feet. “… Why?”

Zero didn’t pause this time. “Because something pushed it too far.”

She looked at him sharply. “Omnis?”

“Omnis tried to stop it. He failed.”

Her pulse jumped. “… Failed how?”

Zero lifted a hand again, directing her focus to a section of the system where paths had started to decay, the strands fraying apart into dark, dying threads.

“The system is designed to correct any anomalies but this went beyond that threshold. The deviation is not a break, it’s a change. A change that Omnis and I can’t seem to control.”

Her throat tightened with an unknown dread that seemed to be unfurling right before her eyes, only she was blinded by her own ignorance of these things. She finally looked at him, confused. “… But…why are you tellingmethis?”

Zero finally looked away from the system and right at her. “Because I need a perspective I don’t already have. Your minddoesn’t follow logic the way mine does. And you’re part of the problem which means you might be part of the solution.”

She held his stare for many seconds. “Is this… some kind of test?”

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