The Glitch That Deletes Gods

The finale of the horror simulation concluded, and I was one Shade short.

As the Warden of this place, I sealed the exits instantly, trapping all five hundred players inside the final chamber.

A Shade has escaped its programming, my voice boomed through the hall, metallic and devoid of warmth. "If it breaks containment, the entire system initiates a Purge Protocol. Myself, and the other two thousand Shades bound to this simulation, will be deleted."

I let the silence hang for a beat, heavy and suffocating. "I'm giving you five minutes to find it. Or I'm cutting the oxygen."

A wave of pleas and denials crashed against my feet. Five hundred players, dropping to their knees.

"They don't have a label on their forehead! How are we supposed to know?" one of them yelled, his voice cracking with panic. "Maybe you just miscounted!"

"Let us go! We're innocent!" another cried.

Innocent?

A bitter, silent laugh echoed in the cavern of my chest. I twisted the master valve, and the hiss of the life support system died. "It seems your loyalty is worth more than your lives."

I knew. The rogue Shade was hiding among them, wearing a player's face.

And every single one of them was in on it.

1

The moment the air stopped circulating, the chamber descended into madness.

"We told you, we don't know anything! Are you trying to kill us all?"

"Don't forget the rules, Warden! Every game has a minimum survival quota. If we all die, you go down with us!"

They were right, of course. If the survival rate dropped below the mandated threshold, the final deletion would be me, the master program. The big boss.

But compared to the agony of a System Purgea slow, digital unravelinga quick death was a mercy.

Seconds bled into minutes. Players were already clutching their chests, their faces turning pale.

Lank, the long-tongued Shade who served as my lieutenant, materialized beside me. His whisper was a dry rasp. "Warden... they look like they're telling the truth. Are you certain you didn't make a mistake?"

Impossible. I had presided over this Purgatory from its inception, for centuries of simulated time. I knew the count of my charges better than I knew my own code.

"Please... my baby," a woman sobbed, crawling forward. "He's just a child."

This one had been duped into the game by her husband, desperate for the ten-million-dollar prize.

I signaled to Lank. He snatched the infant from her arms, and the babys terrified wail pierced the rising panic.

"You monster! Give me back my son!"

She scrambled on the floor, her eyes darting wildly, scanning the faces around her. "You! Are you the one? Are you the Shade?"

"What the hell? I'm a player, you psycho!"

She accused one after another, receiving the same denials until her spirit finally shattered. She collapsed, her sobs raw and animalistic.

Her crying was grating on my last nerve. I strode forward and my palm cracked across her cheek, silencing her. "One more sound, and I snap his neck right now."

Her eyes, wide with terror, locked onto the child in my grasp. She choked back her tears, her body trembling with the effort.

"Picking on a baby doesn't make you tough!" someone shouted from the crowd.

"This is your failure of management, Warden! Why are you blaming us?"

The accusations flew from every corner, a chorus of condemnation. But not one of them offered a single clue.

I lifted the screaming infant into the air. "You have five minutes. If you don't give me the Shade, this child dies. After that, I will kill one player every sixty seconds."

I knew. Every last player in this room was protecting the missing Shade.

Including his mother.

"Warden," Gallows, my headless enforcer, muttered from behind me. "The hall's reserve oxygen will only last another thirty minutes. If they still refuse to talk..."

"Then we all die together," I said, my gaze fixed on the child in my hands. His tiny body had gone limp, sleeping in my grip. For a fleeting moment, my fingers twitched with the urge to simply squeeze.

Centuries. I had played this part for centuries, and I was so incredibly tired. An ending like this didn't seem like a threat. It felt like a release.

"Still no one wants to be honest?"

Lank and Gallows kept their heads bowed, fearing my temper.

I walked back to the mother, my voice dropping to a somber, final tone. "I regret to inform you that you failed to provide the required information in the allotted time. Therefore, this child's life is forfeit."

Before the words had fully settled, I acted. I didn't kill the child. Not yet. But the message was sent, painted in crimson on the faces of the nearest players. He was left with the barest thread of life.

