The System That Wanted Me Dead

Chapter Four :How to Hide from a God

Kael woke to silence.

Not the heavy silence of danger but the quiet of a place the world had forgotten.

He lay on a narrow cot, rough cloth beneath his fingers. The pain in his shoulder was still there, dull and constant, but no longer screaming. Clean bandages wrapped his arm and chest.

The system did not greet him.

Kael’s eyes snapped open.

Nothing.

No countdown.

No warnings.

No pressure.

His heart pounded as he sat up.

“Easy,” a voice said from the far side of the room. “You’re still alive.”

The cloaked stranger stood near a broken window, watching dust drift through pale light. Their hood was lowered now.

They were older than Kael had expected. Late twenties, maybe. Dark hair pulled back, eyes sharp and unsettlingly calm.

“Where is it?” Kael asked.

The stranger glanced at him. “The system?”

Kael nodded.

“It’s blind here,” the stranger said. “Temporarily.”

Kael exhaled shakily. “You said it was interference.”

“It is. Just not yours.”

The stranger turned fully to face him.

“My name is Veyra,” they said. “And I belong to a group the system failed to erase.”

Kael frowned. “Failed?”

Veyra smiled faintly. “Barely.”

They moved closer, resting against a cracked pillar.

“Long ago, before the system perfected its laws, people like you appeared. Anomalies. Contradictions. Humans who didn’t fit cleanly into its predictions.”

Kael’s chest tightened. “What happened to them?”

“They were hunted,” Veyra said simply. “Just like you.”

Kael already knew the answer but he asked anyway.

“And the ones who survived?”

Veyra’s gaze hardened.

“They learned to disappear.”

A soft sound echoed through the room metal sliding against metal.

From the shadows, three more figures stepped forward. None of them carried visible system auras. One was missing an eye. Another walked with a mechanical leg that bore no system sigils.

Every one of them felt wrong to Kael’s senses.

Not powerful.

Uncounted.

“These are the Erased,” Veyra said. “People the system couldn’t fully correct, so it pretended they never existed.”

Kael swallowed.

“So I’m not the first.”

“No,” Veyra said. “But you are the loudest.”

Kael let out a short, bitter laugh. “That figures.”

One of the Erased stepped closer a woman with scarred hands and tired eyes.

“You broke a correction unit,” she said. “Do you know how rare that is?”

Kael shook his head.

She smiled grimly. “It isn’t.”

Veyra folded their arms.

“The system adapts,” they said. “But it can’t create you. Only react.”

Kael looked down at his hands.

“So what am I?”

Veyra met his eyes.

“You’re a variable the system can’t close.”

Silence stretched.

Then Kael spoke quietly.

“Teach me how to survive.”

The Erased exchanged glances.

Veyra nodded.

“We will,” they said. “But understand this survival isn’t enough anymore.”

Kael frowned. “What do you mean?”

Veyra’s voice dropped.

“The system has already marked you as a threat. Eventually, it will deploy something it never uses on humans.”

Kael felt the familiar chill crawl up his spine.

“What?”

Veyra answered without hesitation.

“A rollback.”

Kael’s breath caught.

“To erase you,” Veyra continued, “it won’t kill you.”

They leaned in.

“It will erase the world where you exist.”

The system was silent.

But somewhere far above

Kael didn’t sleep again.

Every time his eyes closed, he felt it the vast, distant presence of the system, like a sky that could collapse without warning. Even here, hidden among the Erased, the fear lingered in his bones.

He sat on the edge of the cot, flexing his fingers.

No interface appeared.

The absence felt… loud.

“You’re searching for it,” Veyra said.

Kael looked up. The others had gone. Only Veyra remained, leaning against the doorway with arms crossed.

“I keep expecting it to come back,” Kael admitted. “Like breathing after being underwater too long.”

Veyra nodded. “That doesn’t go away. You just learn how to hold your breath.”

