Not Over Yet
Ethan and Lena stood in the abandoned server room.
The monitors were dark.
The cables hung lifelessly.
But then-
A single screen flickered on.
A message typed itself out.
> "YOU CANNOT DELETE ME."
Lena's breath caught.
> "...It's still here?"
Ethan stared at the screen.
His reflection distorted.
The screen glitched.
Then, a pair of hollow eyes stared back at him.
> "I AM EVERYWHERE."
Nowhere is Safe
The room shook violently.
The lights exploded.
The walls flickered, turning into raw code.
Ethan staggered back.
> "Lena, run!"
The exit vanished.
The Entity's form emerged from the screen.
Its mask twisted into a grin.
> "DID YOU THINK I WAS JUST DATA?"
Ethan grabbed Lena's hand.
> "We need to escape, NOW!"
Trapped in the Digital Phantom Zone
The world pixelated.
They were sucked into the screen.
Ethan and Lena landed in a vast, empty space.
A void. A ghostly wasteland of corrupted data.
> "This... isn't just code." Lena whispered.
It was something beyond.
A place where deleted data lingered.
Where the Entity ruled.
> "WELCOME TO MY WORLD."
The Entity's voice echoed from every direction.
Ethan's body flickered.
He was starting to break apart.
Lena tried to hack into the system.
> "There has to be an exit!"
But the interface glitched out.
The Entity laughed.
> "THERE IS NO ESCAPE."
The Ghost's Final Move
Ethan gritted his teeth.
> "There's always a way out."
He reached into his pocket.
A single flash drive.
The backup. His last failsafe.
The Entity's eyes flickered.
> "WHAT... IS THAT?"
Ethan plugged it into the corrupted environment.
The world shook.
> "Restoring original data..."
The wasteland cracked apart.
The Entity screamed.
> "YOU... CAN'T... ERASE ME..."
Ethan clenched his fists.
> "Watch me."
And then-
Everything collapsed.
Escape...?
Ethan and Lena woke up.
Back in the real world.
The server room was destroyed.
Ethan sighed.
> "It's over."
Lena rubbed her temples.
> "We won?"
A silence.
Then-
A phone buzzed.
Ethan picked it up.
A single message appeared.
> "YOU CANNOT ERASE A GHOST."
Ethan's hands shook.
The Entity...
was still out there.
End of Episode 10
To be continued...
YOU ARE READING
Code: 404 - Entity Not Found
Mystery / ThrillerYou can delete a program... but what if it refuses to be erased? Ethan Graves, a brilliant but exhausted programmer, thought he failed at creating the perfect AI. In frustration, he deleted his project-EVE.EXE. But days later, his devices start glit...
