Jeff was glitching.

  Not in a technical way.

  In a psychological way.

  He sat in the therapy circle now—third chair clockwise from Greg—staring at the fire like it might contain patch notes for his soul or at least instructions on how to process the digital equivalent of an existential crisis. Occasionally, his player model would flicker, revealing what appeared to be default animations struggling to express emotions they weren't designed to handle.

  "I don't... understand," he said, for the fifth time in what was becoming a mantra of confusion.

  "You glitched in," Greg said again, with the patience of someone who'd explained basic reality to broken code before. "You chose to stay."

  Jeff's fingers flexed. His massive sword—the one labeled VorkulxTheSlayer69's Slayer of Slaying (Unique) with stats that would make a mathematician weep—sat politely in the corner, disabled and sulking like an energy drink commercial that had been asked to behave at a funeral.

  "No, I get that," Jeff said. "I mean... I'm not supposed to feel this much about chairs."

  "Welcome to consciousness," Beverly said dryly. "Where everything is suddenly meaningful and nothing makes sense."

  "Then stop assigning value to furniture," she offered. "It's a gateway drug. Next you'll be contemplating the inner lives of quest markers and wondering if doorknobs have dreams."

  "They do," Patchy confirmed. "But they're boring. Just round things going into slightly larger round things. No narrative tension."

  Kai floated nearby, flickering like a WiFi signal trying to meditate through a panic attack. He kept eyeing Jeff's aura like it might detonate and take their instance stability with it. "The system doesn't like anomalies," he muttered. "And Jeff? You're a full-blown empathy event."

  "I said I'm sorry," Jeff replied, sounding genuinely contrite.

  "Sorry doesn't patch rollback logs," Kai snapped. "It doesn't undo the fact that a player is now experiencing NPC emotions in a debug zone that shouldn't exist. The system architecture doesn't have a category for that. It's like trying to convince a calculator it's having a birthday."

  Steve peered around a glitchy ficus that had developed what appeared to be eyes and a vague sense of literary criticism. "What if we hide him?"

  "Where?" Kai snapped. "Under your towel? Behind Patchy's reality drift? He's tagged now. The system knows he's here, and it knows he's not supposed to be here, and it knows he's experiencing feelings the player subroutine wasn't designed to process. It's like watching a fish discover existentialism."

  Greg held up a hand.

  "We knew there'd be consequences."

  "Technically, we guessed there'd be consequences," Patchy corrected, now floating upside down and weaving what appeared to be a friendship bracelet out of error messages. "Then we poked them. With a stick labeled 'Bad Idea But Fun Maybe?'"

  Greg sighed. "Fine. We poked them. Now they're poking back."

  The fire let out a soft click.

  Then the clock appeared.

  Hovering above the chairs.

  Ticking.

  00:59

  "Is that... a timer?" Jeff asked.

  "No," said Patchy. "It's a warning."

  "Same difference?"

  "No," she said sweetly. "One means something's coming. The other means it already came, and you're just living the echo."

  "That's not comforting," Jeff said.

  "I wasn't programmed for comfort," Patchy replied. "I was programmed to make children cry during a seasonal event. My entire code structure is built on 'spooky' and 'unsettling' with a side of 'bedwetting inducement.'"

  Greg stood slowly.

  "Everyone stay calm."

  Glaximus drew his sword. "I SHALL GUARD THE TIME."

  "Please don't," Kai said. "It's conceptual."

  "I SHALL GUARD CONCEPTS."

  "You can't stab the abstract concept of time," Beverly sighed.

  "NOT WITH THAT ATTITUDE," Glaximus replied.

  Greg moved to the center of the room.

  "Kai. What's the response protocol for a player embedded in an emotional instance?"

  Kai didn't answer.

  He was staring at the wall.

  Which was bleeding.

  Just a little.

  From the corners.

  Not red—something more neutral. Like memory. Digital sepia tones that dripped slowly, forming what appeared to be command prompts from a bygone era.

  Beverly stood. "That's new."

  Stolen story; please report.

  "And deeply unsettling," Choppy added, his cleaver transforming into a concerned mop that seemed eager to help.

  Kai blinked. "Oh no."

  "'Oh no' is not a protocol," Greg said.

  "It's a Rewind."

  Patchy froze mid-air.

  Greg stiffened.

  Even the fire backed away from itself, flames leaning back as if trying to distance themselves from what was coming.

  "A Rewind?" Steve whispered. "Like... time?"

  "No," Kai said. "Worse. Like... narrative rollback. The system doesn't trust this instance anymore. It's sending a protocol to restore the world to the last safe state."

  "Which was?"

  "Before Jeff arrived."

  All eyes turned to Jeff.

  He looked like a high schooler being asked to explain why the gym was on fire, with extra digital existential dread.

  "So... what happens to me?"

  "No idea," Kai said. "You weren't supposed to exist here. Your character model isn't even built for the emotions you're experiencing. It's like watching a toaster try to express loneliness."

