Silence.

A vast, all-consuming silence.

Marcus became aware of his surroundings before he even had the words to describe what was happening. In this curious plane, he wasn't standing, he wasn't falling. There was no ground beneath him, no air to breathe, no weight to his limbs—if he even had limbs anymore. He tried to blink, but there was no sensation of eyelids moving. He tried to inhale, but there was no air, no lungs, no chest rising and falling.

There was only white.

An infinite expanse of nothingness stretched in all directions, featureless and empty. It wasn't blinding, yet it was absolute, without shadow, without distinction. A void made not of darkness, but of an overwhelming, suffocating absence.

Then, a presence.

Beside him—no, next to him?—a shape coalesced, though the concept of shape felt meaningless here. But still, he somehow knew it was Adrian.

'Where… are we?'

It was as if the question Adrian uttered had been spoken aloud, despite the absence of a mouth to form the words

'Marcus?'

Marcus’s eyes—or at least whatever served as his sight—turned sharply. Adrian was next to him, his form just as bodiless, just as incorporeal, yet unmistakably him. Marcus could feel Adrian’s presence.

'Adrian? Are we…?'

He hesitated. The last thing he remembered was the mountain—the shaking cliff, Adrian’s slipping grip, and then—falling. The gut-wrenching, horrifying drop, the rush of air, and the final inevitable impact that had never fully registered to them.

They had fallen.

They had died.

Neither of them said it, but it didn't need to be said. Marcus would have laughed if he had a body to do so. So this is the afterlife? Just… nothing?

But before either of them could fully process their fate, the void began to shudder.

A sound.

A glitching, distorted noise reverberated through the whiteness, warping the space itself. It wasn't loud—it was perfect yet also wrong, like a sound that didn’t belong, at least in reality they knew before. It crackled, fragmented, and twisted in ways that made Marcus and Adrian feel like their very existence was flickering between something and nothing.

Then, a voice.

A voice that wasn’t a voice at all.

It groaned, stretched, and collapsed into itself, speaking in an incomprehensible language. The words weren’t words, not in any spoken sense. They were shifting, bending, changing—jarring in their incoherence.

And yet, Marcus and Adrian understood it.

Not by meaning, not by logic, but by something deeper. It called to them, but the strange voice wasn’t calling them by their name. No, it was referring to them in a way that was far more accurate, precise, and specific to identify them individually.

Then, after making sure whatever it is trying to confirm, symbols or letters began to form next, as though reality itself was bending to create them. Black shapes emerged against the stark whiteness, shifting and arranging themselves into words that neither Marcus nor Adrian could recognize at first. The symbols twisted, realigned, and then—

[SYSTEM INITIALIZING…]

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The voice, the presence, the force behind the words—it wasn't human. That much is true by now, Marcus and Adrian didn’t know if this entity before them is even alive in any way they could comprehend. It was mechanical, yet not. Cold, and measured.

[SYSTEM ERROR: UNAUTHORIZED TERMINATION DETECTED.]

[RECALCULATING…]

[PROCESSING…]

That bit of information sent a shock through Marcus and Adrian’s formless beings. Unauthorized termination? What the hell did that mean? Had they… died by mistake?

Adrian, still grasping for a sense of self in this bodiless void, was the first to question it. What do you mean, ‘unauthorized termination’?

The words didn’t come from his lips—he had none. Instead, they resonated through the space, as if his very thoughts were being converted into a voice.

The System did not hesitate.

[YOUR DEMISE WAS NOT PER SCHEDULE.]

[AN ERROR OCCURRED. YOU WERE NOT MEANT TO DIE AT THIS TIME.]

Marcus, still reeling from the impossible nature of their situation, felt a flare of frustration. ‘You’re telling us we died by some sort of cosmic accident?’

[CORRECT.]

Adrian, if he had a face, would have frowned. ‘How does that even happen? Isn’t death supposed to be… I don’t know, inevitable?’

Then, the response came.

[DEATH, LIKE LIFE, FOLLOWS A DESIGN. HOWEVER, OCCASIONALLY, SYSTEMIC ANOMALIES OCCUR.]

Marcus huffed, clearly not impressed. Anomalies? Do you mean like some kind of glitch?

The System took a moment before responding as if carefully choosing its words.

[RARE, BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE. THE SYSTEM ACCOUNTS FOR ALL VARIABLES. YOUR DEMISE WAS NOT ONE OF THEM.]

That statement pressed down on them in a way that made them further feel frustrated and anxious. If they weren’t supposed to die, then what did that mean for them now? Was there a way back?

Adrian, his mind still racing, asked the question that clawed at him. Is life pre-written, then?

The System’s response came immediately.

[YES AND NO.]

Marcus groaned. ‘Oh, that’s helpful. Thanks for clearing that up.’

The System, undeterred, continued.

[LIFE IS A SERIES OF INTERCONNECTED CHOICES. SOME PATHS ARE FIXED, OTHERS FLUID. CERTAIN ELEMENTS ARE PRE-DETERMINED—GENETICS, ENVIRONMENT, ORIGIN. HOWEVER, MULTIPLE DESTINIES EXIST. ONCE A CHOICE IS MADE, A PATH IS LOCKED.]

Marcus and Adrian exchanged a look—or at least, they felt the presence of each other’s thoughts shifting in unison.

‘So, it’s compatibilism?’ Adrian muttered. ‘Free will exists, but only within certain constraints.’

[CORRECT.]

Adrian processed this quietly before asking, ‘But if everything was accounted for as you said, why wasn’t our death?’

Another pause.

[UNKNOWN.]

For the first time, the System sounded uncertain. It was subtle, but the tone—if one could call it that—shifted different way ever so slightly.

Marcus exhaled, or at least he imagined the feeling of doing so. ‘Great... Fantastic, from the way you speak, I thought you were supposed to know everything?’

He wanted to run a hand through his hair, but of course, he had no hand. No body. No anything. This was starting to get frustrating.

Wait. Marcus's mind snapped to a new thought. ‘Are we in a simulation?’

The System responded in its usual enigmatic manner.

[YES AND NO.]

Marcus let out a mental scream of exasperation. ‘I swear if you say that one more time—’

[REALITY IS CODED. BUT IT IS ALSO NOT.]

‘That doesn’t mean anything!’

[IT MEANS EVERYTHING.]

Adrian, sensing Marcus’s growing frustration, interrupted. ‘Forget that for now. What happens to us now? If we weren’t supposed to die, what does that mean? Can we go back?’

Silence stretched between them.

Then, the words formed again.

[NEGATIVE.]