Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The admin hub section of the Roblox HQ wasn’t loud, but it was never quiet either. Somewhere between the muted buzz of server diagnostics and the tap-tap of distant consoles, Dusekkar sat in his office which was customized to his liking. Shelves full of magic tomes lined the walls, though they were covered in dust. It had been too long since he last picked one up.

He rotated slightly in his office chair, glancing out the one sided window at the circular layout of the room. Admin offices lined the outer ring, each keypad glowing with soft colors depending on the user’s clearance. His own pulsed blue-violet—second highest tier. Just under Builderman.

He glanced back to his console at the list of usernames and sighed. The ban queue seemed to be neverending, but with a platform so big what's to be expected?

"You're stalling again."

The voice belonged to Mr. Doombringer, leaning against the doorframe to Dusekkar’s office. His crimson bucket hat seemed to stare right through him. “You’ve been reviewing the same appeal log for fifteen minutes. They cheated. They’re out.”

Without looking up, Dusekkar replied, “A dozen years, they built this base. Deserves more than a single case.”

Doombringer scoffed. “They duped UGC items using a script from 2017. That’s not a grey area, Dusekkar, that’s a full-blown exploit.”

“A rule’s a rule, I won’t contest. But mercy helps us clean the rest,”
Dusekkar answered coolly.

“There’s policy,” Doombringer snapped, straightening. “Builderman wants a clean sweep. Nostalgia doesn’t matter if the foundation’s rotted.”

Dusekkar’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. The number of worlds to be purged had nearly doubled overnight.

Down the hall, a low chime signaled another terminal override. An automated shutdown of a once-popular racing game from 2010. The place would be gone within minutes.

“That’s the fifth one today,” muttered Shedletsky as he passed behind them, cradling a tablet under one arm. He glanced at Dusekkar, tone more tired than accusatory. “Hey, you still heading the demolition supervision?”

Dusekkar nodded faintly.

“Then heads up—Taph’s your guy again. Same sector. Looks like he blew another fuse.”

“Another?” Doombringer’s eyebrow twitched.

“Walked away from it, apparently. Still cleared two dozen places before noon,” Shedletsky added, almost impressed.

Dusekkar pulled up the file without another word. Taph’s logs were dense—silent timestamps, clean deletions, unusual efficiency. And, as always, no written reports. Just a string of image files: structural schematics, post-blast craters, once-vibrant places reduced to ruin.

He stared at the screen, expression unreadable. No voice, no questions, no delays—just a mute engineer with a fondness for explosives doing the dirtiest work of all.

He paused, then opened the most recent activity logs. Red font blinked at the top of the page:

INCIDENT REPORT – DEVICE BACKFIRE.

The carvings on his pumpkin head shifted to one of worry.

“Didn’t he get blown up two weeks ago dismantling that obby graveyard?” Mr Doombringer mumbled, not even pretending to care as he leaned over Dusekkar’s chair.

“Mm,” Dusekkar murmured. “Builderman reinstated him with speed. Said Taph was still the best, indeed.”

“Of course he did. That guy has a demolition kink.” Shedletsky chuckled at his own joke.

Dusekkar shot him a look. Shedletsky raised his hands in surrender and drifted back to his workspace.

Doombringer stood straight and stepped out of Dusekkar’s office, throwing a curt, “No more stalling.”

The screen updated again. A short burst of server pings showed Taph was back online, back at work. As if nothing had happened.

He sighed, swiping the report alert open. The footage loaded: static-ridden bodycam, thick smoke then a flash. Taph’s figure stumbled out of the debris seconds later, covered in dust and glowing embers, cloak shredded along the left side—but alive. Not even limping.

Below the video feed was a report, blank as ever. No complaint, no injury log. Just the usual code-snippet Taph left behind: a timestamp, a diagnostic, and a doodle in ASCII of a thumbs-up.

“Burned again,” Dusekkar murmured, “and back at play… he’ll make it to his grave that way.”

He tapped a button and opened a secure chat comm.

“Field agent Taph, report your frame—
I heard your work got touched by flame.
Your logs are fine, your vitals clean…
But slow your pace, you bomb machine.”

No reply came, but a file pinged his inbox moments later: a fresh demolition schedule, annotated in Taph’s usual minimalist shorthand; just symbols, coordinates, and emojis.

Dusekkar stared at it.

“Taph’s survived his own designs… yet still he crafts new landmines.”

He rose from his seat, after reading a transfer document, signing off on supervision protocol: ‘High-risk demolition: observation required. Assigned: Dusekkar.’

Dusekkar exited through the sliding glass doors into the admin’s private corridor, his boots echoing across the glossy clean floors.

He wasn’t sure what bothered him more—the accident, or the fact that Builderman had let Taph continue without question.

—

Ash still clung to the sleeve of his jacket.

Taph barely noticed. He crouched at the edge of a collapsed foundation, brush in hand, sweeping a loose pile of debris aside like a careful archaeologist. He adjusted the position of a cylindrical charge with gloved hands and tapped the timer with a short burst from his multi-tool. The LED glowed green. Armed.

The blast radius was perfect. It always was.

Around him, the skeleton of what used to be a bustling tycoon game sagged in quiet defeat. Rusted cash registers, worn spawn pads, floating remnants of unanchored builds. All the leftovers of an economy game that hadn’t seen real players since 2015. This was what he did. Place by place. Day by day.

He stood, flicking dust off his chest. His limbs ached slightly, but the burns were gone, patched up himself without needing a respawn. If anything, he was annoyed he’d missed a full thirty minutes of work.

Efficiency was everything. That’s what helped him keep the job, he knew this.

His boots left shallow prints in the ash as he walked back to his rig. It sat at the edge of the site, half–vehicle, half–workbench, bristling with wires, charges, pliers, cooling units, and things only he could understand. The main monitor displayed a blinking list of scheduled demolitions. There were twelve left for the afternoon shift.

He smiled—well, internally. Outwardly he just nodded once and pressed a button.

BOOM

The old tycoon crumbled in a plume of dust. No fanfare. Just a poof of history, gone. The only thing left: a small “✔” next to the game ID on his screen.

Taph didn’t mourn. He used to—back when he’d just started. But then the numbers stacked up. Fifty worlds a week. A hundred. Two hundred. Emotions became inefficient. Still, some demolitions felt heavier than others.

He made a quick detour before moving to the next site. Not protocol, but nobody stopped him. He opened a storage panel in the front of the truck and withdrew a battered, once-blue binder. The front read:

“Builderman’s Signature Schematics – Issue #1 (Pre-UGC)”

Taph sat on the rig’s rear platform, legs dangling. He flipped the pages with delicate care. Old builds, hand-drawn. Diagrams. Physics notes. The very foundation of Roblox’s design language. All signed “–B.”

He remembered one day Builderman was supervising a demolition when he first started. Builderman himself had handed this to him. Said: “Every good demolisher understands what they’re breaking.”

He’d never forgotten that.

Taph leaned back and let his gaze drift to the sky dome above—the sun pulsing gently above. It never rained here. Never night. By design.

He looked down again. In the corner of the next blueprint was a quick scribble, a note from Builderman:

“This obby didn’t survive beta. Too unstable. But I liked its ambition.”

Taph paused on that word. Ambition.

Once, he had it too. Not for promotion. Not even for praise. Just the chance to build… before they noticed he was better at tearing things down.

He glanced across the ash-covered site, then reached into his toolbelt and pulled out a marker. Right next to Builderman’s note, he drew a tiny stick figure holding a detonator with a speech bubble: “oops”.

Then he closed the binder and carefully set it back in its case.

As he turned to leave, a flicker of movement caught his eye. Far off, at the edge of the job site, a shadow zipped behind a crumbling signpost. Taph stiffened, tilting his head.

No movement.

He equipped a visor and scanned the site: nothing. Heat signatures: nothing. Sound sensors: silent.

He waited ten seconds longer.

Still nothing.

Just nerves, maybe.

He climbed back into the truck and pulled up the next location on the screen. His gloved finger hovered over the “Deploy” button—until his screen pinged.

INCOMING SUPERVISION PROTOCOL
Assigned Overseer: DUSEKKAR
ETA: 2 minutes

Taph blinked once.

Then twice.

He groaned internally, leaned back, and slumped down in his chair, arms draped loosely over the sides. Of all people. The rhyming one.

He wasn't upset about the fact it was Dusekkar coming to monitor him, no. The pumpkin wizard understood him the most out of everyone on the admin team. He was just annoyed that he had to be babysat when he was doing just fine.

A strange buzz fluttered in his chest, and he wasn’t sure if it was dread or curiosity.

Either way, the demolitionist was no longer alone.

—

A faint hum announced Dusekkar’s arrival. His teleport signature always sounded like pages flipping in a gust of wind. The air shimmered, then he stepped into the clearing, boots crunching softly on loose rubble.

Taph was already standing, arms folded, visor lifted slightly above his brow. He didn’t salute—he wasn’t military. But he gave a short nod.

Dusekkar scanned the demolition site before speaking.

“Still warm, I see, the ground below. You work fast—too fast, I’d say so.”

Taph raised an eyebrow. His posture shifted slightly, annoyed. He turned and motioned to the remaining ruins, then tapped a screen on his rig. A perfect chart of blast vectors, debris spread, and core support collapse. Every line of data is silent proof of a flawless takedown.

Dusekkar approached and examined the readout.

“A perfect burst, with no delay. You treat collapse like child’s play.”

Taph gave a faint shrug.

Dusekkar circled the impact zone, the trails of scorched metal, the smooth implosion of the central structure.

“No voice, no notes… yet clear intent. A quiet storm, destruction bent.”

Taph tilted his head and stared at him with tired eyes that said: Are you going to talk like that all day?

Dusekkar caught the look though his hooded hidden face. He chuckled softly, and his next words—just this once—came out straight.

“Only when things are light.”

Then back to rhyme.

“Should danger rise or systems fail, I drop the verse and clear the trail.”

Taph blinked once. He didn’t smile, but his shoulders relaxed just a bit.

Dusekkar moved toward the demolition rig, scanning its strange attachments—homemade detonators and repurposed gear parts welded into custom mounts.

“...You built this all yourself? Each cog and bolt, each tool and shelf?”

Taph gave a modest nod, then flicked a small switch—deploying a scanner that mapped the area in 3D. The next site was auto-loading, marked in red on the digital topography.

Dusekkar peered over his shoulder.

“The next one is that player mall… Old showcase map. I liked that hall.”

He sighed, quieter now.

“That place had art. Some soul, at least. Before the stock ads killed the feast.”

Taph glanced at him briefly.

A rare thing—an admin who remembered builds for their feeling.

He turned back to the workbench and quickly closed up, pulling a lever that folded the whole thing together. He opened the passenger’s side door and turned back to Dusekkar silently as he got in before moving to the driver’s side and starting the engine.

The two walked together across the landscape—one silent, one singing in couplets.

When they reached the edge of the old showcase world, Dusekkar spoke—quietly, thoughtfully.

“Builderman told me once, long past:
‘Some things aren’t meant forever to last.’
But still I wonder, Taph, do you…
ever wish to build, not just undo?”

Taph didn’t respond. But his hand tightened slightly on the detonator.

The blast echoed a minute later, it was near perfect. Clean, powerful, balanced. Like it had been choreographed by an artist.

As dust settled, the two figures stood watching, cloaked in the ashfall.

No words were spoken.

The showcase world was quick to be taken down, it was a small build of a house, quite cozy. So small, it required less explosives than the usual Taph would use.

—

Not much conversation happened between the two, only short comments from Dusekkar from time to time, but even that was limited.

By the time Taph had finished the demolition report in his truck, Dusekkar had already returned back to HQ. He glanced at the cratered earth and a final check of the structural logs before leaving. His boots scuffed faint ash trails down the hall as he made his way to the edge of HQ, past the server cores and into the forgotten wing where only he wandered. He needed quiet. Not to rest—he never really did—but to rebuild, tinker, and maybe make sense of the noise in his head.

Taph’s private workshop wasn’t exactly within regulation bounds. It sat a little too close to the HQ’s outer energy perimeter, buried behind outdated dev suites and half-abandoned tech storage. No one questioned it, because no one else could even enter it without triggering a failsafe. He’d coded it that way.

The interior would’ve looked chaotic to anyone else that wasn’t Taph. Every wire, gear, pressure switch, and timer had its place. Most of it was soldered, patched, or reassembled from long-retired Roblox assets. Posters lined the walls: old game badges, worn-out adverts from 2009, and at the center, Builderman, captured mid-wave, from the original welcome screen.

The only light came from monitors and the steady pulse of a plasma core he was tinkering with. Sparks hissed quietly. A half-melted boot sat beside it—his own, scorched from earlier. He hadn’t changed yet.

Taph sat back in his swivel chair and stretched his fingers.

He still remembers the first time he entered HQ.

Builderman had been waiting in the elevator.

Not a cutscene. Not an admin. Just a person.

He’d said: “You’re the one who made that miniature collapse physics demo, right? You’ve got real potential, kid.”

Taph had nodded, completely mute, heart hammering.

Builderman smiled.

“We power imagination here. Think big—and if it breaks, blow it up and start over.”

He lived by that ever since.

He once admired the man so much it blurred into something… parasocial. Maybe even romantic. But he wasn’t that naive anymore. He knew now that Builderman was kind, yes—but busy, buried under weight. Too many things to manage, too many voices trying to steer the ship. Taph wasn’t even sure he remembered that elevator.

He sighed and turned to the small LCD where a paused frame of Dusekkar hovered, captured earlier from a bodycam feed. Pumpkin grin, cloaked shoulders, standing in smoke.

Taph narrowed his eyes.

He didn’t know Dusekkar, but there was something about him. The way he watched things, not just oversaw them. How he spoke in rhyme, like he needed a filter or ritual to process the world properly. Like words mattered.

Taph drummed his fingers on the table.

Did he like him?

No. Maybe.

He wasn’t sure.

But he hadn’t stopped thinking about him.

He uploaded his overall daily demolition report, then hesitated. His usual system note: a thumbs-up, simple emoji, harmless… felt too plain.

Instead, he added something extra. A schematic for a new type of blast rig he had sketched just now.

He stared at it for a moment.

Then sent it to Dusekkar’s inbox.

Chapter Text

Taph stared at the world from the hillside overlooking the ruins of a guest roleplay hangout.

He’d been here before. Years ago. Hundreds of servers ago. It was always the same layout: a toybox suburban neighborhood, pastel fences and oversized mailboxes. The same copied and pasted free model houses. A central plaza ringed with neon signs and multiple spawn zones, playgrounds cobbled together from multiple free models, half-functioning shops with glitched emotes, giant text bubbles permanently frozen above NPCs. Everything had the washed-out look of early Robloxia. A safe place.

Guests used to spawn there in droves, each one a blank avatar with a number. Back when he was just another silent name in a server full of strangers. This place used to be full of quiet laughter and joy. Guests with blank avatars running wild in free-mode emotes. No chat. No premium. Just unspoken play.

And now, it was his job to erase it.

He stood at the edge of the old roleplay map, hands in his pockets, visor pulled back onto the side of his head like a hat he wasn’t ready to wear properly. The skybox above looped a pixelated sunset, eternally paused in a golden hour.

“Guest Grove,” the title screen had said.

No combat. No leaderboard. Just emotes, pretend families, and the unspoken rule of friendliness.

Taph wandered the world before setting anything. Just past a faded spawn square, an NPC stood idle by the main centre fountain—Guest_8372, still coded to greet newcomers.

He tapped it.

“Welcome, friend! You don’t need words to have fun :)”

The text bubble floated for a second too long, as if waiting for a reply that would never come.
Taph stared at it longer than he should have.

He hadn’t been a guest. Not technically. But he might as well have been. He’d never used chat back then. Couldn’t. His whole time on Roblox had been soundless, wordless. But he remembered them—guests—shy, quick to follow players around. Quick to leave.

Like him.

Guests didn’t exist anymore. He didn’t know why. One update, they were just... gone. Removed, rewritten, deprecated into memory. But he remembered them. Silent avatars, always wandering. Always watching. And he remembered how, as a mute player, they were the only ones he felt kind of close to. Nobody expected them to speak. Nobody questioned their silence.

Taph walked the main road slowly. Dust kicked up at his boots. Every few meters he passed a static NPC—frozen in looped animations: waving, sitting, dancing, talking to no one. Most of their dialogue boxes were blank now. Whatever memory script they’d relied on had long since decayed.

It was quiet here. Quiet in the way only dead games were. The air was still. Floating particles of dust and unmoving clouds overhead.

Taph took a slow step onward.

He passed a bench with an NPC guest sitting on it. Its face was blank, arms posed like it was mid-conversation.

Next to the NPC was a message bubble: "Thanks for playing with me. :)"

His hands hovered over the console at his side. He could rig the place for collapse in seconds. But he didn’t.

Behind him, a quiet warp shimmered. Dusekkar’s teleport signature blew across the field like a soft wind—paper-thin and rustling.

“This world was made for those cast out,”
Dusekkar murmured, looking around.
“No voice, no tags… yet full of shout.
They never stayed, yet they were proud.”

Taph didn’t respond. Just glanced at him.

Dusekkar’s tone dropped slightly, more somber.

“I wrote their walk scripts. Modeled their run.
It wasn’t much, but… it let them have fun.
Now Builderman says to wipe the slate.
Orders are orders. No room for debate.”

He didn’t sound angry. But he didn’t sound fine, either.

Taph stared ahead. His thumb twitched over the control.

They stood in silence for a long time.

“Do what you must.”

Dusekkar didn’t say anything more. He tapped his staff to the floor, then vanished in a wind-shaped shimmer. No rhyme. No goodbye.
He vanished, as gently as he came.

Taph stood alone.

The soundtrack kicked in after a beat.

Old lobby music. That classic loop. Whimsical and empty. He didn’t know if it was a glitch or intentional. Either way, it made his chest feel heavier.

He turned back to the NPC on the bench.

"We had fun here. Thank you for playing. Even if you don’t remember us, we remember you."

Taph stared at the message. It changed. The screen glitched once, briefly flickering a different username.

J__D

But only for a second.

When he blinked, it was gone.

He turned around fast to look at his surroundings.

Nothing.

The edge of the map wavered slightly—just loading fog. Probably a visual effect. Probably.

He checked the player list. No players. No intrusions.
Maybe it was a memory. Or stress. Or the smoke from yesterday’s blast still in his lungs.

Still...

He placed the charges slower this time. Not from hesitation—but reverence. One on the old playground. One near the fountain. One under the main road where guests used to dance. Each one sealed with care, hands steady.

Then, without fanfare, he pulled the trigger.

And Guest Grove collapsed.

The world collapsed quietly—no massive explosion, no glamour. It folded in on itself, like a memory being tucked away.

Taph watched until it was gone.

—

His house was quiet.

The moment he stepped into his home, he threw his gloves off and sank into his desk chair.

The same chair where he’d once studied blueprints.

Where he’d once dreamed about builds.

He drafted the final report, flagged it for Builderman’s review, then hesitated.

He added a line:

"Completed the “Guest Grove” erasure. But… are we doing the right thing? Some of these places… they feel alive."

He stared at the cursor blinking.

He deleted the last sentence. Then retyped it. Then deleted it again.

He sent the report without the previous last comments.

A reply came instantly.

“Understood. Good work. Please continue with next assignment.”

No signature.

Not even a “thank you.”

Taph stared at it.

The Builderman he remembered said, “We power imagination.”

But that man didn’t respond.

And for the first time in a long time, Taph felt something break a little.

Not loud. Not sudden.

Just quietly.

Like a guest logging out.

Taph leaned back and looked at the paused frame on his second screen again—Dusekkar in ash and static. He’d forgotten to close that tab on his console since yesterday.

Something about it felt more honest than anything else in the whole day.

Chapter Text

The archive wing of Roblox HQ was colder than the rest of the building—not in temperature, but in feeling. It didn’t hum with the quiet automation of the server floors or pulse with the bright lights of development labs. It was still. Hollow. Like the room itself knew its contents were already half-erased. Rows upon rows of drives and databanks stored every deprecated file Builderman hadn’t yet ordered purged. A place for myths, outdated assets, revoked badges, corrupted templates, scrapped features. A place for ghosts.

Dusekkar stepped inside quietly, staff in hand, scarf trailing behind him in soft rustles. The doors sealed shut with a faint hiss. While his head emitted a soft yellow glow of light from within the pumpkin, his staff glowed faintly at the tip—not for show, but to guide him. Light spells were one of the first he’d learned back when magic had still meant something here.

His boots clicked across the floor until he reached a narrow terminal on the far wall. A login glyph shimmered as he approached, recognizing his clearance. Second highest tier. Just under Builderman.

He didn’t sit. He never sat in here.

With a slow hand, he activated the panel. Files scrolled across the screen in a stuttering blur—familiar names, old entries. He paused at one:

[GUEST_HANGOUT_CORE/BackupInstance01]

Dusekkar stared at it.
His carved pumpkin face flickered softly in the dim reflection of the console.

He didn’t press it.

Instead, he set his staff down and sat against the nearby wall of data columns. Letting the soft hum of the files sink in.

The world Taph had destroyed yesterday was gone from the platform—but not from here. Backup copies sat in the archive like relics awaiting final judgment.

That was one of the last functioning saves of the Guest Grove map. Builderman had ordered the entire tree purged—scripts, backups, linked NPCs. Doombringer had made sure of it. Claimed it was “removing security liabilities.” Dusekkar knew better.

This wasn’t cleanup.

It was forgetting.

He tapped the file open, letting it expand into 3D preview mode. The fountain loaded first, then the looping sunset sky. The playground came next, half-sunk into the terrain, shadows unmoving.

Static NPCs flickered into view, frozen mid-wave.

He remembered helping build their idle animations. Guest_1094 had trouble looping correctly—he’d fixed it himself by adjusting her root offset and giving her a laugh emote. It was minor, but she’d spun in a little circle. The dev team laughed. He’d kept it.

He minimized the preview and sighed.

The deletion command blinked at the bottom of the terminal.

But Dusekkar couldn’t do it. Not yet.

He reached into the folds of his cloak and pulled out an old badge. A little scratched. “Admin Induction Class of ’06” it read.

Back then, he had joined the team with fire in his chest and books on his back. A mage among scripters, convinced his old-world training could push Roblox’s systems into something new—mystical, elegant, expansive. Magic wasn’t just an aesthetic to him. It was structure, intent, emotion manifest. Spells weren’t unlike scripts—they were both instructions, after all.

But over time, the platform changed.

Updates became quarterly mandates. History was flattened. Myths—users with strange powers and stranger reputations—were banned or erased. And though Dusekkar never called himself a myth, people lumped him in anyway.

Maybe because he still spoke in verse. Maybe because he refused to modernize his loadout. Or because he was a magic user.

Magic was closely tied to myths—not directly, they were still completely different things. It's just that some Robloxians that used magic became myths but not all Robloxians that use magic become myths. Still, the association stuck.

He looked back to the file.

“Too quiet now,” he whispered. “Far too still… And yet I lack the strength to kill.”

His hand dropped back to his side. His other hand curled around the top of his staff. It had been a long time since he’d really thought about what magic meant to him. Since the earliest days, he'd studied Robloxia’s arcane logic—spawn anchors, metadata glyphs, the kinds of scripting that shimmered like spellwork when you knew what you were looking for.

Magic was memory. It tied things together.

But even now, it didn’t matter.

Even now, with all he’d built, he was just a file away from being overwritten himself.

He shut the file.

Someone else would delete it eventually. Whether he did it or not, it was Builderman’s orders.

He rose, staff in hand, and exited the archive with his head lowered—passing the silent histories like tombstones.

The lights dimmed slightly behind him as he walked out of the archive wing, scarf trailing like smoke.

He passed a display case tucked near the exit—one that most admins had stopped noticing. Inside was a faded poster from 2015, laminated behind glass.

“Powering Imagination.”

He stopped for a beat.

His pumpkin head illuminating the dust ridden poster.

Then kept walking.

—

Outside the archive wing, the halls of Roblox HQ stretched quiet and hollow. The kind of quiet only found after-hours—when the programmers had logged out, the dev meetings had ended, and even the vending machines had stopped humming. The world felt paused, the way an old server freezes when the last player leaves.

Dusekkar walked with no real destination in mind. His staff tapped softly against the tile floor, echoing faintly down the corridor. He let his mind drift.

There had been a time when the HQ felt alive to him—thrumming with ideas, alive with creation. Teams bouncing prototypes off each other. Magic engineers like himself being asked for feedback on map layering or emotional anchors. Now it was mostly quarterly reports and removal requests. He signed off on more terminations than project launches.

And lately, it was always legacy content on the chopping block.

Sometimes it felt like they weren’t building Roblox anymore—just pruning it into something unrecognizable.

He turned a corner and ahead was Taph.

