Level 0: The System Can't See Me

First Crack

Adrian Voss stayed frozen on the narrow maintenance ledge, thirty stories above the Midspire chaos. The red cracks in the sky had multiplied, now looking like broken glass spreading across the entire dome of clouds. The city’s celebration had turned into something much darker in just minutes.

Down below, the screams had started.

It began with one woman. Her status screen flashed from gold to blood-red. Her body jerked violently as black, oily tendrils erupted from her arms. The tendrils lashed out like whips, slicing through two men standing nearby. Blood sprayed across the plaza. People finally stopped cheering. The panic hit like a wave.

Adrian watched it all from his hidden spot, heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat. The System’s happy blue messages kept blaring from every speaker, completely ignoring the horror unfolding beneath them.

“Congratulations, citizens! Your new classes are now active! Level up and thrive!”

Another scream. A teenage boy with the class “Runner” suddenly shot forward at impossible speed, slammed into a concrete barrier, and exploded into red mist. His body literally came apart from the speed the System had given him.

Adrian’s stomach turned. These weren’t gifts. They were curses wrapped in pretty blue boxes.

He forced himself to move. Staying here watching would get him killed when the real wave hit. He needed supplies, a safe place, and answers. And he needed them fast.

Adrian climbed down the maintenance ladder, dropping the last ten feet into a narrow service alley. The main streets were already turning into killing grounds. He could hear people fighting, not over food or money, but over the floating screens in front of them, desperately trying to turn off whatever power had just been forced on them.

He moved quickly but carefully, staying in the shadows. His biggest advantage was simple: the System couldn’t see him. No status. No level. No class. That meant no one else could see his name floating above his head either. To everyone else, he was just another face in the panic.

He slipped into a small corner store that had already been half-looted. The owner lay dead behind the counter, his status screen still flickering red above his corpse: "Level 1 – Grocer".Adrian grabbed two backpacks, filled one with bottled water and nutrient bars, the other with a small medkit and anything that looked useful. He took a sturdy metal pipe from behind the counter as a makeshift weapon. It felt pathetic compared to the powers he’d seen ripping people apart, but it was better than nothing.

As he stepped back into the alley, a new sound cut through the noise. A deep, mechanical hum that vibrated in his bones. Adrian looked up. One of the massive news orbs had stopped glitching. Its blue glow turned a cold, sterile white.

A new voice spoke. Calm. Authoritative. Completely without emotion.

“This is the System Council. Integration is now at ninety-four percent. Remain calm. Resistance will be penalized.”

The voice came from every speaker at once. Adrian felt the words sink into his skin like ice. System Council. So there wasn’t just one entity running this nightmare. There were rulers.

The voice continued.

“Level Zero entities are not permitted. All unregistered citizens will be corrected.”

Adrian’s blood ran cold. They knew. Or at least they suspected something was wrong. He wasn’t just invisible, he was an error they planned to fix.

He broke into a run.

The streets were getting worse. People with new powers were losing control everywhere. A man with flaming hands accidentally set his own face on fire. A woman who chose “Telekinetic” accidentally crushed three people against a wall when she tried to lift a single box. The System didn’t warn anyone about side effects. It just gave power and watched what happened.

Adrian ducked into an abandoned transit tunnel. The underground lines had shut down the moment the System arrived, leaving miles of dark, empty corridors. Perfect place to hide while the city tore itself apart above.

He found an old maintenance room, kicked the door open, and slipped inside. The room was small, dusty, and blessedly quiet. He dropped both packs on the floor and finally allowed himself to breathe.

That’s when the pain hit.

A sharp, burning sensation exploded behind his eyes. Adrian gasped and dropped to his knees. Blue text finally appeared, but this time it was different. It wasn’t a normal status window. It was jagged, glitching, like the System was struggling to even communicate with him.

"Anomaly Detected"

"Entity: Adrian Voss"

"Designation: Level Zero"

"Status: Unregistered"

"Correction Protocol: Initiated"

The words burned in Adrian’s vision like hot iron. Pain spiked through his skull, sharp and relentless, as if invisible needles were trying to rewrite something inside his brain. He clutched his head, teeth gritted, fighting the urge to scream.

The System was trying to force him into its rules. Trying to give him a level, a class, anything to make him fit. But something inside him pushed back, hard. The pain grew worse for three long heartbeats, then suddenly vanished, leaving only a faint ringing in his ears.

The blue text flickered, then changed.

"Correction Failed"

"Level Zero Entity Confirmed"

"System Council has been notified"

Adrian stayed on his knees, breathing hard. So that was it. He wasn’t just invisible. He was something the System literally could not process. A glitch it had tried, and failed, to delete.

He slowly stood up, legs shaky. The small maintenance room felt even smaller now. He could still hear the chaos echoing from the streets above: distant screams, the occasional explosion, and that cold, mechanical voice repeating its message from every speaker.

“Remain calm. Integration is at ninety-seven percent. All unregistered citizens will be corrected.”

Adrian’s hands trembled as he opened one of the packs and pulled out a water bottle. He drank deeply, trying to steady himself. His mind raced through everything he’d seen in the last hour. People dying from their own powers. The red cracks spreading across the sky. The System Council announcing itself like gods descending from the clouds.

And him. The only person the System couldn’t touch.

A bitter, half-mad laugh escaped his lips. Of all the people in Aetherion, the rich, the powerful, the connected, the System had overlooked him. A nobody who ran small errands for shady people. A ghost in a city that never cared about ghosts.

He sat down on an old metal crate and stared at the flickering emergency light above the door. His datapad lay beside him, screen still showing “System Integration: 97% complete.”

Two percent left.

He had no idea what would happen when it hit one hundred, but he knew one thing for certain: when that moment came, the world everyone knew would be gone. And he would be the only one walking through the wreckage unseen.

Adrian Voss closed his eyes, listening to the city die above him.

Level Zero.

The System couldn’t see him.

And maybe, just maybe, that was exactly what the new world needed.