The hum started in my teeth.
At first, I thought it was just another sleepless night, another jittery caffeine tremor from too many energy drinks. But then my fillings began vibrating in time with the flickering street lights outside my apartment. The glow of my laptop screen warped, pixels rearranging into symbols that weren’t from any font pack I’d ever seen.
Update Available: Y/N?
I laughed; a dry, nervous sound. Too many conspiracy deep-dives, too many 4 a.m. rabbit holes about simulation theory and hidden DNA codes. My hands hovered over the keyboard. The cursor pulsed, waiting.
I hit Y.
The room dissolved.
*****
Consciousness rebooted in fragments.
A laboratory, but not one from this era. Sleek black stone humming with energy, holograms floating in the air. My hands (but not my hands) adjusting dials on a machine that thrummed like a living thing.
A war. Not with guns, but with frequencies. Cities crumbling into static, people glitching in and out of existence as the code destabilized.
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