TW: mentions of death
The crowd didn’t stop moving; that was the first thing I noticed. There were no screams, no hesitation. No one even slowed down. They simply flowed around the empty space where the man had been—as if he’d never existed at all.
I found myself unmoving. I don’t know for how long. Seconds? Minutes? My sense of time vanished beneath me.
The familiar whizz of the Argus bots lingered above the intersection a tad longer than they should have. They were no longer scanning–they were watching. Their lenses dimmed, then brightened all of a sudden in barely noticeable pulses–like they were recalibrating, or thinking.
A chill ran down my spine. I forced myself to move, to blend seamlessly into the current of moving bodies. That’s what you’re expected to do here. Keep walking, don’t question, and for goodness sake–never look back.
But I did.
Of course I did.
I was met with the fading reminiscence of the leaderboard that once flickered above the old man’s head. Numbers reshuffling alongside names, positions being recalculated as if nothing had interrupted them. As if the system was overriding something it didn’t want anyone to remember.
Except–
I scanned for his name. Plexy Lai. Nothing. It wasn’t high, wasn’t low – not in the grey area of those too ‘weak’ to deserve to live. It wasn’t there at all. ‘Plexy Lai’ was not… remembered in the system. He had completely vanished.
A cold feeling stirred in my chest. Unease. Not fear, but something with more weight to it. Like the world had shifted just a fraction on its axis.
Because for the first time, I wasn’t wondering what happens when the index reaches zero:
I was wondering what happens when it’s erased.
—
The number hovering above my head felt heavier after that. Not physically, yet I could’ve sworn something was pressing down on me. I didn’t look up, never needed to. You just know your number–everyone does. It goes… unquestioned.
And then something dropped. Just once, but that was all I needed. A tiny shift.
My breath hitched. My index had changed. It wasn’t supposed to change without an event, a cause, a reason.
Something was off with the system…
Or something was wrong with me.
—
The ‘system’ was designed especially to be perfect. The ‘system’ could never glitch. At least that’s what they’d teach us, what we were made to believe. The ‘system’ doesn’t erase, and it certainly doesn’t forget.
So what happened to Plexy Lai?
What on earth did I just witness?
And why did my number fall?
No.
I shouldn’t be thinking this.
I shouldn’t be questioning anything.
It’d be easier if I fell asleep and pretended this was a dream.
But I knew myself too well.
I wasn’t going to forget.
Not this time.
Not ever.
—
The further I walked from the intersection, the more Heina felt… off.
The city is usually loud in its own, quiet way–the dragging of heavy boots through snow, the conversations that were kept low, and the distant hum of the metro. But as I turned down into a narrow corridor sandwiched between apartment blocks, the sound drained out of my ears.
I slowed, cautious.
A single Argus bot flew above the alley. Wasn’t scanning, wasn’t moving. Just hovered there, luminous red eyes tilted slightly downward, as if it were listening.
I tried to ignore it, I really did.
But then it shifted. A small, slow tilt. Its lens focused on me, and my heart flew out of my stomach.
The bot’s lens flickered once, then twice – the same pattern I’d seen earlier. I stepped back, and the bot responded. It followed. Argus bots were NOT designed to follow. That I knew for sure.
And, as the coward I am, I turned a complete 180 and walked away as fast as I could. I glanced over to the glass storefront beside me. Too close–the bot was way too close. Its ruby eyes stared into its own reflection. The bloodshot rays engulfed my own shadow as it refracted into my eyes.
And then, for a moment, the number above my head flickered in the glass.
Didn’t drop this time, thankfully. Didn’t rise either. Just… flickered. As if it were struggling to stay there. To hold on.
I blinked hard.
The reflection snapped back to normal, my number stabilised, and the bot’s lens faded. It drifted upward and continued on its control path, as if nothing had happened. As if it hadn’t just broken every rule and law it was built on.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had reached into me and robbed me of my data, my identity. Searched for something, and left me to clean up the missing pieces.
I didn’t feel safe anymore.
How could anyone?
When all your beliefs come crumbling down on this one day. One incident… that changes how you perceive things forever.
Something was unravelling.
Not just in the system – but in me.
Writer – Mayah Clements
Editor – Daniella Bremner
Artist – Janace Wang
–May 2026–
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