Level 0: The System Can't See Me

Glitches In The Dark

The service tunnel stretched on like an artery beneath the transformed city, its walls now veined with the same pulsing blue circuitry that had infected the surface. Adrian and Elara moved in near silence, their footsteps echoing softly against the damp concrete. The air smelled of ozone and rust, and every few minutes a low vibration would rumble through the ground as another black spire completed its growth somewhere above.

Elara walked a step behind Adrian, her breathing still uneven. Her status screen continued to flicker intermittently, sometimes displaying clear text, other times dissolving into static. When it stabilized, Adrian could see her stats had updated slightly during the night:

"Name: Elara Kane"

"Level: 1"

"Class: Scavenger"

"Skills: Basic Stealth, Minor Detection Resistance"

"Status: Partial Corruption, 37%*"

“I can feel it trying to push deeper,” she whispered after a long stretch of silence. “Like something whispering in the back of my head. Telling me to go to the nearest spire. To ‘report for leveling.’ It gets stronger when I’m tired.”

Adrian glanced back at her. In the dim cyan glow, her face looked pale but determined. “How long can you hold it off?”

“Until it reaches fifty percent, I think. After that…” She shrugged, a bitter smile tugging at her lips. “I’ll probably start walking toward the nearest Enforcer with a smile on my face.”

Adrian didn’t know what to say to that. He had no corruption meter. No voice in his head. No glowing screen dictating his worth. Being Level Zero felt less like a gift and more like standing outside a burning building, watching everyone else scream inside while the flames ignored him completely.

They reached a junction where three tunnels met. A faded sign on the wall read “Outer Ring Access, Sector 7.” Elara pointed to the rightmost tunnel.

“This one should bring us out near the old freight yards. Less spires there last time I checked. The System seems to be focusing its growth on the denser parts of the city first.”

Adrian nodded and took the lead again. As they walked, he asked the question that had been burning in his mind since the previous night.

“Have you seen anyone else like you? People whose correction didn’t stick completely?”

Elara was quiet for a moment. “A few. Before I hid in the warehouse, I saw a man in the plaza fighting against his own body. He had the class ‘Technician.’ Every time the System tried to make him repair one of the spires, he’d sabotage it instead. They dragged him away eventually. And there was a woman… she kept repeating ‘I am not a number’ over and over while her screen tried to force her into ‘Compliant Citizen.’ I don’t know if any of them lasted the night.”

Adrian’s jaw tightened. “So we’re rare.”

“Very. Most people just… accepted it. The ones who fought too hard got corrected faster. The ones who went along quietly got leveled up and turned into happy little cogs.” She paused. “You’re the rarest of all, though. Level Zero. The System knows you exist, but it can’t touch you. That terrifies them.”

“Them?” Adrian asked.

“The Council. I heard the voice last night while I was hiding. It wasn’t just one entity. It spoke as ‘we.’ Five voices layered together, perfectly synchronized. They’re already building something bigger than just controlling the city. They’re building a hierarchy. Levels for everything, food distribution, housing, even breathing rights.”

Adrian felt a chill run down his spine. Aetherion had never been truly free even before the System, but this was something far worse. A perfect pyramid with the Council at the top and everyone else slotted neatly into their assigned place.

The tunnel began to slope upward. Faint light filtered down from above, not the harsh red of the fractured sky, but a muted, dusty gray. They were approaching the surface.

“Stay sharp,” Adrian murmured. “We don’t know what’s waiting up there.”

They emerged through a rusted maintenance hatch into the freight yards. The area was a vast expanse of old shipping containers stacked in chaotic rows, many of them now partially overgrown with the same blue-veined material that covered the tunnels. Fewer black spires had risen here, but several were still pushing their way up through the cracked concrete, growing slowly like dark crystals.

The air was thick with the smell of rain and burning plastic. In the distance, columns of corrected citizens marched toward a large central spire that had become a processing hub. Blue light poured from its base as people were funneled inside for “leveling sessions.”

Adrian and Elara crouched behind a stack of containers, observing.

“Look,” Elara whispered, pointing.

A small group of five people was moving carefully along the far edge of the yard — not in the perfect formation of the corrected, but with the cautious, jerky movements of those still fighting for control. Their status screens flickered wildly, glitching like Elara’s.

“Glitches,” Adrian said quietly. “Like you.”

Elara’s eyes lit up with cautious hope. “We should try to reach them. Strength in numbers.”

Adrian hesitated. More people meant more risk of detection. But if they were going to survive longer than a few days, they would need allies. People who could think, plan, and resist.

“Alright,” he said. “But carefully. I’ll go first and scout. You stay hidden until I signal.”

Before Elara could argue, Adrian slipped out from cover. He moved openly across the open ground between container stacks, testing his invisibility once again. A patrol of Level 5 Enforcers marched past less than twenty meters away. Their glowing eyes swept the area, but they looked straight through him, continuing their route without pause.

It still felt unreal.

He reached the group of glitches without incident. There were four men and one woman, all in their twenties or thirties, all with damaged, flickering status screens. They froze when they saw him approach, then relaxed slightly when they realized he had no screen of his own.

“You’re… clean?” the woman asked, voice hoarse. Her screen read "Level 1,Medic,Corruption 62%"

Adrian nodded. “The System can’t see me. No level. No class. I’m Adrian.”

One of the men, a tall, wiry guy with a flickering "Technician" class, let out a low whistle. “Level Zero. We heard the broadcast. They’re offering double experience to anyone who reports an unregistered entity.”

The group introduced themselves quickly. The woman was Lena, the Medic. The Technician was Marcus. The other three were Jax (Scout), Rina (Laborer), and Theo (Runner). All of them had resisted the full correction, but their corruption levels were climbing steadily.

“We were trying to reach the old rail depot,” Marcus explained. “There’s rumor of a dead zone out there, an area the System hasn’t fully claimed yet. If we can make it, maybe we can rest. Plan.”

Adrian glanced back toward Elara’s hiding spot and gave a subtle hand signal. She emerged a moment later, joining the group. Introductions were brief and tense, everyone was exhausted and on edge.

As the six of them began moving together toward the rail depot, Adrian felt the weight of responsibility settle on his shoulders. He was the only one who could move freely. The only one who could scout ahead without risk. The only one the System’s Enforcers could not detect.

For the first time since the integration, he wasn’t just surviving.

He was leading.

They had covered half the distance across the freight yards when the ground suddenly trembled. One of the slowly growing black spires nearby accelerated its growth, shooting upward with a shriek of metal and stone. Red lightning arced wildly from its tip.

From the base of the spire, a new voice boomed, louder and more commanding than before.

“Attention, citizens. This is Council Member Prime. Level Zero anomaly confirmed in Sector 7. All Enforcers converge. All citizens report any visual anomalies immediately. Reward: Immediate Level 5 promotion and resource priority.”

The glitches around Adrian stiffened. Their screens flickered violently as the new directive flooded their minds.

Elara grabbed his arm. “They’re coming. We need to run.”

But Adrian stood still for a moment longer, staring at the towering spire as red lightning danced across its surface.

The Council wasn’t just hunting him anymore.

They were afraid of him.

Level Zero wasn’t just a glitch.

It was a threat.

And as the sound of marching Enforcers grew louder in the distance, Adrian Voss made a silent promise to himself.

He would make them regret ever noticing the one person they couldn’t control.

The group broke into a run toward the rail depot, Adrian taking point, the unseen guardian in a world of marked souls.

Behind them, the black spires hummed louder, and the fractured red sky seemed to press down heavier than ever.

The hunt had officially begun.