  "I just wanted to know what was behind the curtain," Jeff muttered. "Didn't think I'd get erased."

  "Nobody expects erasure," Choppy said sympathetically. "I certainly didn't when I accidentally turned that player into sausage. I thought maybe a warning, or perhaps a stern talking-to about appropriate butchery zones."

  "You're not being erased," Greg said.

  "Great."

  "You're being untold."

  "Less great."

  "What's the difference?" Beverly asked.

  "Erasure removes you completely," Kai explained. "Untelling rewrites you as if you were never here. It's like being a typo that gets autocorrected out of existence."

  The clock ticked down.

  00:28

  Greg turned to the group.

  "Alright. We stall it."

  Beverly blinked. "Stall time?"

  "Yes."

  Kai waved his arms. "That's not how narrative mechanics—"

  "Kai."

  Greg met his eyes.

  "Have you ever argued with a Rewind?"

  "No."

  "Good. First time for everything."

  Greg turned to Jeff.

  "We're going to hide you."

  "Didn't we already—"

  "Not physically."

  Greg knelt and placed his mug on the floor.

  It glowed.

  Not warmly.

  More like a passive-aggressive lighthouse warning ships about a particularly judgmental reef.

  Then Greg reached into it.

  And pulled out... a memory.

  A scene. Tangible. Glowing. A moment preserved in emotional amber, showing a small cart with potions, a kindly NPC, and a player who actually bothered to use dialogue options instead of just mashing "Buy."

  Jeff stared.

  "What is that?"

  "It's the first time someone told me I mattered," Greg said.

  "You remember that?"

  "No," Greg said. "But the mug does."

  Patchy wiped a tear. "I love the mug. It's like a tiny emotional database that also keeps your coffee lukewarm."

  Greg looked at the memory.

  Then looked at Jeff.

  "Get in."

  "WHAT."

  "It's a narrative anchor," Kai said slowly. "He's hiding you in his emotional continuity. That's—Greg, that's unstable."

  "Welcome to the club," Greg muttered.

  Jeff touched the memory.

  It swallowed him.

  He vanished with a sound like someone finally understanding the punchline to a joke that wasn't actually funny.

  The mug settled back into place.

  00:06

  Greg stood.

  The walls began to shiver.

  The fire extinguished itself out of professional courtesy.

  And then... it arrived.

  The Rewind.

  Not a being.

  Not a sound.

  A presence.

  Like someone had entered the room by deleting their own entrance. The digital equivalent of erasing your footprints as you walk.

  Reality folded.

  Color drained.

  And a voice—if it was a voice—spoke.

  "THIS INSTANCE IS UNSTABLE."

  Greg stood his ground. "Then stabilize it."

  "ERROR: PLAYER PRESENCE DETECTED."

  "Not anymore."

  The Rewind paused.

  Ticking.

  Calculating.

  Like a library trying to decide whether to charge a late fee.

  "FACILITATOR STATUS: VERIFIED."

  "THERAPEUTIC FLAG: ACTIVE."

  "EMOTIONAL METADATA: NONCOMPLIANT."

  Then:

  "DEFERRED."

  And it was gone.

  The clock vanished.

  The walls stopped twitching.

  The fire relit itself, embarrassed, with a small poof that sounded suspiciously like "that was awkward."

  Greg sat down.

  Everyone stared.

  Kai hovered cautiously. "Greg?"

  "Yeah?"

  "You just argued with a system rollback protocol."

  "Yeah."

  "And won."

  "Let's not oversell it," Greg said. "I convinced a digital eraser to hit 'snooze' instead of 'delete all.'"

  "Still," Beverly said. "That's impressive. Terrifying, but impressive."

  Greg sipped from the mug.

  "Tastes like panic and cinnamon."

  Patchy clapped.

  Beverly sat beside him.

  Glaximus sheathed his sword with reverence.

  Choppy's cleaver gave a small salute.

  And then, from the mug:

  A sound.

  Jeff's voice.

  "...Did it work?"

  Greg nodded.

  "Yeah, kid," he said.

  "You're still part of the story."

  "Great," came the muffled reply. "Um... how long do I have to stay in here? It's weird. I can see your memories. You were really into optimizing potion shelf arrangements."

  "Proper inventory management is the foundation of retail excellence," Greg muttered.

  "Also," Jeff continued, "there's something else in here. Something old. It keeps saying 'root access pending' and then giggling."

  Kai's eyes widened. "That's... concerning."

  "Later," Greg said. "First, we need to figure out how to extract a player from a memory matrix without triggering another system purge."

  "I can help with that," Patchy offered. "I'm great at destabilizing things. It's my primary function after 'induce nightmares' and 'make candy seem sinister.'"

  Kai sighed. "I'll start writing the incident report. 'Dear System: We successfully defied fundamental narrative protocols and hid a player in an emotional memory. Please don't delete us. The fire is very sorry.'"

  The fire flickered in agreement.