Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A sleepless brunette male lay on his quiet bed. He thought about the hours prior to him trying to sleep at a decent time. He just couldn't shake the news from his mind.

~ ~ ~

The quiet background noise of a T.V. show didn't catch Albert's attention as he texted one of his friends on his phone. This specific friend had pink hair, and the two had just recently recorded a video together. Albert sent the footage to his editor for the moment, Paige, and was texting Kaden about how he had thought the recording had went.

As always, the man on the other side of the screen was very positive about the situation, giving compliments where he could and keeping the tone of the conversation light. Albert, on the other hand, felt like something was wrong. He couldn't quite put a pin on what, but- something just felt, off. His thinking was suddenly interrupted by a "BREAKING NEWS!!" alert on his Television screen. Before the news could start, he messaged Kaden to turn on his T.V, just incase.

A pit formed in Albert's stomach as he watched a lady on the screen give the news that only fueled his worries. Apparently, glitches were starting to form in the real world, leaving people to slip through the ground, through walls/doors, or even have something phase through their hand whilst holding it. From what he had heard, people were trying to find ways to interact and recode the glitches, making people clip through the ground whenever wanted. Of course, this scared the everliving shit out of Albert, so he quickly called Kaden from his phone without notice.

When he picked up, for some reason, Kaden sounded excited about the glitches? It made sense though, Kaden was fascinated with computer science, something like this only evaluated his pink-haired friend's love for strange computer bugs and/or glitches. Something clicked with Albert just then, maybe specialists could hire Kaden to help find out the people who were currently capitalizing on this tragedy? He was already good with finding hackers and weeding them out from their Roblox servers, it would be just like this- but IRL.

Kaden was absolutely down for his idea! They talked about how Kaden should call the line for glitches and ask if they needed assistance, it would be so cool! He was going to have a friend who helped out with a major disaster, all because he was a huge nerd. When he worded it like that, though, it sounded mean. Nevertheless, he stayed on call with Kaden for about an hour more before sunrise just began to peek through. Albert's exhaustion was also beginning to catch up with him, and he decided to at least try to get a few hours of sleep in so he could hear all about Kadens new adventure tommorow.

~ ~ ~

It was daylight, and Albert still hadn't slept. For some reason, he couldn't stop thinking about the glitches, even after poking fun about them and trying to make up something positive out of an awful situation. He continued to think about the negatives; what if something bad happened to Kaden if he got the new job? What if one of the hackers targeted one of Albert's closest friends? What if they targeted him? Would the glitches go away? Would they be here forever? This was starting to make his head hurt, and the fact that he had 0 hours of sleep so far was even more agitating.

Finally, his eyelids began to flutter shut. He was so unbelievably tired, and the day ahead would, overall, end up being busy. When Albert drifted off into sleep, he could already sense the wake, but not his waking. He could feel a nightmare creeping in, this was definitely not going to be a peaceful slumber.

Chapter Text

When Albert opened his eyes, he was surrounded by darkness. Every turn he took, surrounded by what had felt and looked like the void. Given the floating sensation that surrounded him, and the feel of no gravity, it might as well have been. Albert lifted his hands to rub his eyes, to see if the darkness would go away. The darkness, the emptiness, made him uneasy, he felt alone because he *was* alone. No matter how many times he blinked, nothing colorful appeared before his eyes- not even his own hands. He noticed this after not being able to see them after taking them away from his-now irritated- eyes. He couldnt see his torso, he couldnt see his lower half. Where even was he?

His question was answered almost immediately, when everything around him went from eternal darkness to the brightest thing he'd ever seen. His own forearms attempted to cover his eyes to hide the blinding brightness, but when he actually lowered his arms, he seemed to be in some sort of alleyway. He noticed some of his friends infront of him, looking away from him; Kaden, Temprist, Jake, and Miles. Albert wanted so bad to reach out to them, to say something, to move, but he couldn't. He was stuck watching them, like some sort of virtual reality movie.

Suddenly, Kaden took a step forward. Up to this point, everything had seemed to have been paused. Like someone magically hit a button on a remote, everything started moving again. It took Albert only a second, to realize what he was seeing before him. When Kaden had taken a step forward, he tilted. Tilted as if his foot had sunken in to whatever he bad stepped in: a puddle. Although, it wasn't a puddle at all. By the looks of it, when Kaden slipped and fell into the endless, colorful yet dark glitched out void below, he didn't come back up.

Now Albert was suddenly able to move.

As if he had fallen on his knees, he was now part of the scene before him. He didn't have time to react, he suddenly stood up and rushed to the voided puddle in front of him, where a pink haired friend of his sunk slowly into the abyss. "KADEN!" Tears poured out of the distressed brunette, as he reached his arm into the void to try and grab one of his closest friends from their demise. It didn't work. Albert turned to the three people behind him, yelled and called out to them to help him get Kaden out of there. But, they just stared. Stared as if the pause button was pressed again. It was just him, him and Kaden. If it was going to be this way, Albert thought he might as well jump in with him. It made sense to.

With a deep breath, and one last look of the statues behind him, he dived into the endless puddle after his best friend. He sunk quickly, but the void around him glitched loudly in his ears. Shades of hot pink, cyan, deep blue, yellow, and greens surrounded him. This was much worse then the empty space he started with, as he could hear whispers of people around him aswell. This space absolutely mortified him; what if the whispers were the people who fell victim to these acts before them? Before Kaden- wait. Albert looked around, and to his dismay, could no longer catch any glimpse of curly pink hair.

Kaden was no longer there when Albert reached too far to attempt to head back up. He was too late. He jumped down in, but for what? He was all alone again. With a failed try to yell back up to his friends, corrupted air filled his body. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe and he was going to die all alone. Albert wrapped his arms aroudnd himself, cowering into a ball with only his end surrounding him. Albert shut his eyes tightly, tears flowing freely as the last things he heard were the whispers of hundreds of people.

Albert could have sworn he heard-

"Wake up."