The glitch within the System had begun its existence as something tiny and benign, a mere shifting of a data point amid a sea of such. It had had no more ability to affect the pillars of creation than an ant might have had to move a battleship. It was a single loose thread in a magnificent tapestry, unseen unless specifically looked for and even then only by the sharpest eyes.

But then another thread had come loose. It was not the same thread, nor was it connected to the first thread. But it came loose nearby, and two or three of the threads that shared that section of the tapestry with the loose threads suddenly lost some of their stability. The tapestry still stood unraveled, but somewhere within a specific system, something was suddenly a little less… stable.

Then the third thread came loose, and with it, a dozen more threads that relied on the first two threads for stability began to lose cohesion.

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The glitch grew. It was still a tiny thing, still so unremarkable that even the most trained eye would have missed it. But in its growth, it became able to affect the world around it. But even then there would be little to no damage to the surrounding systems. Not, at least, unless a very specific criteria was met, and even then only if that criteria was met in an extremely specific way.

Someone would have to tug on one specific thread, not even any of the loose threads but one connected only tangentially to those threads. There was only one thread that would do it, and even then only if they tugged in the correct direction with the correct force.

As chances went, it was almost infinitesimal. The universe would look upon that chance, scoff, and write it off as something that would never happen. It was simply too remote a possibility.

And so it remained.

Until someone tugged.