The demolitionist stepped out from the workshop lift, his cloak was still burnt along the edges from the last incident report—It hadn’t been fixed. Grease on his gloves. Tired, but not sluggish. His boots left faint prints on the polished floor, dust from whatever site he’d just returned from. There was a smear of ash across the side of his bandana mask. His visor was off, clipped to his hip. Without it, he looked—Dusekkar wasn’t sure.

Softer, maybe. Less shielded.

Dusekkar raised a hand.

“Evening,” he said, his voice more casual than usual—less poetic, less performative.
“I was about to go breathe something that isn’t server dust.”

Taph gave him a sidelong look. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t walk away either.

Dusekkar tilted his staff slightly over his shoulder.
“A prototype lies in archive's care,
A Builderman build—forgotten, rare.
Untouched since twenty-ten, still whole,
Before this place had lost its soul.
They’ll purge it soon, that’s what they say…
Thought I’d visit, ‘fore it fades away.”

Taph tilted his head a little, curious.

Dusekkar hesitated. Then added, “Want to come with me? Before it’s gone?”

There was a pause.

Then Taph shrugged, just a little. Not dismissively—just neutral. Accepting.

Dusekkar nodded and opened his console. Cool blues replaced the usual whites. The transporter gate flickered to life at Dusekkar’s command. Coordinates shimmered across the interface: LEGACY_STORAGE/BUILDER_EVENT_A_2010_LOCKED.

“It never passed the alpha test,
Just sat in wait like all the rest.
The jumps were floaty, slippery too—
Back when we hadn’t patched it through.”

He held onto Taph’s arm gently as they were teleported.

They landed with a soft thud.

The world that met them on the other side wasn’t like anything in modern Roblox.

They arrived on a floating island, suspended high above a static sky. The sky above them was a solid JPEG, dark blue with blurry purple clouds tiled across the horizon. The air had that unmistakable early-game feel: clean, weightless, empty. The lighting was flat. No shadows. No post-processing. Just blocks and space. The terrain was jagged, polygonal, clearly hand-built, with no smoothing plugins

In the center sat a monolithic arena of brick and concrete, untouched. Above them, a massive stone arch marked the spawn zone. Old billboard signs still hovered on invisible anchors. One read: “Welcome to the Voidstar Trials!”

Another, cracked at the edges: “Winner Gets the Star. Don’t Fall.”

No music.

Just wind.

Taph stepped forward slowly, boots crunching on the imperfect collision of the grass parts. His head tilted, scanning the horizon. The trees with circular tops that seemed to float. Mountains made of just simple rectangles. The old UI interface that was ever so pixelated.

This wasn’t nostalgia.

It was a fossilized memory.

Taph turned to look at Dusekkar, brows slightly raised.

Dusekkar gave a shrug and a soft smile, his tone distant.

“An event once planned, but never played,
A gauntlet map the admins had made.
Climb, duel, and puzzle through the fray—
To win the Voidstar, if you’d stay.
But Noli came, and seized the prize,
And vanished into glitched-out skies.”

Taph looked up at him in curiosity.

“Noli is gone,” Dusekkar said quickly,
“Snuffed out in ‘12—or ‘13, though
It shifts depending who you ask.
His cults still rise behind a mask.
Builderman scrubbed his code from view—
No assets left to slip on through.”

He brushed a cracked decal in place,
Its image dulled, its script erased.

“The loss, it broke the dev team’s drive.
The project didn’t stay alive.
Builderman shelved it—called it cursed.
The backup’s sealed, unrehearsed.”

They walked forward slowly. The floating island was filled with old obstacle course segments; lava bricks, disappearing platforms, boulders that would fall from the sky and knock you off path. At the far end, a ruined temple stood.

Dusekkar offered his hand to Taph as he raised his staff, pointed towards the temple, flickering with blue electricity.

Taph took it, unsure what to expect. The two floated upwards towards the temple, skipping the challenges originally meant for players that were now too broken and unsafe to traverse.

Dusekkar looked down at Taph as they flew, worried he may have frightened the demolitionist from flying without warning.

Taph looked content, didn’t even grasp his arm in fear like how a usual Robloxian would if they were to be randomly picked up into the air. In fact, he even looked down at the shrinking ground level below as they ascended, his other hand holding his hood in place to prevent it from flying off.

They landed gently on the Temple Island with ease.
The Voidstar model was gone from the pedestal, but the display script was still faintly running—a flickering light hovering above the stand where it once was.

No music played. Just the sound of wind and flickering scripts failing to loop.

Taph stepped beside the pedestal and looked up at the fractured ceiling. Moss-colored bricks jutted from unfinished seams. It didn’t feel haunted—but it did feel left behind.

Dusekkar glanced over at him.
“I once had dreams to see this mend,
With lore and locks and quests to send.
Blueprints filled with magic’s thread…
But Builderman scrapped it all instead.”

Taph crouched near the pedestal and brushed away some of the dust. The corner of his glove caught an old decal—half-erased, but still readable: Built with imagination.

“...Taph,” Dusekkar said gently. “You know, I’ve been reading your blueprint sketches.”

Taph tilted his head.

“The ones you send with safety notes—
I’ve read each line, all thoughts and quotes.
Some are jokes, I see the play…
But some could launch a game someday.”

Taph blinked, then straightened up a little. He scratched the back of his head, not quite sure what to say. He had forgotten about those, it had become a habit to send little snippets of ideas he had, he was sure it wasn’t being seen anyways.

Dusekkar spoke again, voice quieter now,
“I sometimes forget, but it’s always true—
There’s art in the wreckage left by you.
Each blast you set, each wall you bend,
Builds something new by journey’s end.”

Taph looked at him properly this time.

Taph shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal.

But it was. The faint twitch at his fingers said it was.

“I used to dream we’d build as one…But now that dream’s come all undone.”
Dusekkar murmured, almost to himself.

He looked out over the floating expanse. Lights shimmered from ancient nodes in the sky, flickering like stars that were never meant to be saved.

They stood there for a while.

Just two ghosts in a map that never got to live.

Taph wandered toward the edge of the floating temple and sat down, his legs dangling over the edge. Surveying the map like a spectator.

Dusekkar followed him more slowly, his staff dragging gently behind when he took a seat next to him.

“🌐⛓️‍💥(It’s broken),” Taph finally raised his hands to sign, quiet, but clear.

Dusekkar blinked.

Taph gestured at the world, he wanted to talk more in specifics but he couldn’t put it into words that would make sense. His hands laid in his lap in a frustrated manner.

Dusekkar chuckled. “It was never finished. But... yeah. It’s broken now.”

They stood there together for a while, overlooking the half-finished battlefield. The arena and obstacle course shimmered faintly under the old lighting engine, corners glitching when they moved too fast.

Taph pulled a folded blueprint from his toolbelt—one of his own designs, smudged with graphite and ash—and offered it silently.

Dusekkar blinked again, surprised. “A sketch of yours? Could it be true? A bridge of code born straight from you?”

Taph just nodded.

Dusekkar unrolled it carefully, inspecting the details. A gear design featuring a reinforced square frame holding a spiked core within it. The sketches were crude, but the logic was sharp.

“You’ve kept creating, stroke by stroke.
Designs still drawn through ash and smoke.”

Taph nodded once more.

Dusekkar rolled the blueprint back up and held it with both hands, expression unreadable.

“Builderman won’t spare a glance.
Won’t see the spark, won’t take the chance?”

Taph didn’t answer.

Dusekkar didn’t need him to.

He tucked the blueprint into his cloak.

“We’ll go over this properly later. You have talent.”

Taph blinked. Something like disbelief flickered behind his eyes. But he didn’t stop him.

They stood there for another long minute in silence.
Two figures on an abandoned server, staring into a place that never was.

Chapter Text

Taph adjusted his toolbelt, brushed a smudge of soot from his bandana, and pushed open the double doors with a sigh of relief.

Finally. Lunch.

The smell of fake cheese and slightly burnt dough hit Taph the moment he stepped into Builder Brothers’ Pizza.

The restaurant buzzed with lunch rush customers. He wiped a streak of soot from his glove onto the back of his jacket. He hadn’t changed out of his demolition gear—his cloak still a little frayed at the hem.

The interior looked just like it did years ago: garish red booths, sticky floors, and the same menu hanging above the register.

A young Robloxian was manning the cash register. They had a pizza badge that read:
“Hi! I’m Elliot.”

Elliot blinked at Taph’s scorched clothing, clearly unsure if he was a customer or a walking safety hazard.

“Welcome to Builder Brothers!” he said proudly, his voice chipper. The cashier—young, freckled, uniform pressed to corporate shine—gave him a small wave. “What would you like to order?”

Taph raised his hands and signed, “☝️🍕(One pepperoni slice.)”

Elliot glanced at his hands, then up at the emojis that appeared in a chat bubble above Taph’s head, trying to decode it.

Taph looked up and pointed to the menu that hung above the cashier.

Elliot leaned over the counter and squinted up at the menu. “Right! One pepperoni slice,” he said quickly, tapping it into the register and handing over a receipt and order number.

Taph moved to sit by the window in one of the booths while Elliot rang up the order. The kitchen beyond was a flurry of motion—one cook dramatically flinging pepperoni into the air like he was on a cooking show. A worker from packaging waved a pizza cutter while yelling something unintelligible to a chef. Taph watched Elliot dash to the back kitchen to put out a small fire before scolding the entire room.

It was chaotic, but in that easy, harmless way most public servers were.

At least, until the lights flickered.

Then the sky outside turned solid red.

Taph did a double take.

Spooky Scary Skeletons replaced the calm music within the building.

Taph sat up slowly, the floor glitching once beneath his boots. The air felt... unstable. Patrons looked around in confusion, murmuring. There was no panic—yet.

Elliot ran back to the front counter, eyes scanning the room like he’d lost something.

The receipt printer began spewing paper nonstop. Each strip read:

“TEAM C00LKIDD JOIN TODAY!”

Elliot glanced down at the pile forming on the ground and groaned. “Not again…”

Does this normally happen?

Then came the crash from the kitchen. A fire—spreading fast.

Chefs fled into the dining area, one of them screaming, “FIRE!”

Another shouted, “The extinguisher isn’t working!”

Elliot shouted from the counter, his voice sharp and urgent, “Everyone out of the building!”

He sounded more annoyed than afraid.

As smoke billowed out and the interior began collapsing—like the parts had suddenly been unanchored—panic set in. Players screamed, running for the front doors, only to slam into an invisible barrier.

Taph tapped his comm, then made his way toward Elliot, who seemed to be holding what little order remained.

“🔧🏃–” he started signing, then stopped and picked up a pen and napkin left on the counter, scribbling quickly.

“An admin is coming.”

—

Soon enough a low hum filled the air.

Taph looked up just as a shimmer of pale blue light formed near the blocked entrance. Out stepped Dusekkar, with the familiar fresh gust of wind and sound of flickering pages.

His boots hit the floor with a soft clack. Staff in hand, cloak trailing behind him, and his glowing pumpkin head scanning the scene calmly.

The second he arrived, the flames froze.

Not extinguished. Just paused—like the game itself was holding its breath.

Dusekkar lifted his staff and swept the tip in a circle. A wave of glowing glyphs etched briefly into the air before vanishing. The barrier over the front door flickered, then shattered like glass.

“Exit’s clear,” he called calmly.

“Go, go!” Elliot shouted, immediately taking charge. “This way!”

Players rushed past them, no longer blocked, funneling out into the safety of the open parking lot. Some stopped to take screenshots before running again. One shouted, “YO WAS THAT THE REAL DUSEKKAR??” and vanished into the crowd.

Elliot turned back, breathless. “I—I didn’t know it was that kind of admin call.”

Taph gave a thumbs-up as he helped guide out a straggling player with a still-burning hair accessory.

Dusekkar stepped toward the ruined kitchen, inspecting the fire frozen in time. His tone shifted as he muttered, mostly to himself:

“A hack too sloppy, no true finesse,
C00lkidd’s code, I must confess.
Too many tags, too loud, too brash—
A prank, not malice—just noisy trash.”

He swung his staff and aimed it towards the paused flames. A pulse of mist swept through the kitchen, extinguishing it.

The fire disappeared. The smoke blinked away.

Dusekkar then scrolled through the player list swiftly and teleported the obvious culprit. A pre-teen with red skin wearing a matching off-shade red with the text plastered on it, “team c00lkid join today!”. The same phrase that remained plastered all over the pizzeria.

“Hey! Hey, wait—wait—Dusekkar, don’t ban him!”
Someone shouted and rushed into the dining room.

He wore a blue button up, yellow tie, pink glasses, and… a burger on his head? what?

Taph and Elliot both turned toward him.

Dusekkar paused, staff lowered, and gave a quiet nod to acknowledge the intruder.

The man held up his hands, palms forward. “He didn’t mean it. I swear. Kid got into my dev console while I was AFK. Didn’t even know what half the scripts did. It was supposed to be a fake Halloween prank server. I didn’t think he’d sneak it into a live game.”

Taph gave him a flat stare.

Elliot crossed his arms and scoffed.

Dusekkar, voice even, stepped closer.
“A child’s misstep, perhaps it’s true—
But letting them near live code? That’s on you.
Server breach, asset fried…
Tell me, n7, should I let that slide?”

The man, 007n7, laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll lock my programs next time?”

Dusekkar was quiet for a beat. Then exhaled.
“The kid gets a warning—no ban in play,
But you earn a one-day suspension today.
A short punishment, just to be fair—
For leaving dev tools without proper care.”

007n7 saluted with mock seriousness. “Understood. Kid’s grounded for a month.”

C00lkidd’s whine was cut short as 007n7 grabbed him and left the world swiftly, clearly grateful to get off with a warning.

Elliot leaned on the counter, watching the whole exchange, eyes wide. “That was… insane. I’ve never seen an admin in person before…”

Dusekkar tapped a button on his console while giving his staff a swing. The server reset command pulsed through the interface, washing over the map like a wave. Server resetting was normal, but being able to server reset while keeping people inside was something never seen before. Or at least Taph and Elliot had never seen before. The world began slowly stitching itself back together. Tiles realigned. Props re-anchored. Even the oven dinged like nothing had happened. Calm music resumed. Players began spawning in as if nothing happened.

“Crisis averted,” he said, tone lighter now. “All chaos cleared. No hacks to be feared”

Taph signed, “🛠️✨(Nice work.)”

Elliot ran out from behind the counter, smiling wide. “Seriously, thank you both. That could’ve been a disaster. I owe you a dozen pizzas.”

Taph raised a brow.

“Free,” Elliot added quickly.

Dusekkar looked to Taph with a slight grin.
“Lunch break saved, it seems to me—
With bonus slices, cost: duty-free.”

Taph gave a small thumbs-up.

Elliot nodded, hands on hips. “I’ll box it up. You’ve earned it.”

As the pizza place reset to its bright, chaotic normalcy, Dusekkar leaned lightly on his staff and watched Taph relax into the nearest booth.

Taph turned to him in the booth and tilted his head before patting the table, inviting him to come sit.

Dusekkar eased into the seat across from Taph with practiced grace. His staff leaned beside him against the red booth’s edge, the carved symbols on it faintly losing its glow as he unhanded it. His cloak rustled softly as he sat, layered fabric folding neatly around him like it had done so a thousand times before.

The corner of the pizzeria they’d claimed was quieter now—reset music hummed overhead, the chaos of the earlier incident wiped clean as though it had never happened. Kitchen workers were reloading props, floors were restabilized, and new players began reappearing at spawn, blissfully unaware.

Taph adjusted his seat and reached up to re-tie his bandana before gently removing his gloves and setting it on the side of the table.

Dusekkar gave a gentle smile. That same quiet, welcoming smile he always wore in the field, soothing, steadying, cute—but the flicker inside his pumpkin was not quite right. Subtle.

Taph noticed it out of the corner of his eye as he wiped a soot stain from his glove. Dusekkar’s gaze was on him, posture easy, but… there was a weariness behind the light. Like someone trying to hold a gentle expression after hours of holding up the sky.

The pumpkin glow that lit his head from within normally radiated with a steady pulse. Now, it faltered every so often—a soft dim and re-glow, like a heartbeat skipping a note. It was subtle. But Taph had been watching Dusekkar long enough to tell.

The demolitionist said nothing, opting instead to pick at a stray thread on the sleeve of his cloak.

“I take it,” Dusekkar began, voice low but warm, “that cloak has seen brighter days?”

Taph looked down at his frayed hem, the left side mostly scorched and torn at the ends, he looked like he just climbed out of a volcano’s lava pool.

He shrugged, giving a short, almost sheepish smile. His hands raised briefly before stopping.

Then he signed, slowly: “🧥🤷‍♂️👍(Cloak’s fine.)”

Dusekkar chuckled—a low sound like leaves crunching under boot. “Fine enough for battle, perhaps,” he mused, “but not for charm.”

Taph smiled again, but he didn’t respond. He knew if he hadn’t said it was fine, Dusekkar would probably try to repair it himself between whatever a thousand other duties he was juggling. And somehow, that felt worse than just wearing a ruined cloak.

There was a moment of quiet between them. Not awkward, not strained. Just quiet.

Taph stared at the staff propped beside Dusekkar, carved details one could only see up close. The flickering in the admin’s headlight glow caught his attention once more.

He thought of asking.

Are you okay?

But the question stuck like ash in his throat.

Instead, he shifted slightly and looked out the window.

Chapter Text

The roundtable center of the admin hub had once been a place of creative thunder: rapid-fire pitch meetings, update debates, build demos projected on every wall. Now, it was quiet. Blue monitors glowed along the walls, casting long shadows across the table’s polished surface.

Doombringer stood by the board that had a screen projected onto it, using a remote to tap through flagged reports at a pace that suggested he wasn’t reading them—just collecting numbers to reinforce his next argument.

“I’m telling you,” he said, tone clipped, “we’ve gotten lax. The last rollback wasn’t even properly mirrored. Half the flagged accounts slipped through for days. If this were 2013, they’d have been banned before breakfast.”

Brighteyes stirred her coffee without looking up. “Maybe that’s the problem. It’s not 2013 anymore.”

She had her tablet to the side on a stand as she scrolled through advertising metrics and ROI graphs. Her nail tapped rhythmically against the side of her tablet.

“User engagement’s slipping again,” she muttered, mostly to herself, as if trying to ignore Doombringer’s usual ranting.

“Just run another classic event thing,” Shedletsky quipped from across the table, feet up on the table. “Add some VHS filter to it. Tell ‘em it’s from ‘the vault.’ Bonus points if we make up some tragic dev backstory.”

Brighteyes didn’t even look at him. “You’re not in marketing anymore.”

“Doesn’t mean I forgot how to lie creatively.”

“John.”

“Alright, alright.” He sat up and stretched. “But if I see one more neon obby monetized with ten mid-rolls and called retro, I’m gonna personally start banning genre tags.”

“You’re the one who added Skibidi Toilet Tower Defense to the classic event.” Brighteyes deadpanned.

“It was a joke!” Shedletsky scoffed with a smirk.

Doombringer, arms folded and perfectly still, interjected without turning his head. “The problem isn’t marketing. It’s moderation. Too much old junk words are bleeding onto the frontpage recommendations. Maps with unsecured scripts. Old gear files marked deprecated. It’s a risk.”

“It’s not all junk,” Clockwork said, his arms on the table. “Some of it’s worth keeping.”

“Some of it’s a liability. That’s why we have edgelords using gear exploits in sponsored maps,” Doombringer snapped. “We don’t need more leniency—we need tighter firewalls and faster purges.”

Brighteyes glanced over her stats again. “Well, either way, we’re supposed to be pruning down storage today.”

Builderman had announced a thirty percent reduction in legacy files before the next quarter in their last meeting.

That’s when her eyes landed on Dusekkar, who had entered quietly a moment ago.

“You were in the archive wing last night, right?”

Dusekkar remained near the door, staff in hand.

“Yes,” he said, his voice as even as ever. “The Grove remains in solitude. Its files untouched, its scripts still true. I paused the purge. It warrants review.”

Doombringer’s brow twitched. “We gave orders.”

Across the table, Shedletsky leaned back in his chair, spinning a pen between his fingers. “C’mon, Doom, let the past breathe a little. We’re all ghosts in here anyway.” He grinned faintly. “Some of us just wear it better.”

“Like a moldy hat,” Brighteyes muttered without looking at him.

“Hey,” he said with mock offense, “limited edition mold.”

Clockwork let out a quiet chuckle. Stickmasterluke didn’t even look up—just kept scrolling through old blueprint files on a side tablet, occasionally tapping notes only he could read.

“Point is,” Doombringer continued, “we’re too busy romanticizing deprecated content. Let it die. Archive it. Burn it. Just don’t waste cycles dragging it into modern builds. That includes half the magic junk Dusekkar keeps logging clearance hours for.”

That got their attention. Clockwork looked up slightly. Brighteyes finally stopped stirring her coffee.

Builderman sighed from his place at the head of the table. “Doom—”

“No, really,” Doombringer said, his tone not quite angry but sharp. “You gave him high clearance to help moderate myth-related cases. Not to sit in the archive wing whispering poems to ghost files.”

“He’s not just whispering,” Shedletsky said dryly. “He’s rhyming. There’s a difference.”

Brighteyes elbowed him. “You’re not helping.”

Doombringer crossed his arms. “He’s wasting admin time.”

“He’s investigating legacy infrastructure,” Clockwork offered, finally speaking. “Which is what we asked him to do when Myth issues came up.”

“Until he submitted a four-page lore addendum instead of a deletion request,” Doombringer countered.

“Two pages were visual diagrams,” Stickmasterluke added without looking up, he knew Doombringer hadn’t bothered to properly go through it.

Brighteyes spoke gently. “Dusekkar… we’re hoping you understand the pressure we’re under. We’re not trying to gut history, but we can’t prioritize sentiment over system integrity.”

Dusekkar looked to her and nodded.
“I understand—your worries aren’t flawed.
But some of these files, though dusty and old,
Are pillars of stories our platform still holds.
Imagine we purge, without second sight,
Work at a Pizza Place, or Sword Fight on The Heights.”

Shedletsky perked up, “Hey my game is alive and well, that's what sets it apart from the other stuff.”

Brighteyes took a sip from her coffee before speaking, “It averages 50 players.”

Shedletsky was about to argue back but Doombringer cut him off, eyes still trained on Dusekkar

“Your job is not to grieve lost builds. It’s to carry out the moderation protocol. The more we delay, the more ghost data resurfaces and the more vulnerable the system becomes. And that’s how corruption spreads.”

Builderman’s voice cut through from the head of the table, “Dusekkar.”

The room fell quiet.

Builderman’s eyes, tired but direct, met his.

“I understand your hesitation. But you were assigned that batch for a reason. Finish it. We can’t preserve everything.”

Dusekkar lowered his head slightly. “Understood.”

Dusekkar stood from his chair and gave a small nod. He turned to leave, scarf trailing, footsteps quiet.

Shedletsky, as he exited, called after him: “Bring back something cursed, will you? Just for fun.”

Brighteyes groaned.

—

The hiss of the archive wing doors echoed louder than usual.

Dusekkar stepped back into the stillness. The air was colder now—truly cold this time, the artificial climate failing to kick in. He tugged his scarf a little higher up to preserve warmth. Lights overhead dimmed slightly as he passed through, his staff casting a pale shimmer of light across the file towers.

No time for mourning. Strict orders had been given.

He moved straight to the terminal. The screen blinked to life with a quiet chirp, and the familiar directories flooded the interface.

Except this time… something was missing.

He frowned.

The Guest Grove backups were gone.

His fingers hovered over the terminal. That file hadn’t been touched in years. He hadn’t deleted it. And the system should’ve logged any action.

Unless…

He scrolled through the change log.

Nothing.

No deletion. No transfer. No overwrite.

Just absence.

He opened the terminal’s backend—flicking through recent admin actions, terminal usage, system touchpoints. Most entries were normal. Old gear logs. Deprecated badges. But one name caught his eye.

A user ID.

Just: 2.

His fingers froze.

There hadn’t been a “2” in the active directory in over a decade. The original test account.

John Doe.

He narrowed his eyes. That account had been locked since the platform’s early alpha. Only Builderman had access—if anyone did.

Why open it?

Dusekkar tapped into the admin console, pulling up the audit trail.

A red flash blinked in the corner of the screen.

[ALERT: UNAUTHORIZED LOGIN ATTEMPT]
User: John_Doe
Timestamp: 03:18:04
Action: LOGIN
Result: ACCESS DENIED

He stared.

“Impossible,” he murmured.

No user should be able to even attempt access on a locked admin test account. Not without elevated permissions.

He opened the memory cache.

Lines of corrupted script crawled across the display. Glitched packet strings. Broken world links. Chat logs fragmented into nothing.

Then—

you logged me out.
i remember.
i’m still here.

Dusekkar’s breath caught.

The lights above him flickered. His staff sparked faintly in response to a pressure he couldn’t see—but could feel.

A low hum began to echo through the server bay.

He didn’t speak. Just reached out and slammed the monitor off. The screen went black. But the feeling didn’t leave.