They gestured for him to follow.

The hideout was larger than Kael expected an old substructure beneath the city, half-forgotten corridors and chambers reinforced by hand, not magic. No system lights. No golden sigils. Just stone, iron, and human effort.

They stopped in a wide chamber.

Symbols were carved into the walls not system glyphs, but something cruder. Marks of warning. Of failure.

“Sit,” Veyra said.

Kael did.

Veyra crouched in front of him. “I’m going to show you something. Don’t resist it.”

“That’s usually the opposite of what I do,” Kael said.

A faint smile flickered across Veyra’s face. “I know.”

They placed two fingers against Kael’s chest.

Nothing happened.

Then......

Pressure.

Not the system’s. This was different. It didn’t push the world into place—it withdrew it.

Kael gasped as the invisible threads he’d begun to sense snapped into clarity.

Paths.

Outcomes.

Expectations.

The system didn’t control people directly.

It narrowed reality.

“See it?” Veyra asked softly.

Kael’s voice came out unsteady. “Yes.”

“For most people, the system chooses for them. Class. Growth. Fate. They walk paths it already calculated.”

Veyra removed their hand.

“For us,” they continued, “those paths fray.”

Kael clenched his fists. “That’s what I feel when I fight. When I step where it doesn’t want me to.”

“Exactly,” Veyra said. “You don’t gain power. You create uncertainty.”

They stood.

“And uncertainty terrifies systems.”

Kael absorbed that in silence.

“So how do you hide from it?” he asked. “Because I don’t want to just survive. I don’t want to run forever.”

Veyra’s expression darkened.

“You don’t hide your body,” they said. “You hide your decisions.”

They motioned toward the chamber walls.

“The system tracks patterns. Behavior. Cause and effect. The moment you act like a hero, a threat, a survivor it narrows in.”

Kael frowned. “Then what do I act like?”

Veyra answered immediately.

“No one.”

They drew a dagger and tossed it at Kael’s feet.

“Stand.”

Kael rose.

“This room is shielded,” Veyra said. “Not from power but from prediction. For the next minute, you do not exist to the system.”

Kael swallowed. “And after that?”

“After that,” Veyra said calmly, “you either learn fast or you die.”

They moved.

Fast.

No skill activation. No warning.

Kael barely raised the dagger in time as steel clashed. The impact jolted his arm, reopening pain in his shoulder.

“Too slow,” Veyra said, already moving again.

Kael stumbled back, blocking instinctively, feeling for the cracks the tiny moments where motion wasn’t inevitable.

There.

He twisted sideways instead of back.

Veyra’s blade passed through empty air.

They stopped.

Eyes sharp.

“You felt it,” Veyra said.

Kael’s breath came hard. “Yes.”

“Good,” Veyra replied. “Again.”

They attacked relentlessly.

Minutes blurred together. Kael fell. Rose. Fell again. Each strike forced him to choose differently, not better just unpredictably.

His muscles burned. His vision swam.

Then..

The pressure returned.

Veyra froze mid-step.

The air tightened.

> [REMOTE OBSERVATION ATTEMPT DETECTED]

Kael’s blood ran cold.

“It’s looking for me,” he said.

Veyra nodded once. “Then lesson one is over.”

They slammed a hand into the floor.

The symbols on the walls flared not with light, but with absence. Sound dulled. Space warped slightly, like reality holding its breath.

> [OBSERVATION FAILED]

Reason: Insufficient data

The pressure withdrew.

Kael sagged against the wall, chest heaving.

“That was… close,” he said.

Veyra looked at him with something like approval.

“You lasted longer than expected.”

Kael laughed weakly. “I’m getting used to that.”

Veyra turned away.

“Rest,” they said. “Tomorrow, we teach you how to break a future before it happens.”

Kael stared at the dark ceiling.

Somewhere far beyond stone and shadow, the system recalculated.

And for the first time

It had no answer.