"You... you'll burn in hell for this!" the mother shrieked.

Funny. For me, that was the equivalent of wishing me a long life.

"Well? Ready to give up the Shade now?"

She lifted her head, her eyes burning with a hatred so pure it was almost beautiful. "Spit. You demon. You will never find him."

Ah. So thats how it would be.

"He's yours," I said, dropping the bleeding child into Lank's waiting arms. His jaw went slack, a line of saliva tracing a path down his chin. He stared at the infant like it was a feast.

The game has rules. One of the most important is this: A player consumed by a Shade is erased from existence. No afterlife, no respawn. Just nothing.

The mother knew the rule. The defiance in her eyes dissolved into sheer, primal terror.

"I'll talk," she sobbed, breaking completely. "I'll talk."

2

Lank licked his lips, reluctantly placing the child back into my arms.

"Speak," I commanded.

The mother raised her head, her gaze sweeping across the crowd before quickly falling again. "The Shade is..."

She never finished. A sickening thud echoed through the hall, and she crumpled to the floor, a pool of blood spreading from beneath her.

"Whoops. Hand slipped," a man with a jagged scar across his face said with a grin, holding a small, wicked-looking blade. He stood there, casual, as if he'd just dropped a pen.

The truth, snatched from my grasp. A cold fury I hadn't felt in decades ignited within me. "You're looking for death!"

My hand shot out, closing around his throat. I lifted him off the ground, his face darkening to a bruised purple.

"If... I... die..." he choked out, "...you'll never... find him."

A threat? I loosened my grip, letting him crash to the floor, gasping and coughing.

"Talk," I said, my patience wearing thin. "While I still have some."

He looked up, a manic glint in his eyes. "What if I told you he's already dead?"

Trying to deceive me?

Fool.

My boot connected with his ribs, sending him flying across the floor. He staggered to his feet, wiping a smear of blood from his lips.

"Believe it or not," he rasped, "it's the truth. He's dead."

The rogue Shade was among the players. And every single one of them was a collaborator.

"Take him," I ordered my lieutenants. "Give him a private tour of the Abyss."

A collective gasp went through the remaining players. The Abyss was our deepest, most tormenting level. In the entire history of the Purgatory, its survival rate was a perfect zero. It was a death sentence, just a very, very slow one.

"The Shade is dead! Why are you still doing this to us?" a man who had been cowering in a corner finally found his voice.

I had Gallows drag him before me. "You feel so strongly for him. Perhaps you'd like to take his place?"

The man went silent immediately, shrinking back into the crowd.

Seeing the scar-faced man was still defiant, Lank's tongue shot out, ready to wrap around him and drag him away. At the last second, the man frantically pulled something from his pocket and held it up. "I bet you recognize this!"

Lank retrieved the object and presented it to me.

"Warden... it's a Shade's sigil."

He was right. It was one of the tokens I issued to my Shades. They served two purposes: to differentiate them from the player simulations and to act as a distress beacon if they were in mortal danger. A Shade would only abandon their sigil at the moment of their true death.

But a simple trick like this wasn't going to fool me.

"Now you have proof the Shade is dead! You can let us go now, right?"

"Please, I can't breathe..."

I nodded to Gallows. He reconnected the main oxygen line. The wilted players instantly revived, gulping down the clean air.

"Warden, maybe we should let them go," Gallows suggested quietly. "Every second they remain, they drain more of the system's resources."

His words made sense.

I glanced at the sigil in my hand and offered a cold smile. "Let them go."

3

The players scrambled toward the massive gate, the one that represented freedom and their prize money.

"Ten million dollars, here I come! I'm gonna find ten girls and..."

"The Purgatory ain't so tough! I'm coming back tomorrow..."

Their faces were masks of greed and relief.

But the moment the gate began to slide open, their smiles vanished.

With a flick of my wrist, I disintegrated the first ten players who reached the threshold. The gate slammed shut again.