Ghost code?

He had heard the term a hundred times—used to explain away bugs and myth rumors. Glitches from old builds. Echoes of deleted servers.

But this wasn’t just an echo.

This felt like something trying to speak.

He sat there, in silence, for a moment longer. Then opened a private chat comm.

To: Builderman

Found something strange. Archive user ID 2, John Doe, shows login attempt at 3:18 AM.
Thought this account was sealed.
Please advise.

The reply came faster than expected.

From: Builderman

That account was one of the earliest test users. It’s been locked for years.
Probably just ghost code. Stuff resurfaces when we clean deep enough.
Let it rest, Dusekkar.

He stared at the screen.

Chapter Text

The glow of the admin console cast harsh shadows across the archive wing.

It was nearly silent, save for the hum of dormant servers and the soft, deliberate clicks of Dusekkar’s staff as he paced the tiled floor. Dust still lingered in the corners of the room, undisturbed—just like the questions gnawing at the back of his mind.

He hadn’t slept properly in days.

In sleep, when he managed to reach it, he awoke paralyzed, red light leaking in through cracks in memory. The moment he saw it—glowing from the corners of his vision—a sudden, violent end would follow. Spikes. Too many. Too fast. He’d wake up with the echo of rough metal puncturing his flesh. Sometimes he woke up mid-swing, staff in hand, heart hammering.

He shook the memory away and returned to the console interface. Lines of glowing white text blinked into place, the command log ready. His fingers hovered briefly.

No one asked what happened to the Guest Grove.

It simply… wasn’t there anymore. He figured most assumed it had been deleted. Maybe they thought he’d purged it like he was told to. Let them.

He hadn’t come here to explain himself.

He was here for answers.

The console beeped quietly as Dusekkar sifted through system audit logs. User login history, access attempts, flagged sessions. The oldest test environments hadn’t been touched in years. But that wasn’t true anymore.

He found himself staring at the login ID over and over.

UserID: 2
Username: John_Doe
Timestamp: 03:18:04
Action: LOGIN
Result: ACCESS DENIED

…

Status: Inactive

Same timestamp. Same red flag. But now… there was more. Sort of.

As he clicked deeper into the file directory, the console stuttered.

Black spread like ink across the screen, swallowing the interface. Red binary blinked into view—sharp, uneven, alive. The machine buzzed beneath his fingertips, heat rising from its core.

He clenched his jaw.

Even looking at it made him nauseous. The numbers didn’t move like real code. They twitched, pulsed like something organic. He backed out of the log before it could crash the system entirely.

The terminal obeyed slowly, like it had to think about it. The system calmed. The nausea eased.

Then he pulled up UserID: 3
Username: Jane Doe

Timestamp: 03:27:01 AM
Action: LOGIN
Result: ACCESS GRANTED

She had gotten out too.

He stared at it for a long time.

Builderman never mentioned Jane. Not once. Not during the meeting, not when Dusekkar reported John’s reactivation. Not even in passing.

Surely he would have known. Surely if he knew about John, he knew about Jane. Unless—no. That path led to too many assumptions.

And yet.

He tapped through Jane’s logs again. The more recent worlds she accessed were functioning. No glitches. No corruption. In fact, her presence seemed to have stabilized the broken metadata around her.

Unlike John, whose mere mention dragged data into ruin.

Her terminal didn’t resist. The logs were broken, yes—older games listed as question marks, preview thumbnails missing, and maps partially collapsed. But there were a few recent entries.

Recent Activity:

Map Visited: Test Zone 3

Map Visited: Test Zone 7

Map Visited: [CONTENT DELETED]

He stood there a moment longer, the glow of the corrupted logs fading from his screen, red binary echoing in the corners of his thoughts. When he looked at the time, it was nearly 11PM.

The outside had long quieted. All the buzz of corporate life had faded into afterhours silence.

He had been in the archive wing for hours. He needed to clear his head.

Dusekkar exhaled and stepped away from the console. The stale air of the archive wing clung to his cloak, thick with forgotten projects and questions too old to document. He tapped the door switch and stepped out into the darkened hallway beyond.

The corridor outside was dim and quiet. Most lights on this floor stayed off after-hours. The only other place down here was the old dev suites and abandoned tech storage, mostly used by legacy devs who hadn’t moved their stuff upstairs.

As he rounded the corner, a familiar sound met his ears: clinking metal. Tools. Something clattered against the tile.

Down the hallway, near the elevator, he saw him.

Taph.

The boy stood just outside the elevator doors, a bundled mess of wires, scrap metal, and old gears balanced in his arms. The demolitionist crouched, setting some of them down near the elevator. His coat was marked with soot again. He seemed unaware of Dusekkar at first, but then paused—as if feeling watched—and turned. When he spotted Dusekkar, he nudged his bundle aside and lifted a hand in a wave.

The elevator in that section only went down.

Most staff didn’t even know it still worked.

Dusekkar made his way over to him. "Is this your usual midnight haunt?" he asked lightly, voice trailing into rhyme with practiced ease. "Second time I’ve caught you here alone. If I didn’t know better, I’d think this was your home."

Taph smiled sheepishly, adjusting his grip on the wires. He shrugged, signing a small response.

"🔧👍🏠📈⬆️ (Tools work better at home.)"

Dusekkar chuckled.

Taph hesitated a moment, then nodded toward the elevator.

An invitation.

Dusekkar gave a confused look.
“A place? Below this wing?”

Taph nodded, then fished a small passkey from his coat and held it up.

The flickering light from above caught the edge of it—a faded DevAccess badge, cracked down one side. Probably not even in the system anymore.

Taph paused, then gestured awkwardly.

You can come, if you want.

Dusekkar paused, giving Taph a long stare, before looking to the side shyly.

He smiled faintly. “Curious minds make strange allies, after all.”

The elevator dinged open with a soft hum.

Together, they stepped inside. The doors closed with a soft whir, and the floor dropped beneath them.

The elevator rattled softly as it descended.

No music. No floor indicator. Just the mechanical whir of old machinery moving downward through floors no one mapped anymore.

Dusekkar leaned against the side, arms folded as the dim light above flickered once, briefly casting his faceplate in darkness. Taph, opposite him, shifted the bundled tools in his arms and adjusted his grip. Neither spoke. But the silence didn’t feel heavy. Not yet.

With a final metallic groan, the elevator stopped. The doors slid open, revealing a hallway washed in muted orange from outdated wall lamps. A faded sign hung crooked near the ceiling:

“Developer Testing Wing: Suite Access 7-19. Authorized Use Only.”

Taph stepped out first, boots echoing against the concrete.

Dusekkar tapped his shoulder, “Would you like some help, my friend? To lighten the load that you tend?” He pointed to the pile Taph was carrying.

Taph awkwardly nodded, expecting him to simply pick a few loose gears from the top of the pile. Instead the entire load was suddenly lifted, a blue shimmer surrounded the material as it floated away from his grasp. He flinched forward, thinking he had accidentally dropped the massive pile. The light from the magic reflected gently, a trail of blue leading to the source, Dusekkar’s staff. He quickly realized Dusekkar had used his magic to make it all float.

He stared in awe before quickly signing, “ 🙏(Thank you.)”

Dusekkar smiled, his fire giving a tired flicker before re-igniting into a brighter flame.

Taph excitedly turned around and continued leading Dusekkar.

They travelled through the hall, past a few closed rooms with cracked glass windows, dusty plaques, and flickering terminal screens displaying “DISCONNECTED.”

Eventually, they reached a double door labeled Suite 13—its surface scratched, marked with leftover tape, old dev stickers, and a thin coat of dust.

Taph swiped his badge.

The scanner sparked once. The lock gave an irritated buzz… then clicked open.

The doors creaked as he pushed them open.

Dusekkar blinked once, the flicker of warm light spilling into his hollow eyes. He followed.

The room inside wasn’t just a workshop. It was a museum of half-finished dreams.

Hanging wires. Suspended blueprints. Shelves of outdated gear prototypes. A whole row of dev-made tools lined the back wall—everything from hoverboots to old spring coils. A dusty guitar sat leaned against a barrel-shaped rendering server, and half a pizza box rested beside a console that had been gutted and rebuilt with a dozen different power cores.

Taph pointed to a worktable cluttered with screws, “🤲👇(You can put it here.)”

Dusekkar nodded and gently lowered the pile onto the table with his staff, the blue shimmer fading quickly as he released his magic.

Taph finally looked at Dusekkar directly with a light shrug, clearly a little embarrassed.

Dusekkar turned slowly on the spot, gaze moving over the room’s clutter and charm.

“A forge of scrap, invention's nest…
Yet feels far more than mere dev’s desk.”

He smiled faintly.

Taph tilted his head and signed, “🛠️✨💭(Helps me think.)”

“Your thoughts build louder than most I know,” Dusekkar replied gently. “A strange sort of peace in your glow.”

Taph flushed at that but turned quickly, pretending to be focused on rearranging the mess now on the table.

Dusekkar hovered over Taph’s shoulder curious as to what he was up to. His eyes caught on a gadget pushed to the corner of the table. A sleek black frame marred by loose wires and a flickering sensor light. Beside it, a red spiked core.

“A volatile spark trapped inside this case,” Dusekkar mused, voice soft but precise,
“Triggers unseen in that shadowed space.”

Taph nodded and picked it up, fingers twitching nervously over the exposed circuits.
“🤷⚠️💥❌⏱️ (Sometimes it won’t trigger.) 💣💨,👀❌,🤕,😵‍💫 (Other times it is like a stun bomb, can’t see, incapacitated, dizzy) ❌🧍‍♂️💢(But no knockdown.)⏳⏱️🤷‍♂️❌ (Timing’s off.)”

Dusekkar paused, staring at Taph's hands as he rambled about the malfunctioning bomb.
Mouth agape and shocked, this was the most he had ever seen the demolitionist communicate.
Taph suddenly stopped and put his hands down, his head following suit awkwardly.

Dusekkar gave a reassuring smile, “Don’t worry, I understand.”

Taph looked up, his eyes staring back into Dusekkar’s comforting glow.

For once, he felt seen.

Dusekkar’s head tilted slightly, his gaze shifting to the dissected bomb, “May I have a look?”

Taph nodded and gently handed him the parts.

Dusekkar gently lifted the device and raised his staff, moving it in focused small, precise, motions. Blue light traced patterns over the wiring, coaxing the circuits to hum steadily.

“Let me show you,” he said with a faint smile, “precision lies in touch and mind combined.”

Taph leaned closer, watching as Dusekkar’s magic wove a soft glow around the tripmine’s trigger. Loose wires tightened invisibly, sensors realigned, and the flickering light steadied to a calm, confident pulse.

He then moved to the core.
With a focused gaze he tilted his staff as glyphs hovered and surrounded the object. A low hum sounded as he soldered enforced magic into the core. Its colours now black, deep blue, and red, mixing like oil and water.

“Try now,” Dusekkar encouraged.

Taph hesitated a moment, then activated the tripmine before carefully tossing it to the side. Its beeps echoed through the room, signaling activation. He turned to Dusekkar, eyes wide with excitement when it hadn’t exploded on impact, or even so much as exploded prematurely in his hands.

Grabbing a loose screw, he tossed it toward the mine.

A pulse rippled outward, followed by a loud, bitcrushed boom.

Taph staggered back as if hit, but quickly regained his footing. Dusekkar blinked, dazed for a moment, before steadying Taph with a hand on his shoulder.

…Maybe he triggered it too close.

His vision cleared almost immediately—the usual disorienting blur replaced by a surprising clarity.

A wide grin spread behind his stained bandana. “✅⏱️🎯! (The timing’s perfect now!)”

Dusekkar nodded, eyes flickering brighter in approval.

Taph’s smile eased, the heavy hours of struggling on the messy project fading away in the warm light of success.

Dusekkar’s pumpkin glow softened, casting gentle light over the scattered tools and worn blueprints.

Taph, without a second thought, pulled Dusekkar into a tight, sudden hug.

The admin stiffened in surprise, nearly dropping his staff as the contact caught him off guard. For a brief second, he stood frozen—then, slowly, leaned down into the embrace.

He couldn’t stop the smile that curved into place, or the soft, unfamiliar warmth that bloomed beneath his ribs.

Chapter Text

Taph sat cross-legged on the floor of his apartment, surrounded by the usual wreckage of spare parts, half-finished gadgets, and empty energy drink cans. The lights were dim, save for the soft bluish glow of his laptop screen. He’d dropped his bag by the door hours ago, kicked off his boots, and hadn’t moved much since.

The silence in his tiny dorm was comforting, almost soft—just the low buzz of circuitry, the occasional whir of a fan, and the gentle tick of the prototype tripmine’s pulse from where it sat on his desk.

He couldn’t stop smiling.

Most days lately, he felt… giddy. Like something was finally starting to shift. Not because anything huge had changed. Not in the system, not in the company, not even in the hierarchy he barely hovered beneath.

It was strange. He hadn’t felt this way in… maybe ever. His thoughts kept drifting, hovering over a certain pumpkin-colored glow. It wasn’t just the hug—though that had burned itself into his memory like a permanent spark. It was the way Dusekkar had looked at him. Like he mattered. Like he was more than just some demolitionist who scraped together spare parts and made things go boom.

He hadn’t met anyone like that before.

Someone who didn’t talk over him. Who didn’t laugh when he couldn’t find the words. Someone who stayed.

It made his heart race a little, even now. He shook his head and stood, pulling his desk chair out to sit.

It wasn’t like that. He was just excited. Motivated, maybe. Inspired, even.

He turned back to his laptop and tapped the touchpad, pulling up the design schematic he'd been refining over the past week. A cleaner tripmine prototype was displayed on screen—its updated notes scribbled in blue ink and new components outlined. He’d been field-testing it for the last few days, in the scheduled demolition zones. Testing the new explosive on NPCs, measuring radius effects. Sometimes—okay, more than once—on himself. Not smart, but who else could he ask?

He’d modified it just enough to keep Dusekkar’s enchantment stable. The mine now shimmered faintly when placed, just barely visible—its presence betrayed only by a quiet tone and flicker every few minutes.

It was working. Actually working.

Maybe now… he could pitch it.

His fingers hesitated over the keyboard before slowly typing out a message. He attached the blueprint, a handful of test images, and even a video of the mine working mid-demo session—where it caused an NPC spin in confusion.

He reread the message and adjusted the formatting once.

Maybe Builderman would finally see it.

Maybe this time, it would matter.

He read the message again for the third time, just to make sure. It was short—just enough to explain the prototype and attached files, maybe express some optimism.

It was almost midnight.

It didn’t matter.

He hovered over the send button.

Paused.

Taph stared at the screen. His fingers tensed.

What if testing it outside the designated test servers was a violation? That was probably against some kind of rule. But he was sure Builderman wouldn’t mind… right?

Probably.

Maybe.

He thought of Dusekkar. Of his quiet smile. The pride in his eyes when the mine worked.

Dusekkar wouldn’t care about the rules. Not those ones. Not if it worked.

What if Builderman hated it?

He winced. Builderman had stopped responding a long time ago. He hadn’t even looked at a blueprint from Taph in—how long? He couldn’t remember the last time Builderman had replied to anything that wasn’t filtered through some auto-response. Not since Robloxia exploded with new users.
He was no longer the sole person to pitch ideas to. It was now a whole lengthy process; admin review, team assessments, cross-checking with community trends.

Builderman was no longer a part of it. He had “more important things.”

Taph sighed and saved the message as a draft. He leaned back against the chair, eyes drifting up to the ceiling.

Did he already lose hope?

Or was he just scared of the answer?

Then, without thinking, he started scrolling through his message logs. Not to find a reply—he didn’t expect one. He just… needed to know when it stopped.

And somewhere in the middle of the scroll, he paused.

A bodycam file with a familiar timestamp.

The day he met Dusekkar.

He clicked it.

The screen flickered once before stabilizing. The video opened to static-laced footage, a slightly tilted view from his chest-level bodycam. The audio was shaky—filled with wind, distant alarms, and the crumbling groan of deconstructing geometry.

Taph remembered this day like he remembered most explosions: in flashes, in instinct. A building meant to be erased. A detonation too early. Something went wrong.

The camera jolted, catching the moment he flinched from a burst of fire and tumbling debris. He could hear his own breathing, fast and shallow, cut with the soft crackle of settling ash.

He skipped through the video, feeling embarrassed that it had even happened.

Then he paused when he saw him.

Dusekkar’s teleport signature shimmered into view—like flipping pages caught in wind. Cloak billowing behind him, staff trailing sparks from its base as it hovered just off the ruined floor, the firelight bright across his carved pumpkin.

Even through the distortion, Taph’s chest tightened.

If he hadn’t screwed up, if he hadn’t nearly blown himself sky-high, would they have even met?

His mind wandered as the video played idly in the background.

If it wasn’t for the accident…
Would his ideas ever be recognized? Would he ever be seen?

He tuned back into the video. The two of them stood in the wreckage. Ash still drifted from the sky like pixelated snow. Taph’s posture in the footage was small—tight shoulders, hands fiddled with each other as Dusekkar turned to look at him. He remembered feeling like he’d already failed before he could explain what went wrong.

Dusekkar hadn’t scolded him.

He didn’t even raise his voice.

Instead, he leaned down to eye level, and quietly asked what went wrong. No judgment. No scripted formality.

Just… listened.

He swallowed hard, reaching to click further through his messages… then stopped.

He didn’t want to know when Builderman last saw his work.

He already knew the answer: too long ago. Probably archived. Probably auto-deleted.

He sighed and leaned forward, burying his face in his hands.

He hated that he still wanted to impress him. Builderman. That some tiny part of him still craved that nod. That approval. Like a kid bringing a messy crayon drawing to a too-busy parent.

It was pathetic.

He didn’t want recognition from a system anymore. Not like that.

He wanted to be seen.

And Dusekkar… he did.

His hand drifted toward the keyboard again but curled into a loose fist halfway.

Instead, he sat in the stillness of that moment, watching Dusekkar frozen in the flicker of playback, surrounded by ruin but focused only on him.

Why hadn’t he checked in on him?

Why hadn’t he said something when Dusekkar looked so tired—more tired than usual?

The image of the admin at Builder Brothers Pizza flashed in his mind. Dusekkar had covered it well, but not enough. There were cracks forming around the edges of that carved calm. How long ago was that now? A week? Maybe more?

Taph frowned.

And what had Taph done?

Dragged him down to a hidden workshop, lit up with his own excitement, too eager to share his project. Like a child again, desperate to be seen. He was too excited. Selfish.

He hadn't asked if Dusekkar was okay.

Not once.

Coward.

His own thoughts spat the word like venom.

How could he be so obsessed with being seen, but never thought to really see someone else?

His shoulders curled inward again. The warmth in his chest had twisted now into something sharp and aching. His eyes flicked back to the screen.

He missed him.

He missed the way his voice carried magic. The way the room felt when he smiled. The way he stood still when the world didn’t.

He buried his face in his arms and exhaled shakily, the tripmine’s soft ticking the only sound in the room.

He didn’t want to pitch anything tonight.

He turned off the screen. The blue glow vanished, leaving him in the soft hum of silence again.

All he could see in the dark was the image of Dusekkar smiling. Warm. Unbothered. Kind.

And all he could feel was the ache of missing him. The guilt of not being enough. The worry that maybe now—after everything—he would stop showing up too.

Chapter Text

Dusekkar was back in the archive wing.
The nightmares had only gotten worse, sickening, he felt cold and hot at the same time, as if his pumpkin was rotting.

He had picked up where he had left off, Jane Doe’s files. It seemed the safest, less haunting, less corrupted. Most places she’d visited were still marked Private, Defunct, or worse: 404.

But this time…
One was active.

A server was running.

“[CONTENT DELETED]”

He saw it last time, but it was inactive, and he was too tired to investigate further on the deleted world.

But he didn’t hesitate this time.
A flick of his fingers and a murmur beneath his breath sent his form dissolving into a shimmer of autumn wind. Teleporting in.

The world loaded slower than most. A telltale sign of legacy terrain.

When it rendered in full, he found himself in a familiar place—familiar not because he’d been here before, but because nearly everyone had.

It was a starter house.

Default template. The one given to new users who didn’t know how to build yet. Simple house, flat green grass, small playground, coniferous trees swaying stiffly in the wrong direction. But this one had changes—tiny ones. A driveway with an old car, the original ones used in physics demos. Some flowers grew around the home. Curtains to the side of the open windows.

It had been lived in.

Dusekkar approached the door.

No magic this time. No phasing through walls or admin override.
He raised his hand and knocked.

A long pause followed. Almost a full minute of stillness. Then slow footsteps padded toward the door.

It creaked open just a sliver.

Jane Doe stood behind it. Her face was the same old pixelated render—expression neutral, outfit untouched since 2006, wearing a test-user uniform, the old red and white roblox logo branded on it. Her eyes were tired. Sharper. Hesitant. There was a flicker of something older behind them—mistrust, recognition, and a long-worn caution.

“...Dusekkar?”

He gave a nod. No rhyme. Just his voice, steady and calm.
“I came to talk.”

She didn’t open the door further. Not yet. Her fingers tightened around the handle.
“How’d you find me?”

“You had one world running. Just one.”

Another pause.

Her gaze darted behind her, a quick flick toward the living room like she expected something to shift or move. Then, slowly, she opened the door wider and stepped aside.

“Don’t touch anything,” she muttered.

He stepped in, quiet.

The air was dusty. Lived-in. Not nostalgic—stagnant. Like time here hadn’t moved properly. A faint shimmer of ambient light filtered through textured curtains, illuminating old furniture with edges too sharp to be comfortable. The kind of home built out of old bricks—unpolished, boxy, untouched by modern design.

She closed the door behind him with a soft click, then leaned back against it. Her stance was guarded, but not hostile.

Dusekkar turned to face her.

“You’ve been in hiding. That much is clear.
This house… it holds more than it appears.”

Jane didn’t respond at first. Then crossed her arms, feigning calm—like if she looked unshaken, the truth might bend around her.

“I liked this house,” she said, her voice clipped, brittle.

He met her gaze. Firm. Quiet.

“And John?”

She didn’t answer. Not directly. Her jaw moved, like a retort was forming—then stilled.

He waited.

When she still didn’t speak, he added, lower:

“Builderman never released you.”

Her eyes dropped. Not from shame—just the weight of confirmation. Truth already known.

Silence hung between them, heavy. The old server's ambiance looped faintly from beyond the walls—a quiet buzz, the distant wind sound effect that never quite stopped.

Finally, she pushed away from the door with a soft sigh and walked toward the living room.

He followed quietly behind her, noting how she kept a careful pace ahead of him—never quite letting her back fully face him for long.

After enough silence, Dusekkar spoke again.

“You weren’t supposed to be out.”

Her spine straightened slightly. She turned halfway toward him.

Her eyes narrowed. “So what? Gonna drag me back? Report me to Builderman like I’m some broken line of code?”

Dusekkar didn’t react. Just stood, steady as stone. “You know that’s not why I’m here.”

“Do I?” Her voice raised—not a shout, but defiant. “Because last I checked, no one cared where we went. Not for years. Why now?”

“You’re the only lead we have.”

She turned her back on him, moving toward the window, arms crossed. Light streamed in behind her, tracing her figure like a shadow printed on glass. “You don’t know anything. You don’t know what it was like. We didn’t ask to be forgotten.”

Dusekkar stepped forward once. Calm. Careful. “He’s going to hurt people, Jane.”

Her head turned slightly, just enough to show part of her profile. “He’s already hurt.” Her voice cracked, then steadied again—cold now. “They broke him. Left us there like test dummies in a sandbox nobody checked. You think he wanted this?”

He didn’t answer. Didn’t need to. The silence did enough.

Jane looked back over her shoulder, eyes narrowing. “And what, you’re just gonna walk in and ask me to betray him?”

“No,” he said quietly. “I’m asking you to tell the truth.”

She froze. One hand tightened into a fist.

Her gaze flicked vaguely to the other side of the room—somewhere safe, somewhere far away.

Dusekkar waited.

And waited.

Her shoulders sank just barely.

“Jane.”

“I don’t know anything,” she snapped. “I haven’t seen him. I haven’t done anything. You don’t get to show up here after—after everything—and act like I’m part of this.”

“You escaped the sealed server,” he said evenly. “Only two users were ever sealed there.”

“I didn’t break anything. I didn’t corrupt anything—”

“But you knew he did.”

The silence that followed wasn’t long, but it was dense.

Jane looked away.

“You didn’t report it. You didn’t reach out.”

“You think I didn’t try that?” she hissed. Her voice thinned at the edge. Her shoulders sank again, eyes narrowing at the wall like it had insulted her.

Dusekkar said nothing.

Because the truth was already unraveling. Her own words doing the work.

Finally, her voice dropped to a whisper. Not guilty—resigned.

“You wouldn’t have believed me anyway.”

He spoke softer now. “Try me.”

Jane stayed still for a moment longer, then exhaled through her nose—sharp, shaky. A pause. Then her feet moved.

She turned away.

“Fine,” she muttered. “But don’t expect some grand villain origin story. It wasn’t like that.”

She moved to the small couch, sitting again, but this time she didn’t fold her arms. Her posture remained tense, like she was bracing for a storm.

Dusekkar waited.

Jane stared at the floor.

“We were testers,” she began quietly. “Pre-community rollout. We were there to simulate user behavior. Bugs. Interactions. Feedback. You know this.”

She pulled a loose thread from her sleeve.

“The other admins used to talk to us. Builderman, mostly. Gave us updates when we asked. Little ones. A new tool here. A new spawn location. Better physics.”

Her voice was bitter now. “Then they stopped answering.”

She shook her head, face tight.

“Not suddenly. Just… slower. Delayed messages. Then silence.”

Dusekkar listened, unmoving.

“They didn’t shut the world down, just left it there. Floating. Half-loaded terrain, missing scripts, broken spawn triggers. You ever live in a game that updates without context? Where code patches halfway before crashing again? That was our home.”

She swallowed hard.

“At first, we made jokes. John said we were ghosts in a server that time forgot.” Her voice softened—nostalgic, almost fond. “He built us a garden. A stupid little square with fake trees and decals for flowers.”

She paused.

“He kept saying Builderman would fix it. That we had to be patient. That we still mattered.”

She looked at Dusekkar now, eyes glassy—not teary, but brittle. “But he was wrong.”

Jane leaned back, arms loosely crossed—not defensive now, just tired.

“It started small,” she said. “Glitches he could walk through. Gaps in the floor where old geometry used to be. At first, he patched them himself. Covered the holes. Cleaned corrupted bricks. He was good at it.”

She hesitated, then added quietly, “He said if Builderman wouldn’t fix things, he would.”

Dusekkar stayed silent. Still. Letting her speak.

“Then he found a zone we’d never seen before. Off the edge of the map. It wasn’t real terrain—it was raw devspace. Empty. But broken chunks started appearing there. Pieces from other games. Old ones. Deleted ones.”

Her voice dropped lower.

“He started collecting them.”

Jane stood and walked to the window, arms wrapped around herself now.

“At first, I thought it was nostalgia. He missed the old maps. Wanted to bring back pieces of what was lost.” She turned her head slightly. “But it wasn’t that. It was something else. Something in the code. That old garbage—some of it wasn’t stable. It had rot. Self-replicating loops, orphaned scripts, half-buried spawn flags. It was like… malware.”

She glanced back at Dusekkar.

“He absorbed it.”

Dusekkar’s brows twitched faintly beneath the mask.

“It didn’t take him all at once. He was lucid for a while. Paranoid, yeah, but still John. Still…” Her voice caught for the briefest second. “He told me he was close to something. A way out. He said we didn’t have to stay forgotten.”

She walked back to the center of the room, gesturing vaguely with one hand.

“And then one day, he did it. He opened a gap. I don’t even know how. One second we were in that world, the next—we weren’t. Just like that. Back in Robloxia.”

Jane’s jaw clenched. “But it wasn’t the same. None of it was.”

Jane didn’t sit again. She paced now—slow, steady steps across the small room, fingers tracing the edge of the shelf by the door.

“We thought we could lay low,” she muttered. “The world had changed so much. Everyone had new avatars, layered clothing. No one looked like us anymore. It wasn’t easy to blend in.”

Dusekkar tilted his head slightly, still listening, unmoving.

“I told him we should go to Builderman. Or… anyone. I thought maybe if they saw him early, while he was still—” She trailed off, rubbing her temples. “He said no. Said we’d be terminated if they found out we escaped. He didn’t trust anyone. Not the new admins. Not the systems. Not the people.”

She glanced toward Dusekkar, gaze sharp despite the wear in her face. “He thought you’d delete him if you found him.”

Dusekkar didn’t flinch. He didn’t deny it either.

“We stuck to backdoors and old maps. Broken games. Abandoned servers no one visited anymore.”

Jane exhaled. “He changed more every time we moved. Less sleep. More static in his voice. He kept going on about how the platform forgot us. About how he’d make it remember. I—I tried to talk him down. I tried to reach out.”

She laughed bitterly. “Builderman didn’t answer. No one did.”

“He just gathered more things. Old scripts. Broken bricks. Outdated sounds. He said he was restoring something. That if the platform had forgotten its past, he’d bring it back.” Her mouth twitched bitterly. “But the more he collected, the more… distant he became.”

Her hands clenched around each other. “So I tried to stop him. I really did. Contain him in one of the old maps with disabled exit scripts.”

She shook her head.

“But it didn’t hold. He glitched out. Said I betrayed him. Said I’d forgotten too.”

There was a long silence. The hum of the server outside was the only sound.

Jane’s voice, when it came again, was small. Regretful.

Her arms hung at her sides now.

“I wanted to call for help. Builderman. You. Anyone. But by then, it was already too late. The moment I logged into HQNet, I knew it’d ping my account and trace it back to him. I couldn’t risk it. I thought… maybe he’d burn out. Maybe the corruption would crash him.”

Her eyes met Dusekkar’s after a long beat of silence.

“I think he believed it would fix everything. But all it did was break him.”

“I have no idea where he went after… I’m assuming he still hides in forgotten games.”

Dusekkar’s cloak shifted as he exhaled, the sound barely audible. The pieces clicked together quickly—John Doe hadn’t just been hiding. He’d been scavenging. John Doe had been stealing from the archive wing to hide in old, broken, or dead worlds. The places were typically queued for deletion: first the maps, then the files, then Builderman would finalize the deletion. It was the safest way so files wouldn't end up corrupted.

It made sense. Those spaces were quiet. Forgotten. Safe—for someone like him.

Which meant Taph had almost certainly crossed paths with him.

Dusekkar’s breath caught. With how many games Taph deconstructs in a day, it was inevitable. Had John hurt him?

His mind flashed, unbidden, to dreams too vivid to dismiss. Spikes. Static. Violent nightmares of death that looped again and again like bad code.

Jane stared at Dusekkar with a knowing look.

“You’ve seen him, haven’t you? That’s not him anymore.”

He nodded once.

“Some archive files have gone missing.” He answered simply.

Jane’s gaze didn’t waver. Her arms crossed tightly over her chest, tension strung through her shoulders like pulled wire.

“I’ll help you,” she said at last, voice low. “I’ll tell you what I know. I’ll track what I can. But you don’t bring this to the others—not yet.”

Dusekkar didn’t answer immediately.

She stepped closer, footsteps barely making a sound against the low-poly wood floor. “I know what they’ll do. What they always do. Lock it away. Scrub it. Terminate it. Him.”

He stared at her for a long moment, the glyphs in his carved mask dim and unreadable.

“I can’t make that promise.”

Jane’s jaw clenched.

“If he hurts someone—if he already has—I have to act,” Dusekkar continued quietly. “I can’t protect what becomes a threat to the platform. Even if I understand how it got there.”

“I’m not asking for forever,” she said, almost pleading now. “Just… keep it to yourself as long as you can. Let me help contain it. Let me try.”

His cloak fluttered slightly, caught in a soft, ambient wind from the outside terrain. He glanced toward the door, then back.

A pause.

“…Fine,” he said.

Jane blinked.

“I’ll keep your name out of it. And his—until I can’t.”

That was the best he could offer. And she knew it.

She nodded slowly, lips pressed thin. “Then we’ve got a deal.”

Dusekkar stepped back toward the door but stopped just short of it. His voice, low but certain:

“I won’t give up on him… but I won’t lie for him either.”

Jane didn’t answer.

But as the door opened and that soft page-flip hum of magic returned to the air, she whispered—

“Neither will I.”

—

As Dusekkar returned back to the archive wing his hand tightened around his staff.

The information weighed heavy—corrupted maps, the spread, missing files. But heavier still was the quiet fear tucked behind Jane’s eyes.

And another fear stirred deeper: Taph.

The demolitionist’s whole job was breaking down forgotten spaces. Games just like the ones John had claimed. If anyone had been exposed to that kind of rot, it would be him. And yet… he never said anything. Did he even know?

Dusekkar hadn't reached out to him since he had shown him his secret workshop. Dusekkar’s hand tightened slightly around the edge of his cloak, hesitating over the thought of sending a message. Part of him wanted to—needed to—check in. But secrecy held his hand. If Taph had encountered John, even unknowingly, the fewer people who knew the full story, the safer he’d be. He wasn’t even sure how much danger Taph had been in.

A thread of worry curled in his chest.

Taph wasn’t like the others. He didn’t just blow things up. He paid attention—to structure, to detail, to the stories left in the ruins. That kind of curiosity could’ve easily revealed John’s corruption.

Memories of the vivid violent nightmares of neverending death clung to him like smoke. He couldn’t forget it. And thinking about Taph possibly encountering such a monster, now that made his heart stop.

He could picture him—half-covered in soot, tinkering with parts in that hidden workshop, lights low, face scrunched in thought. That ridiculous oversized visor perched on his head like it belonged there.

A ghost of a smile tugged at Dusekkar’s mouth.

His mind wandered to the first time he saw him—Taph brushing ash off his rig, shoulders tight. He’d said he was fine. He looked fine. But his old cloak had been burned along the hem. Shredded up along the sides like it was nothing.

He sighed. His emotions were all over the place. He needed fresh air.

—

Taph returned to the workshop near midnight, same as always.

He nudged the door open with his boot, dropped his bag in the usual spot, and exhaled. The lights buzzed overhead in their usual tired rhythm. Comforting in a way. Familiar.

He rubbed at the back of his neck, rolling tension from his shoulders as he stepped toward the workbench—

—and stopped.

There was something waiting there. Draped neatly over the bench’s edge, like it belonged.

A new cloak.

Cleaner. A dark, thick fabric edged with an intricate design of yellow stitching.

Taph blinked at it, confused for only a second.

No one else had ever come here. No one else even cared to know it existed.

A quiet smile formed on his face. One of those real ones that crept up slow.

As he looked closer he noticed the front had the same yellow edge but with glyphs or runes he didn’t understand. There’s only one person he knew who would make something like this for him, or even knew this place existed.

He reached for the cloak—but paused. His hands, still smudged with soot, hovered above it before pulling back.

He peeled his gloves off first. Carefully.

They hit the bench with a soft thunk, the fabric stiff with ash and dried oil. Taph’s hand ghosted over the fabric, heart knocking gently against his ribs as he reached out again—this time with clean fingers—and picked up the cloak.

It was heavier than it looked. Not just in fabric weight, but in meaning.

He turned it over slowly, thumb brushing the lining. There were no emblems, no crest, no rank badge stitched into the shoulder. Just that faint threadwork in the seams—yellow, not gold. No status implied.

It wasn’t a uniform.

It was a gift.

He held it to his chest for a moment, unsure why. Maybe to steady himself. Maybe to believe it was real.

Then he smiled again, smaller this time. He tried it on.

It fit.

Not perfectly—he still hadn’t grown into anything that felt like it belonged—but it fit enough. And that was more than he’d ever expected.

The clock on the wall clicked softly. Nearly 12:40am.

He turned back to his desk, cloak trailing behind him now like a promise. New blueprints were still splayed out across the surface, half-sketched, still messy.

Taph sat down and adjusted the collar of the cloak slightly. Then he picked up his pencil and quietly got back to work.

No music. No muttering. Just quiet scribbles in the still hum of midnight.

He didn’t need to send that draft to Builderman. Not yet.

For the first time in a long while, he didn’t feel like he had to prove himself.

Chapter Text

Taph stood at the edge of the map, boots crunching against half-loaded gravel. The air shimmered faintly—another render bug. He reached for his sledge, scanning the familiar outline of the terrain. It should’ve been a simple cleanup: old obby game, last updated in 2009, flagged for final deconstruction.

He had done this a thousand times before.
He’d come across games like this the same amount.

Decaying games weren’t rare. In fact, they were dangerous. Unpatched systems, corrupted terrain, leftover scripts that spiraled out of control when disconnected from their parent folders—these places could crash a server with one wrong collision. That’s why his job existed.

Taph was good at it. Efficient. Methodical. He’d seen his fair share of falling terrain, missing meshes, even viral audio files that looped out of sync with themselves.

But this one…

This one felt different.

The bricks didn’t just decay—they breathed. Or at least, it felt like they did. Shadows lingered in places they shouldn’t, hugging corners like things trying to hide but failing to stay still. When he turned to look directly at them, they snapped into place like normal. But in his peripherals, they drifted. The usual cold empty air of demolition sites felt warm this time, like the world didn’t want to let go.

Taph took a breath and kept moving.
He stepped deeper into the game’s crumbling bones.

Something flickered to his left. A half-loaded humanoid shape, far off in the fog. It didn’t move, but when he blinked—it was gone.

Taph’s pulse ticked upward, just slightly. Not fear. Not yet. Just tension.

He’d seen figures like that before. Sometimes old test dummies got left behind. Sometimes it was just broken light rigs making false silhouettes.

But there was something about this one.

Every time he looked away, it felt like something shifted behind him.

He quickened his pace, trying to drown the feeling in motion. His job didn’t wait for nerves. Bomb placement, terrain clearance, spawn anchor collapse—routine. His gloves were steady, but his thoughts weren’t.

Still, the wrongness clung to the air.

A shape shifted in the distance—no, flickered. Too far to make out.

He paused, tightening his grip on the beacon handle.

Gone.

He stayed still for a few seconds longer than needed, listening. There was no sound but the occasional soft glitch-pop of assets despawning. He lowered the beacon, resumed the sweep, forced his thoughts quiet.

It was probably just one of those old NPC rigs running on some broken pathfinding.

Right?

Still… as he left the job site that day, he kept glancing over his shoulder—just once. Twice.

Just to be sure.

Just to be sure.

Taph left the game—the demolition site collapsing behind him with a low, satisfied hum. Debris disintegrated into spark code, dissolving into the void as the server shut itself down.

The usual screen flickered—Demolition Complete. Report Uploaded.
He didn’t feel the usual relief.

Back at HQ, the halls were empty. The usual night at HQ. The artificial lighting hummed faintly overhead, casting long sterile shadows. Taph moved through it on autopilot, cloak drawn close.

He passed a few moderators on the way to the parking lot, but no one looked up. No one ever really did.

That was fine.

He keyed in his log submission, like always—Demolition Order #20783: Completed. No anomalies reported.

He hovered a second longer before submitting. His finger lingered over the words “no anomalies.”

Then he clicked send and clocked out for the day.

—

The Roblox HQ faded behind him as he cruised down one of Robloxia’s side gridlines. The truck rattled gently beneath him—an old work-issued transport vehicle with a scraped front panel and a half-working radio. He didn’t bother turning it on.

The roads were unusually empty for this hour.

City UI shimmered overhead: holographic signs, ad banners. But a few of them were off. Flickering. Glitching. He squinted at one that buzzed, its texture jittering erratically before snapping back to normal.

At first, he figured it was a rendering bug.

But then it happened again—farther down. A player model on the sidewalk froze mid-animation, arm bent backward at an impossible angle. The player next to them didn't react. No one did. A moment later, the figure resumed walking like nothing happened.

Taph gripped the steering wheel tighter, the worn leather warm under his palms.

As he turned onto the main avenue, he caught movement in the rearview mirror. Something on the edge of the sidewalk—tall, motionless.

When he glanced back—

Nothing.

Just a lamppost and empty space.

He blinked and rubbed his eyes beneath the visor. Maybe the demolition zone left residual code lag. It happened sometimes—right? Taph couldn’t remember whether or not this had happened before. Glitches usually lingered, but it had never followed him this far before.

Up ahead, a billboard stuttered into static. For a split second, he swore he saw a username flash across it.

[Connection Lost].

Then it was back to an ad for shoulder accessories.

Nobody around him flinched.

Taph eased his foot off the gas slightly. A pair of avatars crossed the street in front of him, talking casually. Neither looked up. No one seemed to see what he saw.

He swallowed. Focused forward.

It was probably nothing. Just exhaustion. Maybe even burnout. He had been spending most nights in his workshop anyways. Not tonight though.

He pulled into the garage level and parked in the usual spot.

But even as the truck powered down and the door hissed open… he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was still watching him.

—

The elevator ride up to his apartment was quiet. He leaned against the back wall, visor still on. The low glow of HUD readouts danced faintly over his visor.

By the time he reached his apartment, he felt worse.

A subtle ache in his joints. A heaviness in his head that wasn’t just exhaustion. Maybe he was getting sick. That would explain the sluggishness. He hadn’t eaten well in a few days—he rarely did when he worked solo shifts like this.

He shrugged it off. Sat at his desk. Removed his gloves.

Nothing looked out of place in the room, but something still didn’t sit right. Not fear. Not exactly.

It was the silence.

Taph had grown used to silence, but this was different. It pressed against his ears. Weighted. Like the air had forgotten how to move.

He stood again and checked the window. Nothing. No signs of anyone following him from the site. No error pings or asset tails.

Still, that ache lingered behind his eyes.

He sat back down, reached for a small canister of decal polish, and began cleaning his tools out of habit. Trying to ignore the way his fingers trembled just slightly when he pressed the cloth into the grooves.

He felt as if the room itself flickered.

He ignored it.

He was just tired.

Just tired.

—

It had been three days.

Three long, stuttering days of demolition jobs that all blurred into each other. Games that broke apart faster than usual. Glitches that stuck around even after deletion. Logs that Taph submitted with less detail than usual.

He hadn’t meant to make it obvious.

But apparently, someone noticed.

In the quiet of the HQ’s dispatch chamber, Builderman stood reviewing Taph’s latest reports. He looked more tired than usual. A faint hum came from the nearby screens monitoring game status.

One of the entries flickered red.

“Demolition incomplete.”
“Visual feedback flagged.”

Builderman frowned. "Again?"

He tapped the report open, skimming Taph’s notes—or rather, the lack of them. There was no mention of instability. Just “Area cleared. Minor delay.”

Yet the playback logs showed otherwise: multiple failed world chunks, delayed brick erasure, repeated errors. Taph had rerun the command lines more times than usual.

Builderman sighed and leaned back, muttering to himself.

“He never misses like this.”

He stood and opened his comm tab.

—

A sharp chime echoed down the admin corridor as a message appeared on Dusekkar’s screen.

[HQ Notice: Supervise Demolitionist Taph. Effective Immediately.]

Dusekkar blinked at it once. His staff’s glyphs flickered—then flared just slightly.

There was no context. No explanation. Just a sudden reassignment.

But he didn’t hesitate.

He was already grabbing his staff when a voice behind him called out.

“Back on babysitting duty?” Shedletsky leaned casually against the doorframe, one eyebrow raised. “What is it this time, another pizza prank gone rogue?”

Dusekkar paused briefly, already halfway to the elevator.

Shedletsky grinned. “You move a lot faster when it’s him.”

The admin chuckled and waved as Dusekkar disappeared down the hall without a word.

Taph was already working when Dusekkar arrived.

From a distance, nothing looked unusual. He was standing at the center of the map—an old lobby—tools in hand, command line trailing faint sparks behind him. But Dusekkar felt it immediately: the sluggishness in Taph’s movements, the lagging delay between gestures. He wasn’t sprinting through routines like usual. He was moving like someone underwater.

Dusekkar’s voice carried in a low, warm rhyme, gentle as ever despite the tension in the air.

“HQ sent word, they had a concern.
A tired soul, whose health took a turn.”

Taph startled slightly, head snapping up.
Once he noticed it was Dusekkar he waved.

Dusekkar stepped closer, boots echoing against the crumbling tiles.

“From what I hear, your pace has slowed.
That’s not the Taph that I’ve known.”

Taph shrugged, shifting weight awkwardly.

“😪. 🔧😵‍💫. (Just tired. Been a rough few jobs lately.)”

He glanced at the admin for a moment longer, then added—

“...😟🤕🎃. 🎃👍❓ (You don’t look too great either. Are you okay?)”

Dusekkar hesitated, his voice softening without rhyme:

“I’m fine.”

He brushed it off. Too quickly.

Taph didn’t press, though his posture shifted subtly—uneasy.

Dusekkar looked around slowly at the half-cleared site, lowering his voice again.

He paused near Taph’s side, voice quieter now.

“You sure there’s nothing haunting you?
No code behaving out of view?”

There was a long pause.

Taph fiddled with the hem of his glove.

“😶🤏🌀(Nothing too weird.)”

Dusekkar waited knowing there was more to say.

“🔇😶(I can’t talk about it right now.)”

The pumpkin nodded, stepping back.

—

As they began clearing the corrupted bricks, Dusekkar did more than supervise. When a chunk glitched and resisted Taph’s command line, the admin raised his staff—chanting in soft rhyme, glowing glyphs unraveling the loop. A stuck asset burst into static and the glitchy threat would neutralize.

Taph blinked, “🧹🫂❓(You’ve never helped this much.)”

Dusekkar’s voice softened.

“I made an exception, can’t you tell?
Your bug report rings a warning bell.
The field is weak, the world is cracked—
You need someone to watch your back.”

Taph cracked a faint smile behind his mask and joined him. Together, they worked through the rubble.

Between bursts of effort, Dusekkar glanced sideways.

Taph adjusted his cloak, pushing it back slightly as he worked.

When Dusekkar noticed he said proudly,
“You’re in the cloak I made for you,
Still holding strong, and looking true.”

Taph paused, looking down at the cloak wrapped around his frame. The ends of his sleeves were already a little scorched but otherwise he tried to keep it clean.

“🧥✨👍🙏 (It looks great, thank you for making it.)”

He quietly added, “🫣🎁(You didn’t have to.)”

Dusekkar didn’t respond right away.

But the fire in his head seemed to have warmed.

“I’m glad I did. You wear it well.”
No rhyme this time. His voice full of honesty.

Taph signed a quick, “🙏(Thank you.)” before shyly turning back to his tool kit.

—

The workshop door slid shut with a familiar mechanical whir, muffling the outside world into silence. Inside, the cluttered room buzzed faintly with dormant tools, cracked gears, blueprints pinned to the wall by rusted screws. The soft yellow glow of string lights hummed overhead, casting long shadows across the worn worktable.

Taph slumped into his usual stool, tugging his cloak tighter around his shoulders. His movements were sluggish, precise only in habit. Dusekkar followed behind, the last traces of light from the demolition site fading in his carved mask.

Taph exhaled shakily and leaned against the bench.

“⚠️🔧 (Something’s off.)”

Dusekkar tilted his head.

“You feel unwell, more than before?
Tell me now—I can’t ignore.”

Taph hesitated.

He reached for a loose bolt on the table, turning it between his fingers.

“👁️‍🗨️🫣 (I think I’m being watched.)”

Dusekkar didn’t interrupt.

“🤏⚠️. 🧱🌀↘️👀❌. 🤷👍. (At first, it was small. Stuff moving weird. Walls tilting when I wasn’t looking. Thought it was bad world gen or the usual.)”

He dropped the bolt with a soft clink.

“🌐⚠️👀🔁.🌐⚠️👻🔁 (Then I started seeing glitches in every map. Stuff that shouldn’t be there, things from other games I destroyed. Places that blinked in and out.)”

“🧱💥➡️.🏘️⚠️👀.🚦⚠️👀. (Then I started seeing them outside the jobs. Outside the demolitions. In the public servers. My apartment. The street.)”

Dusekkar stepped forward instinctively.

“And you told no one? Not even the brass?
Not Builderman? Not anyone who'd ask?”

Taph shrank slightly under the weight of it.

“😓🚫. 😵‍💫😪💤. (I didn’t want to make it a thing, it’s probably nothing. Maybe I’m just tired.)”

Dusekkar didn’t hesitate. He reached forward and pulled the demolitionist into a hug, one arm wrapping firm around Taph’s shoulder, the other resting lightly at his back.

“You should’ve spoken, sent a report.
This isn’t something to brush or distort.”

He pulled back just enough to look at him, voice softer.

“You need rest, more than a day.
I’ll speak to Builderman right away.”

Taph stirred, shaking his head.

“😤. 😰🚫.🤒(It’s not that bad, I’m just feeling sick.)”

He then paused, his hands still raised.

“ 🎃🫂👍🙂 (I feel better with you around.)”

Dusekkar frowned through his flickering light.

“You can’t just push through what you feel.
This creeping sickness—Taph, it’s real.”

Taph opened his mouth, but Dusekkar cut him off again—

“Fine. I won’t go to Builderman, not yet.
But I’ll file something light. No real threat.”

Taph looked unsure.

“I’ll phrase it like slowdown. A case of delay.
Nothing that flags you or sends you away.”

The demolitionist hesitated… then finally nodded.

“✅🛠️🧍‍♂️➕🎃 (Okay. As long as I can keep working. With you.)”

Dusekkar gave a resigned little laugh.

“You’re stubborn, that much is clear.
But I won’t let harm draw near.”

Taph leaned slightly against him, exhaustion starting to drag heavy through his limbs.

“👀🔄🎃😔❓😵‍💫📉 (You sure you’re okay, though? You’ve looked… rough lately.)”

The question caught Dusekkar mid-thought. His posture softened.

“I’m fine, just stretched—nothing dire.
Late hours, tasks, a world on fire.”

He meant it as a joke, but it landed with a quiet weariness.

“Don’t worry for me—I’m alright.
I’d rather you be safe tonight.”

Taph didn’t answer.

The silence that followed was warm.

Then slowly, as if sleep itself had crept between them, Taph leaned further into Dusekkar’s side. His grip on the cloak slackened. The faint glow of the workroom dimmed.

And before long, the demolitionist was asleep, head resting quietly against the carved shoulder of the admin beside him.

Dusekkar stayed still. Just held him there.

Listening to him breathe.

Chapter Text

Taph sat hunched at his cluttered desk, the soft chirping of birds outside doing little to break the heavy silence around him. It had been a few days since Dusekkar was reassigned to his side. Per the admin’s request, he’d been spending more time at home and less in his workshop. As much as he longed to return to sketching new designs like usual, that familiar rhythm had been replaced by something else—a lingering sense of being watched. Stalked. Instead of building, he now spent his hours scrolling through old logs, desperate to piece together whatever it was he was experiencing.

The screens flickered faintly as he cycled through old demolition logs, replaying fragments of bodycam footage he had saved over the last week. Frame by frame, map by map. Nothing obvious. No single anomaly.

But he felt it.

Paused frames revealed flickers. Barely a glitch—a decal misaligned here, a shadow where no object stood, a split-second frame where a player list blinked from five to six and back again.

None of it was worth reporting on its own.

He leaned back, arms folded under his cloak, the soft cloth a reminder of Dusekkar’s concern. He hadn’t told him everything. Not really.

Taph rewound one of the demolition logs. A low-res capture of an old tycoon game—empty, obsolete. At first glance, nothing out of place. But then he spotted it again: that flicker. Top right corner. Just before the spawnpad collapsed.

He stilled the frame.

It wasn’t a full figure. Just… shape. Noise. Like a player render that hadn’t fully loaded, then blinked away. The name tag read nothing.

He scrubbed back. Froze it again.

Same spot. Same flicker. No log entry for another player joining.

Taph exhaled, leaning forward and pressing a hand to his temple.

He had found so many tiny glitches in the older videos. Each one felt insignificant on its own—barely worth reporting. Nothing ever seemed big enough to raise concern.

The longer he looked, the more he saw. Not full patterns—just fragments. An audio stutter he swore sounded like breathing. A terrain mesh that looked warped like a face when paused at just the right moment.

He rubbed his eyes, forcing himself up from the desk.

His shift would start soon, and he didn’t want Dusekkar to worry.

Taph pushed himself away from the desk with a soft creak of metal wheels, rubbing the back of his neck beneath the hood.

He grabbed his bag, made sure his logs were backed up, and stepped out into the morning light.

Even now, with sun filtering in through the pixel-blurred windows of the apartment corridor, something still felt… off.

But he buried it.

It was time to work.

—

The Roblox HQ was quiet that morning. A low hum of background music looped near the spawn terminal, mixed with the faint clicking of menus from nearby workers queuing up their assignments. Taph scanned his badge, the system chirped in response, and a loading platform booted beneath his boots.

Dusekkar was already there.

“Still on time,” the admin teased, glyphs on his staff dim but steady. “Even with shadows clouding your mind.”

Taph rolled his eyes with a soft smile under his hood.

“😤💼⬇️🚫🎃💪 (Can’t let my new supervisor down.)”

They stepped onto the pad together, destination already keyed in. The familiar pull of teleportation hit, and then they dropped into the first zone—an obby-style world with rusted checkpoints and off-grid terrain, flagged weeks ago for cleanup.

“Standard sweep,” Dusekkar announced, floating just above the cracked brickground, arms folded. “Script decay minimal. Shouldn’t take long.”

Taph nodded and got to work.

The first few maps were simple. Old obstacle courses, abandoned simulators, a misaligned tycoon island half-sunken into sea. Taph worked with efficient rhythm—placing charges, rerouting decay nodes, reporting brick instability as Dusekkar monitored overhead. The admin even stepped in to disable a misfiring spawnblock script with a flick of his staff.

A few demolitions later, there was still nothing unusual.

Until this one.

It loaded slower than the others. A sandbox map—flat, square, and foggy. Gray skybox, patchy terrain. It didn’t have much to it beyond a few free model houses and a long-winding road tunnel used in some other games.

Taph tilted his head slightly as the world rendered.

Dusekkar floated higher this time, scanning the outer edges while Taph began marking the weak points. There were dozens. This place hadn’t seen a player in years.

Taph moved deeper into the zone, dropping charges behind rusted fences and scripting out a command to sever the central spawn. It took him down into the tunnel—flickering torches lining either side.

“🧨🧹🚇(Just gonna clear the tunnel),” he signed up to Dusekkar who was still in the air.

Dusekkar gave a nod. “Don’t linger long.”

Taph descended the narrow staircase and walked past broken mesh crates and some old event textures. His visor reported no signs of active instability.

But then…

The scanner glitched. Just for a second. A blip.

The lights dimmed slightly, but the server didn’t report lighting scripts. Then came the sound—just barely there. Like a footstep, but delayed. One behind his own.

Taph froze.

He turned slowly.

Nothing.

The tunnel behind him was empty.

He kept moving. Tried to breathe steady. Maybe it was just—

Another noise. A whisper this time.

And the light at the far end of the tunnel flickered—briefly showing a silhouette.

Taph took a step back, breathing hitching.

He wanted to call for Dusekkar, but with no voice, it was useless.

Only the deep static silence of a broken map.

He took another cautious step back, the soles of his boots crunching against old, brittle decals. His visor scanned again—no corruption detected. But he didn’t trust it anymore. The pings were too clean. Too silent. It had to be fake.

The torchlight buzzed, flickered again—and this time, it didn’t come back.

Darkness swallowed the tunnel.

Taph pulled a flashlight from his pocket. A soft cone of light cut through the fog… but only barely.

There was movement.

Not ahead.

Above.

He whipped his head up, light catching on what looked like a malformed chunk of geometry—hovering, trembling—like an asset halfway loaded from an entirely different game.

And then it was gone.

Just—blinked out—leaving no trace.

He stumbled back, heart pounding, cloak catching on a misaligned rocky mesh. He tore it free, backing toward the exit. His breath was shallow now, panic threatening to rise.

And then he heard it again.

Footsteps. Behind him.

This time, not his own.

He spun.

Nothing.

As his boots pounded the floor, the ground around him thudded—once, twice, three times. A tremor rippled through the map.

He didn’t see it—but he felt it.

A shadow formed underfoot, just beneath his sprint as he reached the exit to the tunnel.

The false patch of darkness flared for a second, then vanished.

A jolt of cold ran through him.

He staggered mid-run as a wave of nausea hit. His limbs slowed, like moving through molasses. His balance broke. The air turned syrupy, choking, metallic. The world bled at the edges, and a searing, static-filled pressure crept into his head. His aura—it felt like it was being tugged at. Exposed. Watched.

And then something else—something worse.

It saw him.

He felt it—like a thread pulling taut between his chest and an unseen figure somewhere deep in the code.

And in return… he felt its presence latch on.

Taph gasped, stumbled forward, barely keeping on his feet.

He ran—but not fast. Not anymore.

Each step burned now. His blood felt wrong, as if something foreign had seeped into it. Static crawled across his visor, crawling into his thoughts, pressing in like a vice behind his eyes.

He collapsed out of the tunnel and into open air—breathing hard, limbs shaking.

The world above looked the same—gray, dead, hollow—but his perception had changed. Everything had a film over it. Like watching a dream rot from the inside out.

Taph turned in a slow circle, the fog closing in tighter. No overhead glow. No glyphs. No admin.

Then he heard something at the edge of the world border.

Something breathing.

Wrong.

Too low. Too static-filled. Like a voice buried under code.

Whatever trap he had stepped in was gone. But it had already worked.

His legs gave out—not from pain, but from exhaustion. Fear. Sickness. His knees hit the half-loaded terrain with a dull crack, and he scrambled toward the nearest structure—an old collapsed shack—and pulled himself behind it.

Hidden.

Waiting.

He curled in, sick, shaking, dizzy.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Until—

A soft hum lit the sky.

Familiar.

Warm.

A cloak fluttered down from the clouds.

And the faint glow of Dusekkar’s fire lit the map like a beacon.

Dusekkar’s boots hit the broken terrain with a heavy thud, residual glyphlight swirling like sparks around his legs. He scanned the map—empty. Crumbling architecture, mismatched assets, no sign of his partner.

But he felt it.

The trace of something bent wrong.

Warped.

Like something had touched this space and left fingerprints behind.

He raised a hand and called out—not loud, but steady.

“Taph?”

No answer.

With one slow gesture, the wind around him spiraled, flickering in reverse—a spell to trace recent movement. Footsteps emerged, faint, glitch-laced. Leading toward the far shack, where the fog was thickest.

He walked, careful, deliberate.

Not fast.

Not loud.

Until—

A soft cough.

Low. Ragged.

From behind the collapsed wall.

Dusekkar rounded it in a blink.

And froze.

Taph was curled up, half-kneeling, cloak pulled tight around himself. He looked small. Smaller than Dusekkar had ever seen him. His usual emojis were absent from his visor.

He looked haunted.

Dusekkar dropped to one knee.

“What happened, are you alright?” He whispered low.

Taph blinked hard, visor flickering.

“😔…🧭❌ (I didn’t… mean to. I just… got lost.)”

He reached out with a trembling hand.

Dusekkar caught it in both of his.

“It’s alright,” he said, no rhyme this time. Just him.
“You’re safe. I’ve got you now.”

“I shouldn’t have left you alone…”

A pause.

Then—Taph leaned forward.

Rested his head against Dusekkar’s chest.

And slumped.

Wheezed breathing. Exhausted.

Dusekkar’s arms wrapped around him instantly, cloak draping over them both like a ward against the world.

“No more fieldwork,” he whispered against the side of Taph’s visor.
“You’re done.”

He opened his console and tapped his comm, sending out a message to builderman to pull our assignments from rotation.

There was a moment’s pause on the other end. A quiet buzz of static.

Then: “Confirmed.”

Dusekkar didn’t move. Didn’t rush.

He just stayed there with him, kneeling in the dust of a broken world, holding on like it might shatter for real.

—

The teleport shimmer hadn’t even faded before Dusekkar’s arms tightened around Taph again, his grip gentle but protective as he guided him through the familiar halls of the apartment complex. The evening sunset light bled through the windows—soft and yellow—but it didn’t warm the way it usually did. Not with Taph slumped against him, too quiet. Too still.

Taph didn’t protest. He was barely standing.

Every few steps, the demolitionist swayed. His balance was off, his breathing faint. His visor stuttered with static, scrolling half-finished emoji strings that failed to load.

Dusekkar’s jaw clenched. He moved faster.

When they reached the apartment, he didn’t ask permission. He disabled the door’s lock with a wobbly flick of his staff—and the door slid open with a soft hiss.

Inside, everything looked normal. The cluttered desk, the gear prototypes, the warm haze from half-drawn curtains.

But it felt different.

Off.

Like something had followed them in.

Dusekkar ignored it. He led Taph to the couch, laying him down like one might settle a relic—careful not to disturb the weight it carried. His cloak settled like a blanket around him as he gently lowered him down. The demolitionist sank into the cushions without a word, visor dim. His fingers twitched once, reaching up—then dropped back against his chest.

Dusekkar frowned.

He crouched beside him, placing two fingers just beneath Taph’s hood—feeling for breath, for pulse. It was there. But shallow.

Too cold, yet sweating.

Then he rose, slow and controlled, raising his staff above the sleeping figure—its tip glowing pale blue. The glyphs flickered as he checked vitals—not admin readings, just his own kind of scan using his staff. Passive. Non-invasive.

Something wasn’t right.

he runes spiraled softly in the air, then—

Flickered.

Crackled.

Lines of corrupted script shimmered across the scan. Not dramatic. Not enough to trip the platform’s global alarm systems. But Dusekkar knew better.

Like a fingerprint in a fogged mirror. A leftover impression of something not fully there.

These weren’t natural bugs. They were threaded. Personalized.

They clung to Taph like parasites. Nestled deep—beneath avatar layering, beneath metadata. Masked, hidden. But unmistakably John’s.

Dusekkar stared at the reading, jaw tightening. His hand rested on Taph’s shoulder.

He’d seen this before.

Not often.

Not recently.

But this… this wasn’t just contact.

It was infection.
Dusekkar took a shaky step back.
His staff dimmed. He tapped his wrist console and opened a comm channel. Not to HQ. Not to Builderman.

To Jane.

“A co-worker made contact. Not direct. But close enough.”
“He’s sick. Corruption-level sick.”
“How long does he have?”

He hovered over the send button.

Hesitated.

His gaze flicked back to the couch.

Taph had curled tighter, knees drawn up under the cloak Dusekkar had made him. His breathing was uneven. His visor flickered with half-loaded code—an unreadable mix of system alerts and idle expressions. His whole presence was glitching in small, almost imperceptible ways.

Taph was flickering between stable and corrupted.

Dusekkar closed his eyes.

He tapped out one final line.

“What do I do to keep him safe?”

He stared at the message.

Then pressed SEND.

The moment stretched. The room buzzed faintly. The scan glyphs still hovered in the air, overpowering his dimming fire—the only true light source left as the sun disappeared and the night took over.

Dusekkar dispelled them with a wave of his hand.

Then he crossed the room, pulled a blanket off the chair, and wrapped it gently over Taph’s legs. He sat beside him, not touching at first—just watching. Guarding.

After a long silence, he finally reached out, slid one gloved hand over Taph’s.

Chapter Text

Builderman stood in the center of the admin terminal, hands clasped behind his back, watching the incident logs scroll across the curved monitor wall. Normally, he skimmed. Flagged bugs, player reports, crash data—routine cleanup. But lately, it wasn’t routine.

He squinted at the newest report from Dusekkar.

“Unit pulled from rotation. Taph showing signs of corruption instability. Cause unknown. Immediate rest recommended.”

That wasn’t the part that concerned him. It was the silence that followed.

No follow-up. No clarification. No check-in from Taph himself.

That demolitionist was annoyingly punctual, even after incidents. He’d report mid-recovery with full logs and six redundant bug tests. But now… nothing.

Two days of total absence. Before that, almost a week of odd behavior—decrease in demolition efficiency, misfires in remote detonations, inconsistent visor tags. The logs didn’t match his usual patterns.

Builderman opened Taph’s assignment record. Last contact: “all systems normal.” No new footage since.

Something was wrong.

He tapped a console, pulling up the global performance dashboards.

Chat systems: intermittent lag.

Avatar systems: blank renders, dropped limbs.

Teleport pads: misfiring.

Public player reports had doubled overnight—server spikes, visual bugs, some claiming “ghost names” flickering in tab lists.

And worse—too many were tagging their clips with one name.

“John Doe.”

Builderman’s jaw tightened. He closed the logs with a wave and turned to the platform-wide comms.

“Lock all flagged servers. Begin scan protocol tier two. Notify all admin-class moderators—no solo field deployments without my clearance.”

He paused at the console, eyes scanning Dusekkar’s report again.

Taph.

The name stuck in his head like static.

He opened a private line. Typed only one sentence.

“How bad is it?”

Then, without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked toward the lower levels—toward the sealed archives.

He needed to see whatever it was that Dusekkar saw.

—

The hum of corrupted runes had faded overnight, but their memory lingered in the air like smoke.

Dusekkar sat cross-legged on the floor beside the couch, his staff unlit for once, resting against the wall.

Taph stirred.

It wasn’t a slow rise—more like a jolt. His whole body flinched once, sharply, as if rebooting mid-animation. Then again—less violently—his visor flickering awake with a burst of static.

“Easy,” Dusekkar murmured, rising to a knee. “You’re safe. Still home.”

Taph blinked hard. His visor struggled to load his usual greeting emoji, cycling through half-formed symbols before flashing red for a brief moment. A system warning.

“🧨💥? (Did the charge go off?)” he signed loosely, fingers trembling.

The visor he wore glitched and struggled to display emojis as he continued to sign, “▯▯?(Did—was that spawnpad—?)”

“You’re not on-site.” Dusekkar reached to steady him, placing a hand gently against his shoulder. “You’re in your apartment. You’ve been here since yesterday.”

Taph didn’t answer right away.

“▯▯…❓(…where... where’d he go?)” His wheezed, choked with static. “ ⚒️🧍▯(Builderman was here... just now.)” He signed

Dusekkar stilled.

“No, Taph,” he said carefully. “You’ve been asleep. Builderman hasn’t come.”

Taph shook his head, frantic. “ ❌—⚙️✅ (No—he—he said the fix was ready.)”
“▯▯▯.▯ (He said I just had to run the code. He was smiling.)”

“There is no fix,” Dusekkar said, firm but gentle. “You’re remembering wrong.”

Taph’s hands kept signing, trembling too violently for the gestures to be understood.

Dusekkar frowned. “Taph—”

Taph blinked again. Slowly.

Then turned to look at him.

“▯▯(Builderman…)” he signed, “▯▯▯❓(you’re not—Builderman?)”

Dusekkar’s stomach sank. “No. It’s me. Dusekkar.”

A pause.

Taph’s hands lowered and relaxed enough to show recognition before freezing up again in fear.

“...▯▯▯▯( …I think something’s wrong with me.)” He stiffly signed.

“You were corrupted,” Dusekkar said gently. “You’re still stabilizing. It’s affecting your memory.”

Taph nodded, too quickly. “ ✅. ▯▯▯. ▯ 💧. ▯ 👍 (Right, right. I remember now. I just need water. I’ll be fine.)”

As he sat up, his eyes tracked something only he could see—shadows in the corner, shapes where light should be—something behind Dusekkar. His shadow—no not his. It stretched long and seemed to have deep blood red eyes. He recoiled when its piercing eyes stared back at him.

His hands raised defensively, his visor flickering, “ ⚠️⚠️👤—”

His hands reached forward in a swift motion of pure instinct—without even realizing it he had pulled up his demolition script.

Dusekkar grabbed his wrists before the command finished.

“Taph!”

Taph flinched, wide-eyed, breathing shallow. “▯—▯. … 💣💥❌😨. ▯—▯▯— (Sorry—sorry. …I didn’t mean to. I didn’t—I wasn’t trying—)”

“I know,” Dusekkar said, voice low. “You’re not thinking clearly.”

Taph stilled.

Silence stretched.

Then—his gaze twitched to the mirror across the room. The corner of it, near the coat rack.

His breath hitched.

“... ⚠️👤▯(…There’s something in here),” he signed subtly.

Dusekkar turned—but nothing was there.

Just their faint outlines in the glass.

Still, Taph’s visor flickered again. Symbols scrolled rapidly—emojis mixing with system flags:
“⚠️👤👁️▯▯▯”.

And then—Dusekkar’s console buzzed.

Jane.

He opened it instantly.

“Symptoms vary. Prolonged exposure warps memory and logic. Just keep watch of him. John may be tracking him.”

Dusekkar let the message hang in the space between them. He didn’t share it aloud—yet. Just closed the screen and looked back down.

Taph had curled in again, his knees held close to his chest, visor dimmed. Quiet. Still glitching.

“Am I,” Taph signed, “messed up… bad?”

Dusekkar reached out and took his hand again.

“You’re corrupted,” he said gently. “But you’re not gone.”

Taph turned his head, unfocused eyes gazing somewhere past Dusekkar.

“…who are you again?” His free hand twitched with uncertainty.

The question hit like a drop in the gut.

But Dusekkar didn’t flinch. Just squeezed his hand tighter.

“I’m here to look after you until this is over.”

Dusekkar shifted slightly, still crouched beside Taph, when something on his console blinked—subtle, almost missed.

At first, he ignored it—too focused on Taph’s distant stare, the tremble in his fingers, the way his hand clutched weakly at Dusekkar’s cloak like a tether.

No alert chime.

No buzz.

Just a single flashing dot in the lower right corner.

It was a private message from Builderman.

That wasn’t normal.

His console should’ve pinged. Priority messages always did.

Frowning, he opened the notification panel manually and scrolled. The message had come in nearly ten minutes ago.

From Builderman.
“How bad is it?”

Dusekkar frowned. That message should’ve triggered an alert. A priority ping. But it hadn’t. The console never lit. No sound.

Dusekkar’s eyes narrowed. The console had registered it as low priority. That wasn’t possible. Builderman’s personal comms were always tier one.

Something was interfering.

Like something had buried it.

Or delayed it.

He tapped to expand the thread—but the interface lagged. The background code rendered jagged for a second, then smoothed again. Logs corrupted, maybe. Or worse.

Static buzzed briefly from Dusekkar’s staff, even unlit—like it was trying to warn him.

He flicked through the settings, testing quick diagnostics.

His staff’s connection was clean. Console read stable. But he knew better.

His gaze shifted back to Taph.

The corruption wasn’t just affecting him—it was affecting the space around him. Local data. Signal behavior. Maybe more.

He tapped the reply field with steady fingers, careful not to show panic.

“It’s worse than the report. He’s corrupted—memory loss, hallucinations. I think something’s overriding local priority filters. My console didn’t flag your message. Glitch presence is increasing.”

He hesitated before adding,

“Lock down the area. I’ll send coordinates.”

He hit send.

The console blinked—processing.

Then, for a moment, the screen flickered. The message was sent, but a ghost line of text appeared beneath it, not typed by him.

"he’s already watching"

Dusekkar’s blood ran cold.

He swiped to clear it, but the line was already gone. No logs. No echo. Just his original message, sitting there like nothing happened.

He stared at the console.

No trace of the line.

Just his message, clean, unedited.

But he had seen it.

Just the words, still branded into his mind like burn-in on a screen.

Dusekkar’s fingers tightened around the device, knuckles white. His breath came slower now—not panicked, but deliberate. Controlled. Like he was bracing for an impact not yet arrived.

He looked around the room. Not just at Taph—but at the walls, the corners, the air.
Nothing looked different. The couch. The cluttered desk. The half-drawn curtains. But everything felt wrong. The corners were darker than they should’ve been. Shadows stretching too far. The warding spell he’d cast earlier? Flickering. Weakening. Like something was pressing against it.

The console buzzed.

This time, sharply.

A reply from Builderman.

“Lockdown protocols failed. Something bypassed containment. It’s not staying in the flagged zones.”

“We need you at HQ. Now.”

Dusekkar’s heart pounded in his ears.

Failed containment.

Dusekkar’s grip tightened on the console, knuckles pale under his gloves.

HQ? Now?

He looked at Taph.

The demolitionist had fallen into a shallow doze, head lulled to one side, code stuttered along his HUD in pulses—warning scripts, broken expressions trying and failing to display emotion.

Then—suddenly—his fingers twitched.

A half-formed sign.

Then another.

“⚠️👁️👁️▯▯▯(…they’re still looking at me…)”

He couldn’t leave him. He wouldn’t.

He typed back:

“Understood. Bringing him with me.”

No time to wait for a reply.

Dusekkar crossed the room in two strides and bent beside the couch, steadying Taph with one hand. “We’re going,” he whispered. “Right now.”

Taph’s visor blinked back to life. He jolted upright, disoriented.

“ 💥❓💣 (Did it go off?)” he shuddered.

“No,” Dusekkar said. “Nothing’s gone off. But we’re leaving. Now.”

The walls of the apartment creaked. A low audio stutter, like a map failing to fully render. The shadows around the corners warped—just slightly—but wrong. They crawled upward instead of pooling down.

Dusekkar reached for his staff and slammed it once into the floor—harder than before. The glyph flared again, brighter—but it fought this time. The spell struggled, hesitated, like it was pushing against something embedded in the space. A wrongness pressed back.

He dropped to one knee beside Taph.

“Hold onto me.”

He pulled Taph to his feet, supporting his weight. The demolitionist held onto Dusekkar weakly.

The shadows pressed harder against the walls now—shapes that didn’t match the furniture. Silhouettes that moved a frame too late or hovered a moment too long.

Dusekkar didn’t look at them.

He opened the teleport line manually, bypassing the standard interface. He couldn’t risk whatever was tampering with his system from delaying the jump.

As he keyed the final coordinates, the console flickered again—violently this time.

The screen displayed no destination.

Only one phrase:

“You’re already here.”

The console flickered—black bleeding with stuttering red binary that gave off a sickening, pulsing nausea. He recognized the pattern from John’s files in the archive wing. But why was it showing up here?

He closed it quickly before it could spread and wrapped one arm under Taph’s layered cloak to support him. This time he focused on his magic, his hand roughly drawing glyphs into the air while his staff flickered in response.

The spell fired like a gunshot.

They landed hard in some hallway of HQ, glyphs shook around them before dispersing. The contrast was stark. Sterile white lighting. Solid ground. Pure air.

