Chapter 44: Rei.exe: Awakening Failed
Rei opened his eyes.
Or rather, the idea of opening his eyes.
The world around him wasn’t light or dark—it was syntax. Lines of broken memory, half-rendered dreamscapes, and systems overlayed atop old, painful recollections. Like waking up inside a scrambled hard drive, your name written in corrupted pixels.
"Rei Kazuma... Age 17... Disqualified."
Who said that?
He turned—if turning even made sense here—and saw an old classroom, desks floating mid-air like drowning fish, the blackboard scribbled with equations that rearranged themselves faster than he could read.
A girl sat by the window.
Her face blurred.
But he knew her.
"Rei," she said softly. "You left us. You forgot."
His breath caught.
The image glitched—shards of static peeled away from her body. Behind her, the sky fractured, revealing not blue, but System Code—lines of commands, failsafe threads, and something labeled: