The first light of dawn crept through the window, but Sam hadn’t slept. He sat on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on his knees, his mind circling the same haunting questions.

  What was that thing?

  How did it know my name?

  And who the hell is this ‘Man’?

  His fingers absently traced the inhibitors on his wrists, feeling the cool metal against his skin. The fight against Dead Code had left more than just physical wounds—it had left something gnawing at the edges of his mind, something he couldn’t shake.

  A soft knock broke him from his thoughts.

  The door creaked open, and Rock stepped in. His expression was unreadable, but the serious look in his eyes told Sam that whatever this was, it wasn’t a casual conversation.

  “Why are you up?” Sam asked, though the real question was—why was Rock up this early?

  Rock didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he motioned with his head. “Come with me. We need to go.”

  Sam hesitated, eyeing him. “Go where?”

  Rock simply turned, stepping back into the dimly lit hallway. “You’ll see.”

  Sam sighed, rubbing his temples before pushing himself up. He didn’t know where Rock was taking him, but after what happened in the void, he needed answers.

  They walked in silence, the city still waking up around them. The streets were empty aside from the occasional hover-car humming past. Sam followed Rock through twisting alleys until they stopped in front of an unmarked metal door wedged between two crumbling buildings.

  Sam frowned. “This place?”

  Rock didn’t respond. He simply raised his fist and knocked—three times, slow and deliberate.

  There was a pause, then a voice, low and gravelly, crackled through a hidden speaker.

  “Come in.”

  The door unlocked with a heavy click, and Rock pushed it open. Sam followed him inside.

  —

  The room they entered was far bigger than it had any right to be. From the outside, the building had looked like nothing more than a storage unit, but the interior stretched into a massive space, filled with dim yellow lighting, old furniture, and stacks of books and tech scattered across the floor. A faint scent of burnt metal and incense lingered in the air.

  At the center of it all, an old man sat at a wooden table, casually eating from a bowl of steaming food.

  Sam took one look at him and blinked. The man’s skin was deep brown, the color of earth after a heavy rain. His eyes were sharp, calculating, but weary. His hair, once black, had turned gray at the edges, and he carried the weight of someone who had seen far too much.

  “He’s…” Sam started.

  Rock smirked slightly. “Yes. He’s Black, like you.”

  The old man didn’t look up from his meal. “What do you want, Rock?” he asked, his voice smooth but edged with impatience.

  “Hello, V,” Rock said, stepping forward. “I need to ask you something.”

  V scoffed, finally setting his spoon down. “Make it quick. Don’t waste my time.”

  His gaze flickered toward Sam, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Hmph. Another voidskin.”

  Sam straightened at the term. He had heard it before, but rarely—people didn’t talk about it. They avoided it. He stepped forward. “Do you know anything about something called Dead Code?”

  The moment he spoke the name, the room changed.

  The casual air around V vanished. His body tensed. The dim lights flickered. And for the first time, he truly looked at Sam—not just observing, but analyzing him.

  Then, slowly, he spoke.

  “…How do you know that name?”

  Sam met his gaze. “I fought it. Yesterday. With a friend.” He exhaled sharply. “It wasn’t something I’ve ever seen before.”

  For the first time since they arrived, V’s expression darkened, his fingers curling slightly against the table. He leaned forward.

  “Kid,” he said, his voice dropping lower, “that’s not a name you just know. It’s a name that finds you.”

  100 Years Ago

  The void stretched endlessly in all directions, a place where light twisted and time bled into itself. It was a realm of nothingness, yet it was filled with echoes of things that should not exist.

  V and Zaman stood side by side, surveying the corrupted space before them. Glitches rippled through the air like shattered reflections, distorting reality itself.

  V crossed his arms. “What the hell happened here?”

  Zaman’s expression was unreadable as he surveyed the wreckage. “Could be a timeline I destroyed, now left in a corrupted state. But that’s impossible… I destroyed all timelines.”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  V raised an eyebrow. “Well, clearly, you missed a spot.”

  Before Zaman could retort, movement in the distance caught their attention. A figure stood ahead—a woman, her body flickering and glitching as if she didn’t fully belong. Her form distorted with every second, and yet, her expression remained fixated on Zaman.

  Her eyes didn’t waver. She didn’t acknowledge V at all.

  Zaman tilted his head. “Who the hell are you supposed to be?”

  V stepped closer to him, peering at the figure with interest. “What’s that, Zaman?”

  Zaman flinched at V’s sudden proximity. “Oh my god, personal boundaries! Ever heard of them?”

  V smirked. “Nope. That’s why I’m asking you. What is that thing? It’s clearly an entity.”

  Zaman huffed. “Obviously. But I don’t know what kind.” He scowled, stepping back. “And she’s looking at me like she wants something.”

  V’s smirk widened. “Well, aren’t you popular? Maybe she’s got a thing for you. Why don’t you say hi?”

  Zaman gagged dramatically. “Ew, no. I’m not talking to that freak. And go away and die.”

  “That’s rude,” V commented.

  But before Zaman could respond, the woman’s lips curled into a wide, unnatural smile. Blood dripped from her mouth, thick and dark, falling faster with each passing second.

  Then, without warning, spikes erupted from the void, hurtling toward Zaman with terrifying speed.

  “Itt’s yyyou, ittts yyyou, iit-s, ittts yyyou, iit-s, ittts yyyou!”

  The words tore through the air in a glitching, corrupted voice, looping endlessly.

  Zaman barely reacted in time, twisting his body and dodging the attack as the spikes shattered the space where he once stood.

  V’s playful demeanor disappeared instantly. His body tensed.

  “Okay, yeah. That’s not normal.”

  As the girl sent more spikes at Zaman he dodged them all and then kicked the girl but her body glitch and Zaman went right through her.

  The girl smiled as her body glitching. She snap her fingers and wormholes appear and shoot laser at Zaman but Zaman dodged them all. Zaman stop snap his left hand and then the girl needed up on the ground seemed unconscious.

  Zaman let out an exasperated sigh as he effortlessly dodged another barrage of spikes. “Oh god, shut up, go away already, and read your dumb books.”

  V, standing nearby with arms crossed, smirked. “They’re not dumb.”

  Zaman ignored him, his focus shifting back to the glitching woman. Her body flickered erratically as if reality itself struggled to contain her presence. Her eerie smile never faltered.

  Annoyed, Zaman closed the distance in a blink, launching a powerful kick aimed at her torso—only for his leg to phase right through her body as if she weren’t fully there.

  “Tch.” His foot hit nothing but air.

  The woman’s smile stretched wider, an unnatural crackling sound accompanying her movements. She snapped her fingers. Instantly, wormholes tore open in the void, their edges crackling with unstable energy. From within, beams of searing light erupted, firing in all directions.

  Zaman barely blinked.

  With precise movements, he dodged each beam effortlessly, weaving through them like they were nothing more than a mild inconvenience.

  Then, without warning, he stopped.

  A smirk crept onto his face as he snapped his left fingers.

  In an instant, the woman’s body flickered violently before crashing to the ground, motionless. The void fell silent.

  V whistled, stepping closer. “Huh. That was anticlimactic.”

  “who is it,” V asked.

  “I don’t care who it is, just what it is, obviously it’s an anomaly and it’s probably responsible for turning everything here to shit, why else would it be here…I change my mind. I really don’t care either way.it's a mistake, a dirty dead code,” Zaman said.

  As Dead code slowly was getting up. “WW-wHaT aM i… i tHHHiNk THAAts hIlARIous SeRioUslY hIlARIous,” dead code said laughing. She laughed crazily as her voices were glitches. Zaman looked startled.

  “I COuLLLd sa-say tHe Ssss-same aBOut YoU,” Dead Code crackled, her distorted voice echoing unnaturally.

  As she turned her head toward them, her body convulsed, the blood dripping from her eyes, mouth, and chest shifting—morphing—into writhing strings. The tendrils pulsed with a strange, sickly glow, as though alive.