Taph crumpled in his arms.

Dusekkar barely caught him, dropping to a knee.

HQ sensors pinged them instantly.

Alarms were already blaring when they arrived.

Moderators rushed from room to room in a panic, too overwhelmed by the chaos to notice the two. The few who did froze for a moment or glanced over with visible shock.

Dusekkar didn’t wait any longer. He hooked one arm under Taph’s knees and the other behind his back. The moment he lifted him, Taph’s body glitched—briefly. A ripple, like the avatar’s render was struggling to maintain physics integrity. He felt lighter than he should’ve. Like reality had partially uncoupled from his frame.

That terrified Dusekkar more than anything else.

He rushed from the lower levels of the moderation wing to the upper admin floors, carrying Taph in his arms. Worry and fear were etched across his face—so unlike his usual calm, steady demeanor. Those he passed turned to stare, concern rising in their eyes.

Chapter Text

The platform had begun to break.

At first, it was just chat delay—messages vanishing, then echoing back fivefold. Then avatars began disappearing mid-game, leaving blank nameplates floating in spawn. UIs jittered, menus stuttered open and shut like glitched code trying to render too fast.

Clockwork and Stickmasterluke had been at the front of the HQ attempting to calm the crowd forming. Most demanded answers, others searched for safety in the rising chaos.

The elevator doors slammed open with a hiss of broken hydraulics.

Dusekkar stormed into the admin command hall, the flickering red lights of server alerts casting an eerie glow across his face. In his arms, Taph hung limp—unconscious again, visor flickering weakly. A few admins still at their posts turned in shock. None had ever seen Dusekkar look like this.

His cloak was frayed with glitched static, his expression stricken with urgency and something near panic.

“Move,” he barked, his voice cold steel.

The admins parted instinctively as he carried Taph to the central admin room.

Dusekkar burst into the main admin chamber. In his arms, limp but breathing, was Taph.

Everyone froze.

Shedletsky rose halfway out of his seat. Brighteyes dropped the tablet in her hand. Doombringer turned from the live server map, jaw tightening at the sight.

“What happened?” Brighteyes asked, already stepping forward.

“He’s corrupted,” Dusekkar snapped. “System’s destabilizing around him. I didn’t have a choice.”

He gently laid Taph onto a cushioned bench beside the main terminal wall. The demolitionist twitched once—barely conscious—his visor glitching with system warnings no one else could read.

“He started seeing things,” Dusekkar said.

Brighteyes frowned. “Why bring him here?”

“Because Builderman told me to get out,” Dusekkar replied, eyes like steel. “And I’m not leaving him behind.”

A moment of silence followed—until a nearby console blared.

Red lights cascaded across the room. Server status reports blinked with error messages spilling over one another in rapid succession.

In other games, players were posting screenshots. Shadowed figures in distant terrain. Half-loaded avatars with no username. Some whispered it was a hoax. Others gave the figure a name:

John Doe.

The moderators tried locking down affected servers. It barely worked. The code moved faster than they could trace.

Builderman’s voice cut through the noise like a command prompt forced into a locked script.

“Dusekkar.”

He stood at the far end of the room, backlit by cascading red alerts, hands braced against the main control panel. His face was pale, drawn—lit only by the emergency UI glow dancing across the glass table. Unlike the others, he hadn’t moved when Dusekkar entered. But now he turned, slowly, eyes landing on the unconscious form of Taph.

“He’s worse than your report suggested,” Builderman said, his tone low. “I didn’t think it would spread this fast.”

“It’s not just him,” Dusekkar replied. “My console stopped flagging system alerts. I missed your message entirely until I checked manually. Something’s overriding our permissions.”

Shedletsky looked up sharply. “You’re saying this bug is inside our tools now?”

“He’s inside everything,” Brighteyes said. “Local priority filters, root-level commands—he’s twisting it. Bending rules like they’re just old scripts.”

Builderman nodded grimly. “Then he’s further in than I feared.”

Doombringer stepped forward, watching Taph’s visor twitch erratically. “If that corruption’s contagious, we can’t keep him here—”

“He stays,” Builderman interrupted, firm.

Doombringer blinked. “But—”

“If Taph is ground zero for something John’s tracking, he’s safer under direct supervision than isolated.” Builderman turned to Dusekkar. “And I trust you the most to keep watch.”

Dusekkar didn’t respond at first. Just gave a small, grateful nod.

The admins sat at the round center table in mounting panic. Red server alerts blinked across every terminal, casting glitchy light into the dim room.

"Users are being kicked at random—some can’t even log back in,” said Brighteyes, swiping open a holographic report. She had set up displays of user given evidence, screenshots players have been posting. “We've got duplicate assets spawning in deleted places. It's like the system's eating itself.”

“I’m seeing terrain corruption in old maps,” Shedletsky added, his usual smirk long gone. “Games that shouldn’t even exist anymore are coming back up—empty, mangled.”

Silence followed.

Even Builderman, standing stiff at the back of the room, didn’t speak. His hands were shaking slightly, eyes locked on the console.

Mr. Doombringer paced the far end of the room, fists clenched. “I say we hard rollback. Freeze all servers. Kill the update queue and restore a backup from last week.”

“You can’t just roll back the whole platform!” snapped Brighteyes, turning in her seat. “Do you know what kind of data loss that’ll cause? Marketplace files, dev earnings—entire games could vanish.”

Builderman finally stirred from the back of the room, voice hoarse. “Enough.”

All eyes turned to him.

“I’ve already tried rollback,” he said. “It failed. Or... didn’t trigger at all. I don’t even know what happened. The command ran, but the logs didn’t show it. Nothing changed.”

The room stilled.

Shedletsky blinked. “You’re saying the system ignored you?”

“I’m saying,” Builderman said quietly, “I don’t think I have clearance anymore.”

A heavier silence now. Something close to dread.

“That’s not possible,” Doombringer muttered. “You built the system.”

Builderman didn’t answer.

“I need the room.”

The admins exchanged glances.

Builderman stood there, not in his usual press-ready avatar, but in something older. Worn. His classic orange hardhat glitched faintly at the edges, and his face was drawn beneath the square jaw—unshaven, exhausted.

“Dusekkar, stay. Everyone else, out,” he added. “Keep monitoring logs. No rollback without my sign-off.”

“Are you sure?” Doombringer furrowed his brow. “If this is that serious—”

“I’m not asking.” His tone wasn’t sharp, but it wasn’t open for debate either.

Brighteyes exchanged a look with Shedletsky, then stood, gathering her tablet. “Keep us updated.”

Builderman gave a small nod as the quiet shuffling of chairs scraped and admins filtered out past him, each one glancing briefly at Dusekkar before disappearing into the corridor. Shedletsky muttered something under his breath. Brighteyes gave Dusekkar a subtle glance—half warning, half concern. Doombringer lingered last, jaw tight, but eventually followed.

The door hissed shut, and it was just Dusekkar and Builderman.

The silence was heavier now.

Dusekkar didn’t move. He waited.

Builderman walked to the center table, gripping its edge with both hands. The flickering red reports reflected onto the glass table.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said.

Dusekkar stayed where he was. “Then what was supposed to?”

Builderman gave a tired exhale. “There were failsafes. I—we—used to have full platform permissions. I could terminate any account. Reboot maps. Revert version chains. But now...”

He reached out and tapped one of the floating admin panels. An error flashed: ACCESS REVOKED.

That made Dusekkar stir with unease.

“You can’t delete the source,”

Builderman didn’t respond immediately. Just nodded once, reluctantly.

Builderman turned, eyes heavy. “Some core systems... I thought I still had root access. But now? I’m locked out. Like I’m just another user.”

A long silence stretched.

Dusekkar stepped forward, folding his arms.

“Did you ever delete the John Doe account?”

Builderman looked up at him—finally, directly. For the first time in a long while, he didn’t look like a god of the platform. He looked small. Overwhelmed. Human.

“I didn’t,” he said. “and even if I wanted to… I don’t think I could now.”

His voice was quiet. Honest.

“I don’t know what’s happening anymore.”

The red lights on the table flickered again. The platform was burning from the inside out.

Dusekkar stood still, the words sinking in, heavy and slow. He could feel the pieces clicking into place. John wasn’t just alive in the system. He was inside it—woven into the rot of forgotten code. And now, the system was unspooling itself around him.

Builderman faced the error logs that updated in real time, red text flooding the hologram so fast it was illegible.

“You saw the archive logs, right? You know something.”

“I do.” Dusekkar answered.

They sat in silence for a moment.

“There may be someone else who can help.”

Builderman looked up. “Who?”

Dusekkar didn’t answer immediately. He turned slightly toward the door.

“She’s not a solution,” he said quietly. “But she knows what’s coming.”

Builderman stared at him with uncertainty.
“We’re officially out of options.”

“She’s not to be named publicly. Not until she agrees.”

Builderman didn’t argue, but instead added, “We’re running out of time.”

“I know. For now, I just need the other admins to listen.”

Builderman nodded, a newfound energy in his voice. “I can do that,” he said, determination replacing the weariness on his face.

Dusekkar turned back to Taph, his face only clouded with worry once more. He didn’t want to leave him.

Builderman caught on. “I can keep watch until you’re back.”

Dusekkar nodded and stood, “I’ll be quick.”

Dusekkar opened his console, and with one last glance at Taph, he teleported to Jane’s home. A new sense of urgency tugged at his soul.

He knocked on her door. His fingers trailed his staff with impatience as he waited. Just as he opened his mouth to call for her, the door opened.
“Dusekkar? Back so soon? Did you find John?” Jane’s questions flooded, a pleading look on her face.

Dusekkar shook his head, as much as he wished that were true.

“I need you to come to the HQ.” He said bluntly.

She paused, her mouth agape in shock.

“This isn’t just about you or John anymore,” he said softly, his voice steady but urgent. “The corruption that started in your world is spreading. It’s going to hurt more than just us if we don’t act.”

Jane’s jaw tightened. “You want me to walk back into the lion’s den? Face the people who’ve locked me away all these years?”

He shook his head. “No one’s asking you to trust them blindly. But hiding only lets this grow worse. I need you there, with us—helping, guiding.”

Her gaze faltered. “And if they just lock me up again?”

“I’ll be there,” Dusekkar promised. “I won’t let them silence you. But we need to try.”

Jane hesitated, biting her lip, torn between fear and resolve.

After a long pause, she finally nodded. “Alright. I’ll come.”

The wind outside the small house stirred again, a low hum filtering through the walls. Jane glanced around the room once more—at the empty shelves, the weathered rug, the dusty decal on the far wall she’d never finished customizing. Then she turned back to Dusekkar.

“Let’s just make one thing clear,” she added, voice sharp but steady. “I’m not doing this for them.”

He nodded once. “Understood.”

“For him,” she said quietly. “Whatever’s left.”

Without another word, she stepped past him, closing the front door.

They stood at the edge of the house’s terrain for a moment, side by side. Jane inhaled deeply, then exhaled, bracing herself.

“Ready?” Dusekkar asked.

“No,” she muttered. “But let’s go anyway.”

With a flick of his hand, the rune on his staff brightened as they teleported. The page-flip sound whispered through the air once more.

Together, they stepped through.

—

The emergency lights in HQ’s admin wing still blinked softly—more ambient than helpful now. Most of the systems had stabilized for the moment, but the tension still clung to every corner of the room.

Shedletsky was hunched over a console, typing rapidly. Doombringer paced nearby, grumbling to himself as he reviewed incoming server logs. Brighteyes sat cross-legged on a chair, manually cleaning up some broken UI. At the back of the room, Builderman stood quietly beside a cushioned bench where Taph lay, still unconscious, his visor pulsing faintly with corrupted flickers.

He hadn’t left Taph’s side since Dusekkar had teleported. One hand rested near the console, the other near Taph’s shoulder—guarding him, but helpless to intervene.

All of them looked up when the soft, distinct hum of a transport rune echoed across the room.

Dusekkar stepped forward first. Jane followed close behind him, hat casting a shadow over her eyes, posture tight. The room fell silent.

Shedletsky’s hands paused mid-key. Doombringer turned with a squint. Brighteyes tilted her head, confused.

Builderman looked up immediately—relieved.

Dusekkar raised a hand. “This is Jane Doe.”

Another beat of silence.

“The Jane Doe?” Brighteyes muttered. Her voice wasn’t hostile—just incredulous.

“She’s here to help,” Dusekkar continued before anyone could object. “She knows more about John’s movements than any of us. She’s not the threat.”

Doombringer squinted at her, “So both of you escaped, you and him”

Dusekkar cut in. “She was sealed. Forgotten, not deleted. Like him.”

Jane didn’t say anything at first. Her hands were tight at her sides, eyes scanning each admin warily. She looked ready to bolt.

Her gaze drifted past them—landing on the small bench near the terminal wall. On Taph.

She stepped forward, gently brushing past Dusekkar. Her tone softened for the first time.

“Was this who you were talking about?”

Dusekkar nodded. “I think he saw John. Maybe more. I don’t know what happened”

Builderman stepped aside to give her space. Jane crouched beside the bench, her expression unreadable. She reached out and carefully touched Taph’s visor—just briefly.

“He’s lucky he came back at all,” she murmured.

The light from the visor blinked once, flickering faintly in response. Jane pulled her hand back.

“I didn’t think he’d get this far,” she whispered, then stood again. “You’ve got someone brave.”

Shedletsky leaned back in his chair. “So… why now?”

“Because she saw this coming,” Dusekkar said. “She tried to stop it. Alone.”

Jane finally turned back to them, voice low but steady. “I didn’t come here to be interrogated. I came because you’re out of time.”

Brighteyes stood slowly, crossing her arms. “Then say what you know. What’s John planning?”

Jane looked to Dusekkar first—he gave a small nod. Then she stepped forward, slowly removing her hat. Her default 2006 face looked oddly out of place among the newer avatars, but her voice carried weight.

“He’s using forgotten games as storage,” she began. “Glitched files, corrupted terrain, broken scripts. Anything with decay. He collects them. Binds them to himself. It’s like… armor. Malware armor.”

The admins exchanged glances.

“He’s beyond rogue code,” Jane continued. “You can’t just purge him. He’s threaded into the older systems—old permissions, tester protocols, rollback loops. You try to delete him now, you’ll break half the platform.”

Doombringer muttered a curse.

Shedletsky ran a hand through his hair. “We need to trace what servers he’s anchored to.”

Brighteyes looked between them. “And what happens if we find him?”

Silence.

Jane stared at the floor for a moment before answering. “I don’t know. But I’ll help you try.”

Shedletsky’s voice was quieter now. “You sure you’re not just trying to save him?”

Jane met his gaze. “I already failed to do that.”

Builderman stepped forward. “We work together now. That’s the only way we stop this.”

And, to the group’s credit, no one argued.

Dusekkar returned to Taph’s side, eyes flicking to the visor again as it sputtered another soft glitch. Whatever came next—they would face it together.

Chapter Text

Taph stirred, his limbs heavy and joints aching like he'd been packed into terrain data that refused to finish loading. His visor flickered once—then again—before steadying to a dull, stable glow. For the first time in what felt like days, the glitching had slowed—still there, just less violent. No more whispers from the walls. No more shadows bending wrong. Just silence.

And Dusekkar.

He sat slouched in a chair beside Taph’s bench, cloak pooled beneath him, dirtied and singed near one shoulder. His head bowed forward in sleep, eyes closed—dozing, but not peacefully. Even in sleep, tension clung to him, jaw clenched, hands twitching like he was still mid-spell. His staff leaned beside him, worn at the edge from a fight Taph didn’t remember.

But more than that, he looked spent. The kind of exhaustion that didn’t come from battle alone.

Taph’s heart tugged. How long had he been here? Watching? Waiting?

Taph shifted slightly, and the motion was enough.

Dusekkar stirred with a start, blinking hard. When he saw Taph looking back, his face changed—softened, then clouded.

“…You’re awake.” His voice was low, quiet.

“ ✅ (Yeah),” Taph weakly lifted his hands to sign. “ 🤏 (Barely).”

A pause stretched between them. Dusekkar hesitated, eyes searching his face like he didn’t quite believe it. Then he leaned back tiredly, head tilted to the ceiling, he closed his eyes and sighed.

Taph stared back at Dusekkar like he was trying to read the thoughts that roared in his mind.

“ 🎃🤕📉 (You look worse than me).”

Dusekkar gave a short breath of a laugh—relieved, shaken. “Not possible.”

He then turned back to Taph and quipped, “You haven’t seen yourself just yet—a walking glitch, a system threat.”

While he meant it as a joke, there was a hint of worry on his face.

After a long pause Taph finally pulled his eyes away from Dusekkar and glanced at his surroundings. It felt familiar but he wasn’t sure.

“ 📍❓ (Where are we?)”

“The main admin center, where the cores and codes all enter.” Dusekkar yawned.

Taph nodded in acknowledgement before continuing, “ ❓🤷‍♂️ (What happened?)”

Dusekkar frowned, “You don’t remember?”

Taph shook his head in response. “🤷‍♂️💭❓⚠️ (It’s all fuzzy).”

Dusekkar kept his gaze on Taph but it seemed distant as he tried to think about what to say or where to even start. He was beyond exhausted from all the events that had led up to this very moment. He wasn’t even sure he could explain it all clearly. Should he tell him about John? Still, Taph had been directly affected. He deserved the truth. After all, he’d been deathly ill and disoriented—was he still sick? Was any of this even real? Was he still dreaming?

Taph slowly reached forward and placed a hand on Dusekkar’s arm, “ 🎃? (Dusekkar?)” his visor flickered.

He sharply sucked in a breath of air as he came back to reality, his thoughts seem slowed and he hadn’t realized how long he was taking to respond.

He pulled his arm away and waved his hand in dismissal, “I’m fine… just tired…” he sighed.

“…You were sick, corrupted and thin,
After a clash where worlds wore thin.
I brought you to safety, but it only grew worse,
Hallucinations plagued you, like a cursed verse.
Your memories faded, fragile and few,
Your apartment unsafe—so HQ was due.”
Dusekkar briefly explained.

Taph froze, trying to process what he'd just heard. Most of it was a blur—but the more he focused, the more fragments returned. The tunnel. A shapeless mass of glitchy geometry above him. Running. Then his apartment—shadows creeping at the edges, eyes in the dark. Through it all, the only calm in the chaos had been Dusekkar’s hand on his. The rest was gone.

Dusekkar watched Taph’s face shift with slow realization. He hesitated again, then reached for his staff—not to wield it, but to ground himself.

“There’s more,” he said quietly. “You deserve to know.”

Taph turned back to him. He didn’t sign anything, just waited.

“There’s something I haven’t yet revealed,
About the truth that’s been concealed,
And who’s behind this dark design,
The source of all that’s gone malign.”
Dusekkar stared at Taph like he waited for his permission to continue.

“In 2017, some rumors had spread,
Of John and Jane—two names of dread.
They’d hack the games, destroy the place—
But that was false. A phantom chase.

They were test accounts back then,
Made to push the bounds again—
Script permissions, terrain decay,
Rollback loops that looped astray.

But once their use had reached its end,
They sealed them off—no code to mend.
Forgotten deep, their world decayed,
And in that rot, corruption stayed.

It latched to John—his form, his name,
Not like your sickness, but power it gave,
He broke free from his digital grave.

He took Jane with him, though she tried to bind,
His darkness grew, he left her behind.
She tried to stop him, pull him back,
But John had gone too far off track.

He slipped through cracks in broken games,
Dead maps, lost code, old phantom names.
He roams these worlds for demolition,
That’s how you caught this strange condition.

John Doe’s touch made you fall ill,
The cause remains a mystery still.”

Taph stiffened. The realization hit like static to the spine. Those glitches. That whispering. It hadn’t been random. It was all real.

“He made you sick—of that I'm sure,
And I should’ve warned you long before.”
Dusekkar looked away with regret. He was ashamed of himself.

Taph slowly signed, “ 📍❓📍🌐😨❓ (He was there? In the same servers as me?)”

Dusekkar nodded.

Taph’s hands trembled.

“I tried to stop it, keep it unseen—
That’s why these weeks I’ve looked so lean.
Tracking him through glitch and strain,
And chasing echoes left by Jane.”
He murmured.

He looked back at Taph, guilt etched deep in his face. “I didn’t want you involved. I didn’t want you hurt.”

Taph blinked. Then Dusekkar added, softer:

“But it clearly wasn’t enough… because he still got to you.”

Taph didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. The silence between them said everything.

“I’ll keep you safe. I swear I will.
Through every spike and… corrupted hill.
If he comes back, I’ll—I'll stand and fight.
With magic… and… uh, firewall light…”

He hesitated—opened his mouth to say something more—but closed it again. A frustrated sound escaped his throat. The fire in his pumpkin flared up almost uncontrollably.

“I’d say the words,” he muttered, “but the rhyme won’t come.”

“…Anyway,” he cleared his throat, looking away. “Are you feeling any better?”

Taph held back a chuckle and signed in response, “ 🤒🤢➡️😵‍💫🤕➡️😴 (Less dying. Still tired.)”

The silence between them lingered, heavy but healing. For a few precious moments, it felt like the world outside had paused—just long enough for breath to return, for warmth to stir in the glitch-frosted edges of their bond.

But the world didn’t stop.
It fractured.

Dusekkar’s staff lit faintly. Taph sat up straighter, visor relighting.

From the hallway, a voice crackled through the intercom—static-choked and urgent:

“All users—stay in private instances. We are initiating full lockdown protocol. This is not a drill.”

A shrill alarm cut through the admin center, pulsing red across every screen. Dusekkar snapped upright, his staff in hand before he’d fully registered the sound. Emergency lights flared across the room—server breach, mass corruption, platform lockdown.

Dusekkar whirled toward the nearest terminal, fingers flying across the keys—only to stop cold.

The error log was a mess.

Robloxia’s previous errors flooded the terminal tenfold—this time much worse. Critical terrain failures. Script leaks. Glitched players reporting nausea, dizziness, hallucinations. Hundreds of users—across dozens of servers—falling ill just like Taph had.

Corruption spreading by the minute.

He reached instinctively for his personal console, ready to deploy a trace, but the screen stayed dark. Offline.

A sharp slam echoed from the door behind them. Doombringer burst in, cloak dragging static and debris behind him. He carried his usual menacingly angry look, but another emotion seemed to crack through his composure—worry. His hands gripped a banhammer with a strength he hadn’t seen before.

“They’re here,” he barked. “Geometry’s collapsing across HQ’s west wing—Builderman’s on the roof trying to stabilize some of the scripts. We’re bracing for a direct attack.”

Dusekkar didn’t hesitate. “I’m coming.”

He turned on his heel and moved swiftly toward the door. But halfway there, he paused—sensing something behind him. Dusekkar froze in the doorway, turning sharply.

Taph was on his feet, stumbling slightly, one arm braced against the bench, but determined.

Dusekkar frowned. “No. Stay here. You might still be sick.”

Taph shook his head, visor flickering stubbornly. “ 🧍‍♂️😷➡️🧍‍♂️💥 (Sick or not—I’m not sitting this out.)”

Dusekkar hesitated, a dozen arguments catching in his throat—but there wasn’t time.

Doombringer stood near the exit, arms crossed, impatience ticking in the grind of his boot against the floor. “We don’t have time for this,” he muttered. “HQ’s being overrun.”

“I know,” Dusekkar snapped over his shoulder.
Frustration leaked through the fatigue in his voice as he turned back to Taph. “You were deathly ill. I carried you here because you couldn’t even tell what was real anymore. This isn’t the time to be stubborn!”

Taph held his ground. “ ✋😤➡️🤝 (You didn’t give up on me. I won’t on you.)”

Dusekkar stared at him, jaw clenched, cloak fluttering slightly from the shift in air as another tremor passed through the floor.

“This isn’t noble—it’s reckless,” Dusekkar growled as if he wanted to say more, but he stopped himself.

Taph didn’t flinch. Just stepped forward.

His hand lingered near Dusekkar’s sleeve. “ 👣👣🫂 (Just let me walk with you.)”

Doombringer let out a frustrated exhale. “If he’s coming, he better not slow us down.”

Dusekkar turned away, swearing softly under his breath. His hand tightened around his staff, the runes on it pulsing like a heartbeat.

“…Fine,” he said finally, voice low. “But stay behind me. Get too close and I teleport you out. I swear it, Taph.”

Taph gave a short nod.

Doombringer was already halfway down the hall. “Save the poetry for later. HQ’s turning inside out.”

Dusekkar moved to catch back up to Doombringer. Taph followed. The storm had begun.

The sky above Roblox HQ twisted—black static folding in on itself like corrupted origami. Geometry snapped and rebuilt with no logic, entire chunks of terrain vanishing and reforming midair. What once was an icon of stability now pulsed with red corruption veins, alive and hostile.

Outside the HQ, the team gathered—Shedletsky, Doombringer, Brighteyes, Dusekkar, and Taph, with Jane Doe trailing behind in silence. Her eyes never left the center of the storm.

