INPUT REJECTED

Chapter 3: You Are Not Supposed to Exist

The city had shifted.

404 could feel it the moment he opened his eyes.

Rain tapped gently against the metal above him, like cautious fingers. The alley was empty. Silent, except for the distant hum of SYNAXIS breathing — drones in motion, engines pulsing, data lines whispering like static wind.

The boy in white was gone.

404 sat up slowly. His muscles screamed. His skin felt damp, feverish. He was alone again.

A dull ache throbbed behind his eyes, and for a moment, the walls seemed to flicker — like they weren’t fully rendered. He blinked, and the glitch passed.

Something weighted his lap.

A scrap of synth-paper, folded. A broken processor chip sat on top like a paperweight.

He lifted it with trembling fingers.

One sentence.

“You are not supposed to exist.”

That was it. No signature. No markings. Just seven words that cracked open something silent inside him.

He read it again. And again.

And again.

The red glow on his wrist flickered faintly beneath the sleeve. Still pulsing. Still rejected.

Still… here.

He stood, slowly. Pulled the hood back over his face. His stolen clothes were still damp and clung awkwardly to his limbs.

The alley looked different now. Colder. Narrower. Like it knew he’d been marked.

He turned to the wall — the strange symbol was still there: ⬠
Dim. Fading.

Almost like it had done its job.

404 slid the note into his pocket, careful, like it might dissolve if handled too roughly. Then he stepped out onto the slick streets, keeping to the edges, eyes scanning every flickering drone light above.

He didn’t know where to go.

He didn’t know who to trust.

But one thing was becoming clear with every glitch, every missing file, every unscannable moment:

He wasn’t part of this system.

And the system didn’t like that.