  V blinked. “Did you get that? Because I sure as hell didn’t.”

  Before Zaman could respond, Dead Code ripped the strings from her own body with a sickening squelch, the wound glitching like corrupted data.

  V’s eyes widened. “Nope. Nope. I’m good. I’m gonna go watch from over there.” Without another word, he turned and sprinted in the opposite direction, leaving Zaman alone to face the entity.

  Dead Code lashed out, her blood-formed strings whipping toward Zaman. He twisted his body, narrowly dodging each strike, the air crackling with the unnatural energy they emitted.

  “How irritating.” Zaman sighed, dusting off his coat. “If you know who I am so well… then tell me—what exactly did I do?”

  Dead Code tilted her head unnaturally, her form flickering. Then, without warning, she flung her strings at his leg.

  Zaman’s smirk faded as an unbearable sensation tore through him. His soul—not just his body—was burning. His vision blurred as Dead Code swung him like a ragdoll, hurling him into a nearby wall. The impact sent cracks through the corrupted voidscape, but the flat surface kept him from being impaled.

  A sharp rip filled the air.

  Zaman glanced down. His jacket—his favorite jacket—was pinned to the wall by one of her strings, the fabric slashed.

  His eye twitched. “You petty bitch. Ruining my jacket? Really?”

  As he looked up, Dead Code was already preparing her next attack. More spikes materialized at her side, writhing like a nest of serpents.

  “Yyyou… yyyou… yyyou… yyyou… yyyou…” she droned in a corrupted loop, her voice glitching as she sent a barrage of spikes toward him.

  But before they could reach him—

  A bright flash.

  V appeared between them, arms raised. A gravitational force surged outward, knocking the spikes off course.

  “Alright, that’s enough of this weird-ass horror show.” V grumbled.

  Before Dead Code could react, space itself folded around them—V’s teleportation ability activating in full force.

  In an instant, both he and Zaman vanished from the void.

  Present Time

  Sam exhaled sharply, trying to process everything he had just heard. “So… that’s what happened,” he muttered.

  V leaned back in his chair, picking at his food. “Yeah.”

  Sam hesitated before asking, “Then what exactly is she?”

  V’s expression darkened. “She’s from our timeline. That much I can say for certain. When Zaman erased the other timelines, he did it to keep this one stable. But anomalies don’t just glitch like she does.” He set his fork down, his fingers tapping against the table. “That means when she died in the future of this timeline, her body became corrupted… because every other version of her was destroyed. With nowhere else to exist, she collapsed into the Void.”

  Sam’s jaw tightened. “I see…”

  V leaned forward, locking eyes with him. “If you want to know more about her, head to the Northern Planets.”

  Sam raised an eyebrow. “Why there?”

  “There’s a house there. One that holds answers—not just about her, but about everything you’re looking for.”

  Sam let that sink in before shifting gears. “I have another question.”

  V sighed, rubbing his temples. “What is it?”

  “Were you really a Guardian?” Sam asked.

  For a moment, V didn’t answer. His gaze became distant, lost in old memories. Then, finally, he spoke.

  “…Yeah. A long time ago.” His voice was quieter than before. “But they erased my name from history. As if I never existed.”

  Sam clenched his fists. “…Thank you, V.”

  V scoffed, waving him off. “No problem. Now get out—I want to finish my damn meal.”

  With a snap of his fingers, the space around them warped. Before Sam could react, he and Rock were standing outside in the alleyway once more.

  For a moment, neither of them spoke. The only sound was Sam’s heavy breathing.

  Then, he turned to Rock, his voice shaking with frustration. “Rock…”

  Rock met his gaze, already knowing what was coming.

  “Why the hell didn’t you say anything? There was a Black Guardian before me—he was the first! And they erased his history like he never existed!” Sam’s voice rose with every word.

  Rock exhaled, his face unreadable. “It wasn’t up to me, Sam. The higher-ups—”

  “Shut up.”

  Sam turned away before Rock could say another word, his fists clenched as he stormed back toward the house.