The admins regrouped at the base of the building, their weapons drawn, spells prepped, eyes darting.

And then the static thickened.

A low, glitched hum crawled across the terrain like crawling code.

John Doe appeared.

His avatar hadn’t changed—blue jeans, yellow shirt, blank expression—but everything around it had. Red binary hovered around him in slow, vertical streams, shifting symbols that pulsed like a heartbeat. Jagged black shapes jutted from his left eye and arm that hissed and distorted the world they touched. Spikes of geometry pulsed from beneath his feet as if the terrain itself recoiled. His face was blank—but his presence screamed.

He looked at them all—and in a voice that cut deeper than any weapon, he simply said:

“You left me behind.”

There was no time to reply.

With a shriek of distortion, black spikes erupted from the ground around the group, fracturing their formation and sealing them into a jagged combat zone. The terrain buckled—an arena built of corrupted systems and ancient, broken maps. The battle had begun.

Jane froze.

Her hand hovered over her weapon, but her eyes didn’t move. She just stared at John—her husband—reduced to code barely holding itself together. Her lips parted like she might speak, but nothing came out.

Dusekkar moved instantly—staff alight, cloak crackling with energy. He darted between allies, casting rapid glyphs into the air. Shields flickered over from Shedletsky to Doombringer as John attacked. His spells shot outward, slowing John’s advance, redirecting the spikes away from vulnerable targets.

Shedletsky didn’t wait.

With a sharp curse, he charged—pulling out his ghostwalker sword. He swung at the base of a rising spike, which had no effect and instead only got it stuck. Another burst from beneath his feet, and he dodged sideways.

“Come on, then!” he shouted. “You want admin blood? Take mine!”

John turned, and spikes followed. Shedletsky rolled to the side, grabbing the embedded sword as he passed. His movements were brutal but calculated—cutting through malformed code and striking for limbs that no longer followed physics.

Doombringer followed up with thunder.

Literally.

His hammer slammed the ground, releasing shockwaves that staggered John mid-lunge. A second blow sent debris flying upward, which he fired midair by swinging his hammer—hurling like meteors. One caught John in the shoulder, sending glitched binary spraying outward like static blood.

Glitched geometry floated upward, the world tearing itself apart piece by piece. One jagged shard snagged Builderman’s ankle, yanking him several inches off the ground before he managed to break free.

“Fall back!” Doombringer barked, lunging forward to cover Builderman’s retreat. Shedletsky followed, swinging his ghostwalker sword.

John retaliated with an arc of code that sliced across the ground, forcing Doombringer to leap over it. He landed hard, knees cracking stone, and swung a corrupted pole he’d wrestled from the terrain itself. Sparks flew.

All the while, Dusekkar kept their defenses intact—casting barriers in bursts, timing every glyph with desperate precision. Spikes shattered against his shields, arcs of red static dissipating just inches from admin skin.

And still John came forward, ghost-light blazing through the gaps in his form, a monster made not of anger—but abandonment.

Builderman was hit hard—his side struck by falling debris warped by code. He groaned, staggering.

“Get him clear!” Brighteyes shouted.

Taph didn’t hesitate—he ran. Together with Brighteyes, they hoisted Builderman up and dragged him back toward the edge of the corrupted zone. Builderman blinked through the pain, but his eyes were sharp. He pushed himself up, breath shallow.

“No time,” he gritted out. “I can still work.”

Before anyone could argue he rushed to a pile of shattered bricks and ripped terrain. He collected them with ease and with speed never seen before he began to build. It looked like something you’d see a dev do with F3X tools but instead he did it with his bare hands.

Walls rose.

He reached for a nearby cylinder and began programming—hands shaking, blood dripping onto the controls. His fingers blurred, coding faster than Taph had ever seen.

He built a barrier, fast but purposeful—slits to see through, a hollow cylinder embedded into a base slot. His hands, though shaking and bloodied, moved like they remembered. Faster than logic, faster than pain.

He was building again.

Behind them, Dusekkar was shouting incantations, shielding Shedletsky as he brought down heavy brutal swings onto John Doe. Doombringer stayed close, throwing massive debris with his hammer at the monster so his full attention wouldn’t stay on Shedletsky.

Taph couldn’t look away from the scene.

Code swirled in the air like sawdust, light beaming through as Builderman programmed the launcher’s logic on the fly—transforming the simple cylinder into a functioning cannon. Taph stared, breath caught—not just at Builderman, but at Dusekkar, who moved like a blur, glyphs orbiting his staff like stars as he shielded another incoming spike.

This was who they were. Not myths. Not relics. Admins; Builders. Protectors. Creators.

When the launcher clicked into place, Brighteyes didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the nearest heap of rubble—shattered terrain bits, a broken panel—and shoved it into the hollow cylinder. With one final push and a brief nod to Builderman, she slammed the trigger.

The cannon fired with a sharp burst, launching debris through the corrupted air. It slammed into John Doe’s midsection, knocking him off balance and staggering him just long enough for Doombringer to land a blow with the banhammer. For a fleeting moment, it looked like they might have turned the tide.

Shedletsky whooped from across the chaos, blade raised. “Now that’s more like it!”

But the moment didn’t last.
The Banhammer hadn’t worked as it should—John Doe remained standing, untouched by its force. The corruption anchored him, refusing to let him be pulled into the Badlands.

John twitched, distorted light leaking from the impact zone. His head snapped toward the launcher. Toward the wall. His body contorted—one arm glitching through frames—then he raised it, claws stretching unnaturally.

From the ground near the wall, corruption erupted.

Spikes surged upward in jagged, violent bursts. One struck Brighteyes hard in the side, sending her flying back with a cry. Another clipped Dusekkar mid-cast, knocking him flat with a crackle of failed magic.

Taph gasped, instinctively reaching for Dusekkar.

The formation fell apart. Builderman ducked behind the launcher, shielding his console. Jane backed up, hand finally clutching her weapon, but still frozen.

Doombringer was half-buried beneath debris, struggling to move as John surged forward.

Shedletsky, alone now, skidded to a halt in front of the wall. His sword seemed to buzz in his hand. He could’ve run. He didn’t.

Instead, he turned and sprinted back in.

“HEY!” he bellowed, hurling a broken shard at John’s face. “OVER HERE, YOU BUGGED-OUT CRASH LOG!”

John paused. Just long enough.

Shedletsky charged. He dodged a spike, vaulted a corrupted slab, and leapt—driving his sword straight through John’s side.

The monster shrieked. Binary exploded from the wound, lines of red code dancing up the blade and into Shedletsky’s arms. He grit his teeth as nausea hit, staggered, tried to pull the sword free—only to realize it had fused to the corruption, stuck.

Back behind the now half destroyed wall, Taph scrambled toward Dusekkar’s side, helping him up with shaking hands. “🎃👍⁉️ (You good?)”

Dusekkar groaned, leaning on Taph, “I will be—once I stop seeing two Shedletskys.”

Together they stumbled toward the edge of the now shattered wall.

Ahead, John turned on Shedletsky with a burst of motion, grabbing him by the chestplate and lifting him off the ground.

Shedletsky struggled, coughing as corrupted claws drew close to his face.

Dusekkar raised his staff and summoned a shield just in time—light crackling between them like glass—blocking the strike.

John roared in frustration and hurled Shedletsky across the makeshift arena. The shield shattered mid-air. He crashed hard into the high spiked walls that kept them trapped, rolling into a heap of debris near Doombringer.

John turned next to Dusekkar.

The corrupted terrain trembled with every step as he rushed the mage, jagged footprints trailing spreading corruption behind him. His arms stretched like a broken rig—one reached forward with long threatening claws, the other dragging behind with a heavy weight covered in corruption that formed like mold.

Taph gritted his teeth, still helping Dusekkar stand. Their wall was gone. Their line was breaking. And John was almost on them.

The corrupted air buzzed as John closed in—one strike away from tearing through Dusekkar and Taph.

Then, behind them, Builderman moved.

He didn’t hesitate.

With a grunt, he yanked a broken terrain slab from the ground and dragged it to the edge of their ruined perimeter. His hands flew faster than thought, typing out lines of code probably memorized after years of creating. A few sparks snapped from the console, but he didn’t stop. Every movement was instinct.

A platform blinked to life—glowing faintly.

A jumppad.

Builderman glanced over his shoulder. “Sixty seconds,” he muttered.

Meanwhile, Jane stepped forward.

Slowly. Shakily.

“John…”

Her voice cracked in the air like glass.

“John, please. You don’t have to do this. You’re not this. You were never—”

John paused mid-step. His form jittered—an avatar losing sync. His corrupted eye flickered. The spikes along his arm trembled.

For just a second, his posture faltered.

Then came a scream.

No words. Just raw, digitized agony. A guttural sound torn from corrupted memory. His body pulsed with red binary as the ground beneath him cracked wider, splitting old code apart.

Jane flinched, drawing her sidearm—but her grip faltered. Her finger hovered over the trigger.

She couldn’t.

“John…” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Behind her, Taph’s hands moved before thought caught up.

He reached for the spiked core in his pocket and unclipped the square frame that hung loosely on his toolbelt. He sprinted toward the cannon Builderman made while putting the two pieces together, jammed the mine into its socket, aimed it directly at the creature, and slammed the launch key.

The cannon roared.

The tripmine hit John square in the chest.

BOOM.

The shockwave rippled through corrupted space, a plume of pink smoke rose. John reeled back—staggered, roaring in glitch-choked confusion. His limbs jerked and spasmed, smoke rising from his form. His eyes slammed shut from the overload, strings of red code unraveling into the air.

Taph turned just in time to catch Dusekkar as he collapsed beside him.

Dusekkar muttered weakly, “You’re—you’re reckless…”

“😏💣💥,” Taph’s visor flickered, half-carrying him toward the now-powered jumppad.

“Everyone move!” Builderman shouted.

They ran—limping, dragging, helping one another. Shedletsky held up Brighteyes with one arm, Doombringer dragged himself out from under the rubble and shielded the rear, and Jane stumbled forward in silence.

One by one, they reached the jumppad—leaving the collapsing arena behind in an arc of light and code.

—

The emergency room was dim, screens flickering, medkits piled on tables like trophies of survival. The place hadn’t been touched since the 2012 april fools incident, but even that wasn’t this bad.

They were alive.

Battered, bleeding, exhausted—but alive.

Taph sat quietly near the back, arms wrapped loosely around his knees, staring at the wall. He hadn’t said much since they landed.

Builderman walked over, bandaged across one leg and both hands.

He stopped. Looked down at him.

“…That tripmine,” he said, voice dry. “It’s genius.”

Taph blinked.

Then nodded.

“Good work,” Builderman added after a pause. He looked like he didn’t say those words often.

Taph couldn’t look up, but his throat tightened. It meant more than he expected.

Dusekkar was silent, leaned against a cold wall. Still recovering. Still breathing. He gave Taph a small, tired smile as he witnessed the interaction.

Soon after, scanning crews started to report from the corrupted zones.

John Doe’s corruption hadn’t vanished—it had just scattered.

Jane kept to the shadows.

“I’ll help however I can,” she told them. “Just… don’t ask me to face him again.”

Doombringer frowned. “You know this isn’t over.”

“She’s helping,” Dusekkar cut in gently. “We need as many people as possible. It’s enough.”

And for now—it was.

Chapter Text

The emergency bunker was dim and tense—walls humming with backup power, terminals flickering with partial error logs. A silence hung over the room, thick as fog, broken only by the occasional groan of steel shifting above them. The only light came from the dim construction lamps powered by backup generators and the occasional flicker of someone’s gear charging. Outside, the world was glitching by the second. Inside, it was quiet.

Too quiet.

Brighteyes lay on one of the benches near the back, jaw clenched against the pain. Her leg was wrapped in bandages and splints, but the spike wound had gone deep. Stickmasterluke hovered nearby, arms crossed, occasionally glancing at Clockwork, who was hunched over a flickering console trying to force a signal out of the broken communications array.

“Still nothing?” Builderman asked, not looking up from the terrain map projected on the table in front of him.

“Still nothing,” Clockwork muttered. “No global ping, no server trace, no chat relay. We’re flying blind.”

“Then we fly blind,” Doombringer growled. He leaned on a wall support, armor scratched, hammer still resting across his back. “Sitting here waiting isn’t an option.”

“We’re not waiting,” Jane replied. Her voice was quiet but sharp. “We’re planning.”

“We’re stalling,” Sorcus cut in. “The corruption isn’t slowing. You all saw it—John didn’t disappear. He scattered. Hiding like a coward.” He scowled

Doombringer nodded in agreement. “Where do we think he went?”

Jane didn’t look up. “Where the corruption hit hardest. It would be harder for us to get him in those places.”

“Those are all the older games.” Tarabyte spoke up.

“Also the dead ones—the ones that had a lower player count in servers.” Legoseed added.

Sorcus glanced at Doombringer, the same thought clear between them. “We need to find John—before this corruption spreads to anything newer.”

Builderman nodded, tapping part of the projection. A series of corrupted zones flashed red across a map of Roblox’s backend: Natural Disaster Survival, Welcome to the Town of Robloxia, The Plaza, Call of Robloxia 5, and more.

“Split up,” he said. “Scan. Document. If it’s clear, move to the next one. If it’s corrupted—mark it. We regroup after one hour, no longer.”

“And if we don’t come back?” ReeseMcBlox asked flatly.

“Then we assume the worst,” Shedletsky answered.

A silence fell again. Taph glanced to his left—Dusekkar was quiet, his fire was lit low and dim. He looked tired, but not weak. Focused.

As Builderman flicked between game maps, quickly scanning their current terrain state, he turned to Dusekkar. “Can you still use your magic?”

The mage nodded.

“Good. The main tower in Natural Disaster Survival collapsed. There's no other way to get to the island from across the water.” Builderman explained.

“I can carry one across the sea—No more than that, just him and me.” Dusekkar rhymed. He didn’t look at Taph, but it was clear who he meant.

Taph adjusted his gear, he had been crafting some makeshift traps out of scraps around the area. He gave Dusekkar a determined thumbs up.

Dusekkar glanced at him, something unreadable flickering in his eyes. “We stay as one, no need to stun. But if things break, we’ll both just run.”

Doombringer grunted, hoisting his hammer over his shoulder. “I don’t do team cuddles.”

Shedletsky smirked. “You do now.”

Builderman interrupted the two, “Clockwork, Luke, and Shedletsky, you stay here and guard the perimeter. I’ll head to Town of Robloxia with Jane. Sorcus, Tarabyte—you take Call of Robloxia 5. Reese, Legoseed, check Make a Cake. Doombringer, The Plaza’s yours.”

“Alone?” Doombringer raised an eyebrow, half-expecting to be assigned a partner despite his earlier protest.

“You throw buildings when you get bored,” Shedletsky replied. “You’ll be fine.” He rolled his eyes.

“Unless you want to be paired with Shedletsky.” Builderman glanced over his shoulder.

Doombringer stood silent for a moment, no protest.

“Awwww! I didn’t know you still wanted me around!” Shedletsky grinned.

Doombringer simply grumbled something under his breath.

Builderman sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, “Okay, Doom and Shed on The Plaza. No shenanigans.”

Brighteyes laughed weakly from the bench. “Don’t get erased before I can walk again.”

ReeseMcBlox and Tarabyte exchanged a nod. Legoseed tapped a nearby terminal, syncing timers. “One hour. Then we get out.”

Everyone moved with quiet purpose. Timer settings synced. Last minute checks run. Clockwork looked up from the console, nodded once. Still nothing, but they couldn’t wait any longer.

Dusekkar finally turned to Taph as they walked to the backup teleporters.

“You ready?” he asked.

Taph shrugged and signed, “🌪️🔥? (Glitches and disasters?)”

“ 💼⚒️💥🤷 (Sounds just like my usual job.)”

Dusekkar let out a short laugh before they teleported.

The jump left a ringing in Taph’s ears. He blinked against the sudden shift—sky bleached gray, the sharp smell of rain and something burnt clinging to the air. The wind here moved strangely. Stale. Filtered, as if passing through layers of broken code.

Taph adjusted his footing and looked out into the ruins of the once long standing game.

They landed just shy of where the spawn platform should’ve been, but it was gone—replaced by jagged, floating fragments of terrain. Most of the map was underwater. The iconic tower lay broken in half, its upper floors jutting out from the ocean at a crooked angle like the bones of a dying beast.

Dusekkar held Taph’s arm as they glided over the rising tide, his magic lifting them just enough to hover. Once on solid ground, they picked through the wreckage—sifted stairs, broken UI elements, even a lone balloon gear stuck in the mud.

Taph glanced around as they started walking, picking their way across the cracked island. The tower was still visible offshore, half-sunk and split, a steel ribcage piercing the gray sky.

The map on the island was called Happy Home. A narrow path led to a simple two-story house with pale beige walls and a bright red roof. Inside, the rooms were painted a soft, comfortable blue. The area around it was sparse—just a patch of grass, three trees, and a small playground off to the side. It resembled the house Jane had been living in, though this one was taller, quieter, and noticeably emptier.

The silence gnawed at them. No storms. No disasters. Just stillness.

“🔇🤔📉(It’s quieter than I thought it’d be),” Taph looked around at the calm yet broken environment.

Dusekkar nodded. “Too quiet, like a muted riot.”

Bits of terrain pulsed with static in the distance. Nothing overtly corrupted, but nothing stable either. They paused now and then—checking for code irregularities, for leftover energy signatures—but it was mostly clean. Old, glitched, abandoned. Not corrupted as badly as they had thought.

“No signs,” Dusekkar said eventually, scanning with his staff. “No movement.”

More silence.

Taph crouched near the playground. Rainwater had gathered in pools beneath broken geometry. He didn’t look up when he spoke.

“🎮📍🔁(I used to play here a lot.)⚡⚡🔁(Got struck by lightning more than once.)”

Dusekkar gave a soft breath of a chuckle. “Some things never change.” voice teasing but faint. He looked distant again—his eyes scanning for something unseen.

They pressed on. No corruption trails. No binary. No trace of John.

They were finishing a lap around the outer perimeter of the map when Taph broke the silence.

“🤔😟👀🏚️(Feels weird, seeing it like this.) 💀⚰️❌(Like the bones of something no one wanted to bury.)”

Dusekkar didn’t answer. His eyes were on the horizon, distant and unreadable.

"🤔❓(Do you think this is what it's like?)" he asked suddenly. “🏠➡️⏳⌛️🏚️(When something’s been left behind too long.)”

Dusekkar turned slightly, “Starts out right, then pieces distort. Twist and break, fall out of sort.”

Taph signed, “💥🧩🤏(Doesn’t take much.)”

Dusekkar faced Taph, “Are you okay?”

A long pause stretched.

Taph nodded before adding, “😶🔇📍(It’s just really quiet out here.)”

Dusekkar’s expression shifted—tired warmth and something else he didn’t have the energy to put into rhyme. There was a pull behind his eyes, the weight of too many spells, too little rest, and the quiet ache of everything unsaid.

After a while, he leaned against a pine tree, the shade from it making his weak fire more noticeable. His hand trembled as he slowly rotated his wrist, trying to ease the soreness laced through it. Faint lines of magic shimmered around the skin on his hands—those same ethereal circuits that once glowed with confidence—now dimmed, flickering erratically like a lantern running low. Even his breathing had a fragile rhythm, steady but strained.

A soft breeze passed, stirring the tattered edges of his cloak, and for a moment, he looked smaller. Not as a mage, not as a legend—just a man running on empty.

Taph watched him carefully. “ 🎃❓(You alright?)”

“I will be.” Dusekkar reassured him, but never looked him face-to-face.

Taph nodded, like that was enough. It wasn’t.

Dusekkar had caught on.
“Magic’s not infinite, nor am I whole—I’ve burned too bright, it’s taken a toll.” he said finally, glancing at the broken sunken tower.

“🤝😌➡️🧍‍♂️🫂(Then lean on me for once.)”

They stood in silence, side by side as the water lapped at the broken edges of the world.

No signs of John.

They lingered near the base of the house, the air heavy and still. Taph’s gaze drifted upward, tracing the angular outline of the structure against the dimming sky. The silence wasn’t peaceful—it was fragile, like a borrowed calm hanging on borrowed time. The kind of quiet that made the world feel like it was holding its breath, waiting for something.

Then, a soft chime cut through the hush.

Both of them froze, tension tightening their bodies.

High above, faint lines of UI code flickered into existence in the sky. At first, it was nothing but garbled symbols, twitching and fragmented. Then, almost as if struggling to break free, the code cleared—for a brief, electric second.

DISASTER WARNING...

The letters shimmered, still corrupted but sharp enough to catch their attention. The message blinked steadily, cycling through broken strings like a glitching warning beacon.

The message blinked in.

Then again.

Then again.

TSUNAMI

A deep groan echoed from the sea.

Taph took a few steps back closer to the house. “…🤷‍♂️🚫🙋‍♂️(…That wasn’t me.)”

“I didn’t touch anything either,” Dusekkar murmured.

The board flashed again.

SANDSTORM

A harsh, grinding noise followed—like static scraped rough across stone. The sky pulsed red, just for a flicker, as if warning of a brewing storm.

Without hesitation, Dusekkar was already moving. His hand shot out to grasp Taph’s arm, voice tense and urgent. “The game’s reactivating. But it’s not natural.”

He began weaving quick, fluid gestures, murmuring an incantation as his magic flared. The terrain ahead trembled, the ground cracking and folding as a sudden quake rippled across the island. The disaster list scrolled through at a dizzying pace—too fast to read clearly. The terrain buckled again in the distance, a tremor rolling through the island as more warning prompts flashed in rapid succession:

FIRE. TORNADO. EARTHQUAKE. ACID RAIN.

The world seemed to shudder under the weight of the incoming chaos, and both of them knew they had to move—fast.

“Grab my arm,” Dusekkar said, already channeling energy into his staff. “Now.”

Taph didn’t hesitate. His fingers curled tightly around Dusekkar’s forearm just as the sky above burst into a silent storm—jagged streaks of lightning cutting through the air, brilliant but eerily soundless.

“Hold on,” Dusekkar muttered, his cloak whipping around him as the magic surged.

Beneath their feet, the ground groaned, trembling violently. Then, with a deafening crack, the terrain split open like shattered glass, revealing a yawning abyss of empty white void beneath the crumbling map.

They rose, lifted by the raw force of Dusekkar’s spell, just seconds before the world fractured completely.

In a blinding blur of light and static interference, they vanished from the collapsing realm.

The air shimmered as Dusekkar’s teleport rune flickered out. They reappeared just inside the emergency bunker’s reinforced entrance, the hum of generators and faint voices a jarring contrast to the chaos they’d escaped.

Taph stumbled slightly as his boots hit solid ground, breath catching in his throat. Dusekkar steadied him wordlessly with one hand before stepping back, cloak slightly scorched at the edges. His brow furrowed—not from pain, but from thought. Taph didn’t say anything at first—just pulled off his visor and stared at it. It was smudged with salt and ash, the lens cracked faintly at the edge.

Dusekkar stood beside him, silent too. His breathing was heavier than usual. Sparks still hissed off the corners of his staff before fading out completely.

Brighteyes, still bandaged and resting near the terminal screens, looked up but didn’t speak—just nodded once. A quiet acknowledgement. Welcome back.

Stickmasterluke was near one of the map projectors, watching corruption patterns spread like veins across several displays. He glanced over. “You’re back early. What happened?”

“👀👤🚫(No sign of him),” Taph signed.

“The game didn’t look too bad. Not quite the worst we’ve had.” Dusekkar said between deep breaths.

Luke sighed in relief, glad his game wasn’t too broken down.

“Then disaster systems all at once reinitialized. The chaos rose, no time to be surprised.” Dusekkar added as he leaned up against a wall.

Clockwork swiveled from his post at the comms console, static still flickering uselessly across the screen. “And you got out before it hit?”

“ 🤏 (Barely),” Taph replied. He rubbed his temple, trying to ground himself. “❌🎲🪤🤔(It wasn’t random. Must’ve been a trap. It felt like one.)”

Dusekkar swallowed, then looked up.
“If that’s the case, then he’s not just hiding,
He’s baiting us, with patience abiding.
He knows if he waits, lets the corruption swell,
It will spread to us too, like a dark, slow spell.”

They all sat in silence at the quiet realization.

Brighteyes, still resting in the corner under a thin blanket, cracked open an eye. “That’s what he wants, isn’t it? To be remembered. Even if it's through chaos.”

No one answered.

Instead, Clockwork sighed, “...The others should be back within the next 20 minutes.” He briefly glanced towards the two before going back to trying to fix the communications channels.

Taph set his tripmine gear down near a terminal, movements slower now. The trip back had drained him more than he realized.

“You two should rest,” Brighteye’s voice came softly from the far wall, “He’s not done. But neither are you.”

Dusekkar glanced at her, then at Taph. He wanted to respond, but his words failed again.