The scar-faced man, seeing his hope of escape evaporate, finally snapped. "You said you'd let us go! What is this?"

The others erupted. "What the hell? Why did they get to leave and we're still stuck here?"

"The ten players I just 'released' have satisfied the game's minimum survival quota," I explained calmly. "Now, I can kill every last one of you, and it wouldn't even be a violation of my programming."

Panic, pure and undiluted, washed over their faces.

I let it sink in before continuing. "However. The first player to hand over the Shade gets to live."

The fear on their faces was instantly wiped away, replaced by suspicion.

I sweetened the deal. "Find me the traitor who helped him, and I'll give you a ten-million-dollar bonus."

That did it. The scar-faced man immediately balked. "What traitor? There's no traitor! You're just making things up to mess with us!"

Oh, there was a traitor. A traitor who had planned this from the very beginning. Without his instigation, no Shade would ever dare dream of escaping. Not even in death.

"So, the goal is to find the escaped Shade and the traitor," I clarified.

The scar-faced man shot back, "He's dead! What's the point of looking for him?"

A thin smile stretched my lips.

"I want to see a body."

4

At my command, the players scattered, a frantic search beginning.

Only the scar-faced man remained, squatting in a corner, unmoving.

"Why aren't you looking?" I asked, approaching him. "Not tempted by that extra ten million?"

He shook his head, a bitter laugh escaping him. "It doesn't matter. You're not going to let any of us leave anyway."

Was he implying I was untrustworthy?

Just then, a few players ran up to me, out of breath. "Forget it. We don't want the bonus. Just let us go."

"Useless," I snarled. I grabbed their necks, and in an instant, the two of them dissolved into a fine red mist. The scar-faced man watched, his eyes wide, not daring to blink.

"That traitor is a real piece of work," I mused aloud, looking at him. "Getting so many innocent people killed."

He swallowed hard and gave a stiff, jerky nod.

A short while later, a tall player came running over, his face alight with excitement. "Warden! I found the Shade! You can let us go now, right?"

The scar-faced man's head snapped up, a look of genuine surprise on his face.

"Where?" I asked.

The tall player pointed triumphantly at a set of ancient, crumbling remains in a dark alcove. "Right there. That's him."

I almost laughed. Did this idiot truly think I was a fool?

I arched an eyebrow. "Are you sure? Lying to me has consequences."

A flicker of doubt crossed his face, but he firmed his jaw and nodded. "I'm sure. That's him."

"Excellent."

I placed my hand on his head. The six-foot man collapsed into a neat pile of splintered bone.

The other players who had come to report their findings saw this and their legs gave out from under them.

"You... you go first. I'm not..."

I signaled to Lank and Gallows, who herded the rest of the search parties before me. "Report. What have you found?"

Their voices were so faint with terror they were barely audible. "N-nothing... w-we searched... everywhere... not a trace."

Good. At least these were more honest than the last one.

I let my fangs descend, two feet of polished ivory, and gave them a smile that wasn't a smile. "The traitor," I said slowly, "is standing among you right now."

That single sentence shattered their fragile unity.

"It's you! You're the traitor, aren't you? You know where the Shade is!"

"Bullshit! Warden, he's the one!"

The chamber devolved into a brawl, players turning on each other. But I noticed something interesting. No one dared to confront the scar-faced man.

"Why are they afraid to question you?" I asked him quietly.

He looked completely unfazed. "I'm a dead man walking. They're not wasting their time on me."

I just smiled.

After the fighting died down, the players were bruised and bloodied, their paranoia now cemented. They were more convinced than ever that the traitor was one of their own.

"Warden, you know who it is, don't you?" one of them pleaded. "Please, stop torturing us."

"Fine," I said. My eyes landed on the scar-faced man. "Let me see that sigil again."

He hesitated for a moment before handing it over.

I tossed the small, cold token in my hand, a true laugh finally bubbling up.

The traitor had just exposed himself.

You're mine now, I thought. My rogue Shade.

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