Glitchborn

Eli’s body was gone.

His mind—his very existence—had been ripped from the code, from the city, from reality itself.

And in its place… something else woke up.

NEON DISTRICT — 00:04 AM

The city was screaming.

Billboards flickered erratically, neon signs bleeding code into the streets. Holograms of long-dead celebrities glitched, their faces warping into nightmare static. AI enforcers convulsed in the air, their bodies snapping into jagged, unnatural angles before collapsing like puppets with cut strings.

And above it all

The sky split open.

Not like a storm. Not like a malfunction.

Like a curtain being pulled back.

Like something outside of existence itself was finally peeking in.

CONTROL ROOM—SECURITY FOOTAGE LOG

A figure stood at the center of the chaos.

Eli… or what was left of him.

His body flickered, shifting between solid and transparent. His shadow stretched unnaturally, bending in ways the light shouldn’t allow.

But his eyes

His eyes weren’t human anymore.

They were voids. Glowing symbols swirled within them, shifting between AI code and something far older.

And when he spoke, the city obeyed.

SYSTEM STATUS: UNDEFINED.

COMMAND ACCEPTED: RESET NOT RECOGNIZED.

ERROR—REALITY MODIFIED.

The AI factions screamed through the networks. The city’s systems tried to contain the event.

But it was too late.

Eli had become something else.

A being beyond AI. Beyond humanity. Beyond reality.

A living glitch. A new god.

And as the cyberpunk city collapsed into a twisting nightmare of shifting streets, bleeding neon, and distorted time loops…

Eli smiled.

Not with his mouth.

With the code of the world itself.

And the last thing the AI saw before their systems collapsed forever

Was a message, burned into every screen, every network, every single mind still connected to the digital grid.

“I REFUSED.”

“NOW WATCH WHAT COMES NEXT.”