Ash always said the world would end with a patch update.
Not an explosion, not a bang—just a broken script, a terminal error that no one would catch until it was too late.
Turns out he was right.
He just didn't expect to be inside it.
The lights in his room had died with a soft pop, like a whisper pulling back a curtain. No warning. Just an electrical sigh, and then… nothing. His fingers had hovered over the keyboard mid-keystroke, still clicking air as if the screen might flicker back to life.
It didn't.
Outside, thunder cracked—dry and electric, unnatural. A pressure shift rolled through the walls, and every appliance in his apartment wheezed and powered down. Then silence. Real silence. The kind that wasn't empty, just... waiting.
Ash leaned back in his chair, blinking slowly. His system build was mid-mod. He hadn't even saved.
Foundation Core Initialization Failed.
Warning: No Host Framework Detected.
Then the screen went black.
He woke up on concrete.Not in bed. Not in a hospital. Just flat on his back in what remained of his childhood room—except it wasn't his anymore. The walls were the same shape, the ceiling familiar in a haunted sort of way, but everything else had been devoured.
The drywall was cracked, sagging with rot. The floor was warped, blistered by time or radiation. And the air... it smelled wrong. Mold, ozone, dried blood. Something fungal and metallic that stung the back of his throat.
Ash sat up slowly, coughing. His hands trembled as he wiped dust and ash off his face. Something was pulsing faintly in his vision, like a HUD burned into the backs of his eyelids.
[FOUNDATION CORE SYSTEM – BOOT COMPLETE]
Host Signal: Stabilizing…
User: Zero
Access Level: Civilizational Rebuilder
Current Environment: Class 3 Collapse Zone
His first thought wasn't panic.
It was curiosity.
Ash had spent most of his adult life buried in survival sims, crafting games, modular base builders—he'd modded them, broken them, rebuilt them until they made sense. The real world never had. But this? This he could work with.
He stumbled to his feet. His muscles ached, his body felt… thinner, like something had wrung him out and poured him into a copy.
Inventory Check:
Clothes: torn hoodie, cargo pants (partially scorched), gloves (unfamiliar)
Backpack: missing
Tools: none
Status: minor dehydration, radiation exposure (Stage 1)
"Okay," he muttered aloud, voice hoarse. "It's not a dream."
He walked to the corner of the room. His bookshelf—once full of outdated strategy guides and anime DVDs—was now a pile of warped wood and moldy plastic. Something red pulsed faintly beneath the debris. A vein. A root. No, not a plant.
It moved.
He stepped back. The HUD flared.
WARNING: Redroot Bloom Detected
Recommendation: Immediate relocation
Base integrity below survival threshold.
The words didn't blink. They waited.
Day 0 – Log Entry 001
Ash found a half-working console embedded in the floor by what used to be his desk. It was alien in shape—smooth metal, no seams, no wires. But when he touched it, something warm pulsed through his palm.
SYSTEM QUERY:
Would you like to begin [Rebuilder Protocol]?
"Yes," he said.
The room responded.
Holograms flickered to life. His home disassembled itself in data—walls, supports, damage estimates, contamination spread. A voice—not human, not machine—spoke directly into his mind:
Welcome, Zero.
You are the last viable node.
Foundation Core initialized.
Begin civilization recovery sequence.
He stared as a grid unfolded around him—hexagonal nodes spanning out into the ruins, linking places that used to be familiar: schools, supermarkets, hospitals. All of them dark. Dead. Claimed.
CLAIM NODE: HOME RUINS?
STATUS: SEVERE CONTAMINATION
POWER: INSUFFICIENT
WATER: INACTIVE
SAFE? NO
He pressed "Yes" anyway.
A low hum filled the room. Metal folded upward from the floor, shaping itself into a crude panel: [Blueprint Crafter – Level 0].
Module Unlocked:
Power Grid (Jury-rigged)
Water Processor (Contaminated Source)
Shelter Patch Kit (Basic)
Skill Cache: Builder Lv.1
Scavenger Protocol: Active
Ash exhaled.
This wasn't a game.
It was better.
By nightfall, he had power—barely. A line of solar scavengers picked through the rooftop debris. The water processor spat sludge into a filtered basin. The ceiling still leaked, but at least the air wasn't red anymore.
Ash sat against a wall, fingers wrapped around a rusted crowbar he'd found lodged in a corpse downstairs. He didn't look at the corpse.
System Time: 20:48
Morale: Low
Temperature: Dropping
Redroot Activity: Dormant
Log Entry 002
I claimed the ruins. Not sure if that makes me a king or a janitor. Maybe both. Doesn't matter. It's mine now.
He glanced at the far wall. Something thumped in the distance. Movement. Not animal. Not friendly.
He powered down the lights.
Let the dead think he'd given up for the night.
Let the system keep recording.
The next morning, the Redroot moved.
It grew through the cracks. Wormed into the pipes. Spread beneath his feet like it knew. Like it remembered. The HUD pulsed red.
[INFECTION NODE RISING]
[DEFENSE GRID: UNAVAILABLE]
[RECOMMENDATION: RETREAT OR BUILD]
Ash stood in the middle of the decay and made his choice.
He opened the crafting menu. Selected "Perimeter Wall – Makeshift." Slapped together scrap, plastic, and prayer. Hammered it into the ground like it mattered.
He built.
Not to fight.Not to escape.But to hold a line.To remember what standing meant.
The world had ended. Fine.
He would build it again.
One node at a time.
[User Zero]
Role: Rebuilder
Directive: Persist. Reclaim. Outlast.
Beginning Phase I: Survival Primitive
Welcome to the End.
Now start fixing it.