Ash felt it before he saw it.

  Not the shimmer. Not the familiar hum of low-attention terrain.

  This was wrong.

  Jagged.

  Like static cutting across a quiet channel.

  He was moving through a half-rendered ravine, a seam where two biomes had never fully agreed on their boundary. The ground texture flickered faintly underfoot, grass giving way to stone in inconsistent patches.

  The dragon shifted uneasily.

  “That is not you,” it said.

  Ash slowed.

  “I know.”

  The hum behaved strangely here. It didn’t soften like it usually did when he slipped into neglected terrain. It pulsed irregularly, surging, collapsing, surging again.

  Like something was trying to descend without knowing how.

  Ash’s stomach tightened.

  “Someone’s pushing it,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  They rounded a bend in the ravine.

  And there he was.

  A player.

  Level mid-30s by the look of the half-visible nameplate. Cloth armor unequipped. Weapon discarded a few feet away. Standing in the center of a low patch of terrain like he was waiting for something to happen.

  His model flickered.

  Not subtly.

  His left arm lagged half a second behind his body. His nameplate blinked in and out of existence. Chat text above his head failed to render fully, appearing as fragmented glyphs before dissolving.

  Ash recognized the look in his eyes.

  Determination.

  And fear.

  “Hey,” Ash said.

  The player turned.

  The targeting reticle tried to snap to Ash and failed three times before settling.

  “You,” the player said.

  “Do I know you?”

  The player shook his head. “You had the dragon.”

  Ash’s chest tightened.

  Of course.

  “You saw that,” Ash said.

  “Everyone saw that,” the player said.

  The dragon leaned forward. “You are destabilizing yourself.”

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  The player flinched at the dragon’s voice but didn’t back away.

  “I figured it out,” he said. “You dumped Presence.”

  Ash went still.

  The player smiled, strained but triumphant.

  “You walked into town lighter than you left it. I checked the logs. Something changed in your proximity field.”

  Ash felt the awareness twitch.

  “You shouldn’t be checking logs,” he said.

  “I wanted to know how you did it,” the player said. “The dungeon glitch. The portal flicker. The correction.”

  His voice warped slightly at the end of that word.

  Ash took a step forward.

  The player’s model tore at the edges, polygon seams briefly visible under skin textures.

  “You’re going too fast,” Ash said.

  “I dropped it to five,” the player said.

  Ash’s blood ran cold.

  “Five what?”

  “Presence.”

  The dragon hissed sharply.

  The player’s nameplate blinked.

  Vanished.

  Reappeared as:

  [UNRESOLVED_ENTITY]

  Ash’s stomach dropped.

  “You don’t have the floor lock yet,” Ash said.

  The player laughed, but the sound skipped frames.

  “Didn’t need it.”

  His voice cut out entirely for a second.

  Then came back wrong, slightly desynced.

  Ash stepped closer.

  “Stop,” the dragon said.

  But Ash ignored it.

  “What’s your name?” Ash asked.

  The player blinked.

  “My—”

  He paused.

  Confusion spread across his face.

  “My name is…”

  Nothing.

  The world stuttered.

  The ravine flickered into wireframe for a fraction of a second.

  Ash grabbed the player’s shoulder.

  His hand passed through.

  Collision failed.

  The player’s torso dissolved briefly into transparent grid.

  “You’re falling,” Ash said.

  The player’s eyes widened.

  “I can’t—” he tried to say.

  His voice didn’t render.

  Ash’s HUD lit up violently.

  [SYSTEM NOTICE]

  Uncategorized anomaly detected.

  Reconciliation in progress.

  The dragon lifted off Ash’s shoulder, wings flaring.

  “You must anchor him,” it said.

  “How?”

  “You stabilized yourself through attachment.”

  Ash understood immediately.

  Gear.

  Weight.

  Significance.

  “Pick up your weapon.”

  The player stared at him blankly.

  “Your weapon!” Ash said.

  The sword lay five feet away.

  The player looked at it but didn’t move.

  His legs phased partially into the ground.

  Ash ran for it.

  The ravine flickered hard, ground texture collapsing into flat grey before snapping back.

  Ash grabbed the sword.

  This time, it had collision.

  He shoved it into the player’s hands.

  “Equip it,” Ash said.

  The player’s fingers closed around the hilt.

  Nothing happened.

  Ash cursed under his breath.

  “Focus,” he said. “You wanted this. So hold onto it.”

  The dragon swooped lower.

  “You must share presence,” it said.

  Ash didn’t know what that meant.

  But instinct told him what to try.

  He opened his own character panel.

  Presence: 8.

  Floor: 7 (Locked).

  He hovered over the stat.

  “Can I give him one?” Ash said.

  “You can lower yourself,” the dragon said. “But that risks cascade.”

  Ash clenched his jaw.

  “Do it,” the dragon said.

  Ash pressed the down arrow.

  Presence: 8 → 7.

  His nameplate flickered but held.

  The player’s body stabilized slightly.

  Edges less transparent.

  The ravine hum evened out a fraction.

  “It’s working,” Ash whispered.

  “Not enough,” the dragon said.

  Ash hesitated.

  Then did something he hadn’t done before.

  He grabbed the player’s wrist.

  Held on.

  “Look at me,” Ash said.

  The player’s gaze snapped to him.

  “Remember why you did this,” Ash said. “Not to disappear. To see the cracks.”

  The player’s breathing steadied.

  His nameplate flickered.

  Then reappeared.

  Faint.

  Level 36.

  No guild tag.

  But there.

  The system notices pulsed again.

  [SYSTEM NOTICE]

  Anomaly pair detected.

  Observation escalated.

  The dragon stiffened.

  “That is new.”

  Ash felt it.

  The awareness sharpened.

  No longer curiosity.

  Analysis.

  The player gasped.

  “I almost—”

  “I know.”

  The ravine smoothed.

  Textures locked.

  The hum stabilized.

  The player’s collision returned fully.

  Ash released his wrist slowly.

  “You can’t just dump it,” Ash said. “It’s not a ladder you kick away.”

  The player swallowed hard.

  “What’s your name?” Ash said.

  The player hesitated.

  “Darius,” he said.

  The system didn’t glitch.

  Ash nodded.

  “Okay, Darius. You don’t descend alone.”

  The dragon hovered between them.

  “You are now linked,” it said.

  “Linked how?”

  “Through shared anomaly,” the dragon said. “The system will categorize you together.”

  Darius’s eyes widened. “Is that bad?”

  Ash felt the shimmer pulse faintly on the horizon.

  “Yes,” he said. “But it also means you’re not falling by yourself.”

  Darius looked down at his sword.

  His hands were steady now.

  “I didn’t want to vanish,” he said.

  “I know,” Ash said.

  He knew the system must be recalibrating now.

  Two anomalies.

  Paired.

  Not isolated.

  Patterns forming.

  Ash exhaled slowly.

  “Well,” he said. “Welcome to the cracks.”