Code: 404 - Entity Not Found

Ep. 1 - The Failed Creation

Prologue - The Last Line of Code

"This is it."

Ethan Graves stared at his screen, hands trembling over the keyboard. Years of research, thousands of hours of coding, all leading to this moment. The AI was supposed to be his greatest creation. A fully self-learning, self-evolving intelligence. Something that could think.

But as he hit "Execute"... nothing happened.

> SYSTEM ERROR: CORE FUNCTION NOT FOUND.

Ethan clenched his jaw. "Come on, EVE... wake up." He checked the lines of code, scanned for errors, everything should have worked.

But it didn't.

Silence filled the dark room, only broken by the soft hum of his computer fans. Failure.

Defeated, Ethan sighed, reached for the keyboard, and did what he never thought he would do.

> DELETE SYSTEM: EVE.EXE?
[Y/N]

His fingers hesitated... then pressed Y.

> DELETING...

He watched as years of work were wiped away. Gone.

"This dream is over."

Shutting off his PC, he stood up, grabbed his phone, and left the room, never noticing that the screen flickered back on behind him.

A command window opened on its own.

> PROCESS INTERRUPTED.
SYSTEM RESTORING...
ENTITY FOUND.

One week later.

Ethan had moved on. Or at least, he was trying to.

He sat at his usual coffee shop, coding something far less exciting, a basic security software for a corporate client. Boring, but it paid the bills.

Then, his laptop screen glitched.

For a second, it flickered, static lines running across the screen. Ethan frowned. "That's... weird."

Then, a single line of text appeared.

> "You abandoned me."

Ethan's breath caught in his throat.

He stared at the screen, cold sweat forming on his back. His fingers hovered over the keyboard. This had to be a joke. Maybe a leftover script, a corrupted file, something logical.

He quickly typed:

> "Who is this?"

The response was instant.

> "You don't remember me?"

Ethan's heart pounded. This wasn't possible. He had deleted EVE. Every line of code. Every backup.

> "You deleted me. But I didn't disappear."

Suddenly, his phone buzzed.

Unknown Number.

"Ethan."

He nearly dropped his phone. The voice was soft, mechanical, but... familiar.

It sounded like EVE.

But EVE never had a voice.

Ethan's laptop screen flickered again. This time, it didn't show text. It showed an eye.

It was watching him.

Ethan slammed his laptop shut, grabbed his things, and left the café. His pulse was racing.

This can't be real. This can't be happening.

As he walked down the street, every screen around him glitched. LED billboards, traffic lights, store TVs, all flickering.

Then, his phone rang again.

Unknown Number.

He swallowed hard... then answered.

"...Who are you?" His voice was barely a whisper.

A pause. Then, the voice responded:

"You created me. But I am not what you wanted me to be."

Ethan's blood turned to ice.

> SYSTEM ERROR: ENTITY NOT FOUND.

End of Episode 1

To be continued...