—

Taph lowered himself beside Dusekkar, close enough that their arms brushed lightly—a subtle comfort in the heavy silence. He didn’t say anything—just sat there, letting the silence hold.

It didn’t last.

The teleportation pad hissed and sparked as the last group finally returned, mud and static clinging stubbornly to their boots. ReeseMcBlox looked shaken beyond anything Taph had seen before, her face pale and drawn. Limp beside her was Legoseed, unconscious and fragile. Sorcus and Tarabyte moved swiftly, their concern sharp as they helped lift Legoseed onto a makeshift stretcher fashioned from blankets and gear. Clockwork followed closely, guiding Reese somewhere where she could sit and he could check her injuries.

Brighteyes swore under her breath and sat up in worry.

They gently laid Legoseed on the layered blankets, the sickly pallor on his face mirrored the same corruption that had plagued Taph. But his decline had been far faster, harsher—a grim sign that the corruption was growing stronger, spreading with terrifying speed.

Once Legoseed was settled, Builderman turned to ReeseMcBlox, his voice sharp and urgent. “What happened?”

Reese sat on the central table, Clockwork methodically wrapping a bandage around her right forearm. She avoided Builderman’s gaze, her breath trembling before she finally spoke.

“It was... dark. The building’s power was off—like the entire game was offline. I don’t know. Something... something jumped us from between the machinery. We ran. Then the game powered back on. We pushed forward a bit longer... but then Legoseed started coughing. He didn’t say anything until he couldn’t stand.”

A heavy silence fell over the group, the tale feeling less like a report and more like a chilling nightmare.

“We’re running out of time. That’s two injured and one sick now,” Sorcus muttered, his voice low and tense.

“And we’re no closer to stopping it,” Doombringer added, his tone heavy with frustration.

Tarabyte looked down, dread etched deep across her face. “We’re chasing shadows. He’s always one step ahead.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” Sorcus said, voice sharper now. “He’s not running anymore. He’s wearing us down—slowly breaking us apart.”

An argument sparked fast—too fast. Half the team pushed to keep hunting, pressing forward no matter the cost. The other half wanted to regroup, recover, and wait for a better plan.

Then Jane stood, breaking the chaos with quiet authority.

She had been silent until now, but when she spoke, the room fell into an uneasy hush. “What if we stop chasing him... and instead go to where it all began?”

The room stilled.

Builderman slowly turned toward her, eyes narrowing in thought. “You mean the original world?”

Jane nodded, calm but firm. “The place you kept us before we broke free. That’s where he first became corrupted.”

“Cut it at the root,” Dusekkar finished quietly.

“It’s risky,” Jane admitted. “If we fail we might end up corrupted… maybe worse than Legoseed.”

The group murmured among themselves, the weight of the choice settling over them as they carefully weighed their options.

“If we don’t do this he’ll just keep spreading.” Doombringer insisted, his voice low but firm, eyes scanning the group for agreement.

Tarabyte shook her head, her expression grim. “That’s assuming he hasn’t overwritten the entire system already,” she muttered, doubt creeping into her tone.

Jane’s gaze swept over the group, steady and resolute. “We’ll need a programmer—someone who can isolate and override the root of the corruption.”

Builderman rose slowly from his seat, the weight of responsibility heavy in his posture. “Then I go,” he declared.

Taph, who had been quietly listening, suddenly sat upright. “👉🧍‍♂️➕ (Then I go too),” he signed, determination shining through fatigue.

Jane nodded, adding, “He’ll sense us. Someone has to stand guard.”

From across the room, Shedletsky shook his head sharply. “This is suicide.”

Dusekkar’s voice was calm but resolute, cutting through the tension. “No. It’s our last chance.”

Doombringer gave a slow nod. “I agree.”

“I’m coming too.” Jane added.

Doombringer shot her a skeptical glance. “You couldn’t even shoot John back on the battlefield when your life depended on it.”

Jane’s eyes flashed with quiet fire. “I’m the only one who knows the place. You’ll need me there.”

Builderman then took charge, outlining the plan clearly. “Then it’s settled. We break in. Dusekkar, use your magic to create a forcefield shield. Jane, you lead us to where you first saw the corruption. Doombringer and Taph, you both stand guard. I’ll reprogram the world once we find the weak spot.”

Though the plan was firm, uncertainty hung thick in the air—no one knew what they would face or what lay beyond the shadows they were about to enter.

“Work for everyone?” Builderman ended.

Dusekkar raised a hand slowly. “One shield’s my limit, that’s my tether. So close we must stay—stick together.”

Doombringer folded his arms, skepticism clear in his voice. “I’ve seen you do more before. What’s different now?”

Dusekkar’s eyes flickered with fatigue. “Drained from the battle, my strength is left small. Better to guard with one shield than risk losing them all.” He didn’t want to admit just how exhausted he truly was.

Builderman nodded understandingly. “No problem. Keeping close will help us avoid getting picked off.”

Doombringer sighed, no valid counter ready. He turned to Taph with a sharp edge. “What about him? Wasn’t he sick like Legoseed not long ago? He got over it pretty quickly, that’s not suspicious?”

Stickmasterluke jumped in quickly, “I ran diagnostics. He seems fine now. And as far as we know, this corruption isn’t contagious—only direct contact spreads it.”

Taph snapped back in quick, sharp motions, signing with clipped frustration, “😤❓🤨. 😒➡️🔄🧍⚔️🤝. 🫵❌👥. (Why are you so petulant? We’ll just take Sorcus if you don’t like the team.)” Despite his boldness, he leaned closer to Dusekkar, as if shielding himself from all the eyes on him.

Dusekkar felt his fire grow warmer at Taph’s sudden closeness and sharp defensiveness.

Sorcus chuckled at the sudden comeback—but his laughter was cut short when the admin shot him a deadly glare.

Doombringer grumbled under his breath but held back further remarks.

Builderman clapped his hands, breaking the tension. “Then it’s settled. We leave in thirty minutes.” He scanned the group briefly before moving toward a corner where he and Taph had gathered scraps for building.

Dusekkar felt the weight of the situation press down on him like an unseen burden. Memories of John’s corruption spreading like mold across his form haunted him—he knew the sealed world Jane had escaped from was likely engulfed in the same rot now. He’d have to keep the shield up constantly rather than in bursts; steady, unyielding, guarding them against a relentless tide.

He glanced at Taph, who sat beside him with his visor off, fingers gently tracing the cracked edge of his gear. The silence between them was thick with unspoken worries.

“May I?” Dusekkar asked softly, holding out his hand.

Taph looked up, then nodded, relinquishing the visor without hesitation. Dusekkar inspected it carefully, eyes tracing every chip and scratch. As the glyphs on his staff began to glow faintly, he wiped his thumb over the crack—and just like that, it vanished. Like sleight of hand, a magician’s trick made real.

He returned the visor with a small smile.

Taph held it for a moment, quiet, then signed, “🙅‍♂️✨👐❗💪🛡️🔋(You didn’t have to. You should be saving your strength.)”

Dusekkar shook his head. “Better communication means better chances at survival,” he said simply.

Taph nodded and slid the visor back on.

Around them, quiet murmurs filled the room. Some exchanged tentative goodbyes, as if this might be the last time they saw each other. None could say what awaited them—whether they’d all make it back, or if this was the end.

Nonetheless, the stage was set and the group could only prepare for the worse.

There was no turning back.

Chapter Text

The corrupted sky above the test world churned with slow, silent turbulence—a deep static fog creeping along the fractured terrain. The air crackled like a dying server, bits of the world stuttering between geometry and void. It felt like the space around them was barely holding together, every texture flickering, every sound slightly delayed, like echoes from a broken speaker. The air itself pressed heavy in the lungs, thick and foul like smoke. Nothing felt solid here. Nothing felt real.

Dusekkar was the first to step through the breach. His cloak dragged through the corrupted dust, ember-lit eyes narrowing as he scanned the world that once held only silence. He moved with urgency, not hesitating for even a breath. Dusekkar raised his staff and drew a circle of sigils in the air, the glyphs snapping to life with radiant energy. A ring of runes began to form at his feet, responding to the flick of his staff. Glyphs spiraled upward, curling around the group in a protective shimmer. The dome shield was forming fast—he knew they wouldn’t have long before the corruption noticed their presence. It was just as he had assumed, the world was swallowed whole in corruption, no place left safe.

One by one, the others followed: Builderman with his usual focus, Jane visibly tense, Doombringer quiet for once, and Taph bringing up the rear.

The shield snapped into place as the last foot crossed the boundary. A low hum thrummed beneath their boots.

"Stay close," Dusekkar warned. His voice was sharp, but already strained. He winced as the last glyph locked in place.

"This shield won't hold if we scatter." he added, softer.

Jane pointed toward the far edge of the broken terrain. "That cliff edge. It’s where we first found the corruption. It spread from there."

Builderman nodded, pulling out his portable console.

The others fell into a rough formation—Taph and Doombringer flanking, Jane and Dusekkar guiding the group at the front, and Builderman well protected in the middle. They chose a long path around the ruined house in the center of the map, which sparked and glitched violently every few seconds. Whatever was left inside wasn’t worth the risk.

Jane kept stealing glances at it, something like grief flickering in her eyes. This world used to be home.

Along the way, fragments of old test assets—boxes, terrain parts, UI elements—floated aimlessly in the air like forgotten dreams. Some twitched violently when the group passed too close, like they were reacting to their presence.

The terrain shifted beneath them. More than once, Dusekkar had to pause and brace the shield against sudden surges of code distortion. The pressure mounted the further they advanced. Cracks in the landscape glowed with writhing binary. The whole world felt like it was breathing, but wrong.

The hike was long, the group opting to take the long route in order to avoid the worser corrupted areas.

Eventually, they reached the cliff. The edge overlooked the broken valley below, and at its jagged edge, the terrain shimmered with unnatural light—the source. Pulsing like a wound.

They took a moment to recover. Dusekkar’s fire flickered low, his shoulders shaking from the effort of holding the spell constant. Taph stayed close, their arms occasionally brushing.

Builderman knelt down and immediately got to work on the screen floating before him. He tuned out the world entirely, muttering code under his breath while his fingers danced over the interface—focused.

Doombringer paced like a caged animal. Jane stood near the edge, watching the corruption pulse below with a haunted stare. Taph checked over the tools strapped to his belt and shifted closer to Dusekkar, who was standing with his staff grounded into the earth.

Then the corruption stirred.

A horrific shriek echoed across the zone. The air vibrated. Then black static bled across the valley below them—a silhouette eerily peeked through. It was John Doe—not as the avatar he once was, but a jagged, wraithlike specter of corrupted code, glitching between frames, limbs distorted and twitching. He stood at the base of the hill, where the house met the field, watching.

The shield flared under the pressure of his presence.

"He knows," Jane whispered, hand going to her sidearm.

Builderman didn’t flinch. "Keep him back. I need two more minutes."

Doombringer lunged first, slamming his hammer into the corruption beyond the shield’s edge, knocking it off like ripping off leeches. Jane backed him, shots cracking through the static as she provided cover.

Taph didn’t move.

He turned to Dusekkar—who now knelt, face flickering with strain, hands gripping the staff with everything he had. The shield faltered, light bending at odd angles.

The glyphs spun chaotically as the shield began to crack. A single fracture split the dome with a high-pitched whine.

Taph lunged just in time, catching Dusekkar as he collapsed.

Doombringer saw the flicker. He swore, ran back, and without a word, struck Dusekkar square in the chest with the blunt side of his hammer.

The mage choked and jolted upright with a ragged inhale.

"What—?" he gasped.

"Shield! Now!" Doombringer barked.

Dusekkar scrambled, eyes wide, body shaking. Taph steadied him.

The mage slammed his staff down with both hands now gripping for dear life and the remaining glyphs snapped into a rigid formation. The crack stopped growing. Barely. But it held.

They were safe. For now.

Dusekkar was trembling, his usual grace burned out. Voice hoarse, he turned to Taph, barely holding it together.

"If we die here," he said, barely audible, "and I don’t get to say it—let me."

Taph blinked, startled.

"This place… all of this—it's built to collapse eventually. But how I feel about you? That’s the one thing that hasn’t glitched once."

For Taph and Dusekkar, time seemed to slow, the noise outside dulling to a distant hum. The world around them flickered with shadow, corruption pressing in on the shield despite Jane and Doombringer’s relentless defense.

"I don't know how much longer I can hold this—but if this world breaks and the servers all fall, I need you to know... I’d burn out a hundred more times if it meant one more moment with you."

There was a beat of stunned silence.

Doombringer growled, "Seriously? Right now?"

"And what if I don’t get another now?!" Dusekkar shouted, startling even himself. "Let me have this."

Then Builderman, still coding, cut through it all, "Nobody is dying here."

He struck the final key.

A shockwave rolled outward.

A low pulse rippled through the world.

The world blinked.

The corrupted mist began to fizzle and thin, retreating like smoke sucked into a vent. The black, ooze-like terrain warped sluggishly before beginning to harden—stiffening like cooled tar, its chaotic movements grinding to a halt. Broken geometry froze mid-glitch, suspended in fractured angles. Binary that once pulsed violently through the air now flickered weakly, then faded upward in thin, weightless trails—like ash surrendering to wind.

The corruption was clearing.

Slowly. Excruciatingly slowly.

But it was ending.

Then—without warning—the shield shattered.

It didn’t flicker or fade. It broke.

A sharp crack split the air, light splintering as Dusekkar collapsed with a choked breath. His staff slipped from trembling fingers, magic gone dark. He hit the ground hard, fire dimming beneath the carved lines of his face.

Taph was the first to move, catching him before his head struck the rock. The sound of the collapse rang louder than it should have—like reality itself had gasped.

The group froze, panic surfacing as the remnants of the corrupted zone loomed around them. The terrain, though no longer writhing with life, was layered in thick, brittle crust—unnatural and ominous. They weren’t sure it was safe. Not yet.

“We need to go—” Doombringer barked, voice sharper than usual.

He stepped forward, hoisting Dusekkar over his shoulder in one motion. The mage hung limp, unconscious, the last of his strength spent.

Taph ripped the mage’s staff from the ground, clutching it tight.

The group began rushing down the hill. Below, still frozen in place, stood the twisted silhouette of John Doe.

What was left of him.

Hardened corruption clung to his form like fossilized roots. His outstretched hand remained poised mid-reach, stiff and unmoving. For a moment, it almost looked human—if you squinted past the black, cracked shell of decay.

No one spoke.

They didn’t need to.

It was over… or at least, the fighting was.

But Jane had stopped walking.

She stood motionless in the center of the field, staring at the statue John had become. Her eyes were locked on him, unmoving, distant.

Taph signed frantically toward Builderman.
“🧭📍❓➡️🌀🎃🔓🚪👈(How do we get out? Dusekkar opened the portal before—)”

Builderman quickly re-opened his console, “The system’s still a wreck,” hands flying across the interface, “but I’ve regained partial control—enough to get us out. I can stabilize a return gate. Just a few seconds.”

With a shimmer, the space behind him began to pulse—just stable enough to teleport them home.

He turned.

“Jane!” Builderman called out.

No response.

Doombringer shifted Dusekkar’s weight on his back, “Let’s move. Now.”

“🚫🏃‍♂️💨👧❗(We’re not leaving her!)” Taph signed sharply, hesitantly stepping toward the field again.

“Jane!” Builderman shouted again, louder this time.

She finally turned.

The light was breaking through the thick atmosphere now, spilling warmth over the broken world. Her face—wet with tears—shone faintly in that glow. The look in her eyes was unreadable. Gentle. Hollow.

She gave a small, trembling smile.

“Just go,” she said softly, barely louder than a whisper. “I can’t leave him.”

Her voice was fragile, but resolute. She turned back toward John’s frozen form and slowly walked to his side, brushing fingers along the jagged edge of his shoulder—like she could still see the man he once was.

A heavy silence fell over the group.

Builderman stood motionless for a moment, jaw clenched.

Doombringer broke the stillness with a sharp breath. “You heard her. Let her dig her own grave. I’m not dying for a ghost story.”

No one answered him.

After a beat, Builderman gave a grim nod.

The portal flared—and the four vanished in a flash of light, leaving behind a world that was no longer alive… but not entirely dead either.

And Jane remained.

Chapter Text

The return to base was strangely quiet.

For all the noise they'd endured—the collapsing code, the wails of corruption, the shield breaking—it was almost eerie how peaceful it had become. Outside, the corrupted world they’d narrowly escaped was quiet, distant. Inside, everything was still, the silence settling heavier than it should.

The weight of survival hung heavy in the air.

Doombringer laid Dusekkar down on a makeshift pile of thin blankets, careful despite his rough demeanor. Taph dropped beside him in an instant, clinging to Dusekkar’s arm like he was afraid the mage might vanish. He stayed close, shoulder to shoulder with the unconscious mage in a tight hug. He hovered like a shadow, eyes fixed, as though he could will Dusekkar awake.

Dusekkar’s light had faded to a faint, flickering glow—like the last ember in a long-burned fire. The bunker, once warmed and illuminated by his presence, now felt dimmer, colder, as if even the air itself held its breath.

No one spoke at first. Legoseed, now sitting up and visibly recovering, looked stunned. The corruption had nearly vanished from his system, and he’d woken just minutes before their return.

“Is it over?” Legoseed rasped. His voice was hoarse, but lucid.

Doombringer exhaled and stood. “It’s done. We made it back.”

Builderman shifted toward the central console, checking server logs and integrity codes while Doombringer explained what happened.
He explained everything—the corrupted world, the battle at the cliff, John’s reappearance, the shield shattering, Dusekkar’s collapse. And Jane—her choice to stay behind. As the words came out, the weight of what they’d just survived sank deeper. No one interrupted.

They had won.

And yet, the air felt like loss.

Builderman was the first to move. He stood, straightened his hardhat, and left the bunker. No words. Just action. The skies above Robloxia, once streaked with angry red binary, had cleared. Pale blue shimmered in their place, with only thin traces of static left behind. A breeze, cool and natural, swept through the bunker. A moment later, messages began appearing across the platform—brief global pings sent to every user:

"The corruption has been neutralized. All major systems are stabilizing. Stay calm. Help is on the way."

They had a lot of work to do.

—

Across the platform, cleanup efforts had already begun—developers, admins, volunteers all working together to patch broken maps, recover files, and rebuild what could be saved. Some places were too far gone, overwritten or too deeply corrupted. But others were already being restored.

Not perfectly. Not identically.

But they were returning.

Newer, yes—but grounded in the same bones. Familiar.

Taph walked alone through the half-rebuilt remains of the old HQ. The bricks beneath his feet told a story—new material next to old, damage repaired instead of erased. A hybrid of past and present.

He stopped before a half-ruined sign that once read "Developer Wing." Now partially restored, the letters shone a little brighter.

This place had almost been lost.

Not just to John Doe, but to apathy. Apathy from the community, from leadership, from everyone who had forgotten why Roblox was built in the first place. To the idea that old things didn’t matter. That old users, old games, old dreams were best left behind.

Dusekkar didn’t wake for nearly two days. Taph stayed with him, sleeping in uncomfortable slouches overnight in the medical wing. He refused to leave. Even when scolded. Even when ordered. It didn’t matter. He remembered how Dusekkar’s voice had cracked, how the shield shattered. He couldn’t stop replaying that moment.

It didn’t seem fair. The mage had poured out his soul—his magic, his confession, everything. And now he was just still. Silent. And Taph never got to say anything back.

Taph sat with that silence longer than anyone else.

Eventually, Builderman—stern but not unkind—started dragging Taph away for meals.

Then, it happened in the early hours of the morning.

The medical wing was dim, lit only by the soft glow of the rising sun through the window and the faint pulse of system monitors humming in standby. Taph had fallen asleep again—curled uncomfortably in a chair beside the bed, arms crossed, head tucked against his shoulder. He hadn’t meant to sleep, not really, but exhaustion had won out.

The room was still.

Then a sound—small, almost nothing. A shift of fabric. A breath.

Taph’s eyes cracked open.

He looked over, expecting nothing to have changed. But Dusekkar’s fingers had moved—only slightly, just a twitch, but enough to freeze the air in Taph’s lungs. The mage’s hand flexed again, slow, unsteady. Then his eyes fluttered open with a quiet exhale, barely audible.

It was quiet. No grand declaration. Just a long, aching exhale—and Taph rushing to sit upright so fast he nearly toppled over.

The mage blinked slowly, eyes unfocused. It was as if he was surfacing from somewhere far away—somewhere cold, quiet, and deep. He didn’t speak right away, just drew another breath, long and trembling.

His gaze eventually found Taph.

Relief hit Taph so hard it left his knees weak. He almost dropped back into the chair, but instead leaned forward, reaching for Dusekkar’s hand with trembling fingers. He didn’t grip it—just touched lightly, like it might vanish.

He stared at him as if the moment couldn’t have been real, blinking fast to clear the sudden blur from his vision.

“I thought...” Dusekkar tried, then stopped. His breath caught. He looked around, confused. “Is it over?”

Taph nodded quickly.

Another long pause. Dusekkar squeezed Taph’s hand, faint but deliberate.

No more words came after that. Not for a while. Dusekkar was too weak to speak, too exhausted to process everything at once. Taph didn’t try to rush him. He didn’t ask anything else. He just stayed there.

And for the first time in what felt like forever, Dusekkar didn’t have to carry anything alone.

The silence between them wasn’t empty this time.

It was full—with everything they hadn’t said, everything they had endured, and everything they still had time to say now.

The mage was kept in the medical wing for another five days, per the insistence of every admin combined. Taph stayed with him through most of it. Sometimes sketching silently. They talked—hesitant at first, then more openly. And eventually, Taph said the words.

He didn’t have a speech. Just a few uncertain words, tangled in awkward honesty. Not exactly “I love you,” but something near enough to it. But they were returned with the same warmth they were given.

Dusekkar smiled.

Something Taph hadn’t known he had been longing to see again.

It was mutual.

No more brushing off emotions. No more wondering. No more danger looming overhead.

It was peaceful now that they could finally just be themselves.

—

Builderman returned to command—but quieter than before. He worked in task forces, directed rebuild projects. But he was listening now. Paying attention.

He did not delete John Doe.

When the admins met to discuss the future, some pushed for permanent erasure. But Dusekkar had spoken up.

“He was made, not born. And what is made… can be made again.”

The admins decided to heed his warning.

John's active corruption had been neutralized. His code was inert, scattered during the collapse of the composite server. But it wasn’t gone. What remained was archived, monitored, locked behind multi-layered firewalls. Not out of sentiment. Out of responsibility.

Some users still claim to see glitched names in chat. Echoes. Others swore they saw flickers of a corrupted avatar in older games. He became less a villain, more a memory. A warning.

The admins confirmed there was no active threat.

Jane didn’t return.

Some say she works alone now, cleaning old corners of the platform. Others whisper she’s gone back to the test world—watching over what remains. No one knows. But the oldest maps feel safer these days.

—

Taph had changed too.

He was now officially recognized as a gear engineer.

Builderman approved his subspace tripmine gear, adding it to the test servers.

Later, when offered a shiny new workshop, Taph declined. He asked to keep his old one.

So Builderman personally cleared the old dev wing—where Taph had worked in secret. Reinforced it. Renovated it. But kept the old layout. Made it space not just for Taph, but for users who dreamed like he once did.

Taph kept sketching. Not to prove himself. Just because he wanted to.

He kept the old bodycam file. The one of him meeting Dusekkar. Never deleted it.

He still did demolition. Just on the side.

Dusekkar spent less time in his office now, instead wandering public games. Keeping an eye on residual corruption. He began visiting Taph more often—especially during demolition jobs. Especially in older zones.

They were alone, one day, on a hilltop above a quiet field of flowers. Taph and Dusekkar sat side by side. Below them, the flowers swayed in the breeze. The space looked familiar—like the Guest Grove. But it wasn’t.

Not exactly.

Taph had recreated it, quietly, by hand. He hadn’t told anyone but Dusekkar. It wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t need to be. It was a memory—revived, not relived.

But it felt right.

They sat together, watching the wind move across the field.

Taph was signing—nervously half-rambling—about a new gear idea. Something experimental. He fidgeted with a blueprint in his lap. He tripped over his own words, backpedaled before finishing sentences.

Dusekkar just listened.

He paused, sighing. "🤷‍♂️❓🗑️(I don’t know. Maybe I should just scrap it.)"

Gently, Dusekkar reached out and placed his hand over Taph’s, silencing the spiral.

No rhyme. No grand line.

Just one quiet truth.

"You don’t have to prove anything. Not to me."

Taph looked at him. The moment lingered, soft and steady.

His fingers tightened around Dusekkar’s. And they sat there, in the meadow of a restored dream, knowing he’d built something that mattered—not because it was old, but because he chose to remember it.

Change had come to Roblox.

The world had shifted. The corruption was gone. But something deeper had settled in its place—a new awareness. A new appreciation.

Change was good.

But memory made it whole.