2026 Monthly Story Challenge #1

Anomalous

By Jayde Holmes

It took more than one anomalous experiment for scientists to realise that the laws of physics weren’t consistent. More than one equation that didn’t add up. More than one galaxy that didn’t shine properly. More than one particle that wouldn’t behave when they looked too closely. The closer they looked, the more the very foundations of reality crumbled beneath the glare of the microscopes and telescopes.

It took a while for people to admit that our universe was just a buggy simulation.

Not everyone could handle that. Fear took hold, and quickly morphed into nihilism and despair.

There were mass suicides in every major city once the news sunk in. I rushed towards the one closest to me. Not because I could be helpful, and certainly not because I was into that stuff. I went because healthy happy people downing poison in a peaceful city was a huge anomaly, and people going to the scene to have a rave was not an expected reaction to such a tragedy.

People started to look at history with a new lens once our science failed, and the new consensus was that maybe some of the more out-there miracles could have been the result of people acting in ways whoever made the universe couldn’t predict. If the universe is just some game, then it has bugs to exploit.      

All games can be broken. We spent enough time making games together during our classes to know that. You can wrong-warp to Ganon after beating Gohma, you can clone your master balls by surfing on the edge of Cinnabar Island, and Ornstein and Smough aren’t that hard with the Moveswap glitch.

Me and everyone else at the suicide rave realised that if Jesus had found an infinite bread and fishes glitch, why couldn’t we? We’d already broken the universe just by looking at things too far away, so it was perfectly reasonable to assume anomalous behaviours and situations could lead to new glitches. It seems weird to explain this now when it is so painfully, obviously true, but I want you to know what I felt back then. I didn’t show up to the site of a tragedy in my brightest dress because I’d decided digital people didn’t matter. I went glitch hunting because I was desperate to change things

Did I feel like a monster? Yes. Did people stare at me? Yes, but I’d never been shy. Except for that last day with you. I don’t usually let go of the things I want so easily. Letting you step on that train that last time without saying anything wasn’t like me.

We didn’t break the world that day. Not weird enough, not cruel enough. But at another site a cruel warlord showed up, and the buildings twisted and fractured as he mangled the corpses. The creation of the Unspeakable Hell City with its gravity-defying architecture, and the gravity-nullifying properties people could gain from walking it changed everything.

I assume you haven’t been there yourself, but you would have seen its successors. Buildings, neighbourhoods, or parks scattered throughout normal suburbia that look like someone ran their texture packs through a random number generator. Where gravity doesn’t necessarily work and there is nothing to stop multiple objects occupying the same space. Unspeakable Hell City is just that on a massive scale. Except strangely enough, the sky still moves the way it used to. Only difference is it is red there.  

I swear to you, I haven’t stooped to the evil strats that have become so common since then. The worst strat I use is one involving skewered cockroaches and worms that keeps my house untouchable amid the outbreaks of violence caused by power-hungry people who don’t believe empathy is needed in a game.

I’ve included a tutorial for that glitch at the end of this message. No matter what your response is, I want you to be as safe as you can be. You couldn’t even stand playing horror games, so I know you haven’t gone down the so-called dark arts path.

But I also know you must be struggling with the revelation that we’re not real. You always struggled when things felt pointless. I have too. I couldn’t stand being powerless and alone, so I decided that I’d find you after I became someone who could keep us safe and happy. That’s why I’ve gone overseas so much. To the Large Hadron Collider, to Area 51, and I admit, to the Unspeakable Hell City as well.

It was the first place I went to, despite how disgusted I was with what happened there. I climbed up the stairs of a building that floated 200 metres above the ground, made it to the roof, and did a running jump over the edge, down towards the opposite building. I jumped knowing that if I couldn’t reach the other building and plant my feet on its wall, that gravity would work as intended and I’d be just another blood splatter on the ground so very far below.

I made the leap anyway, because I didn’t really care if I lived or died. I’d felt softlocked out of my happy ending since I decided not to tell you how I felt. I’d already lost my meaning of life before finding out I was just a bunch of 0 and 1s. Or whatever gods coded with. I jumped off the building, hoping that when I landed, I’d be able to run up the wall and make life worthwhile.

As I was soaring through the gap, I wondered if you’d hear about me dying, and how that’d make you feel.

Once I got gravity-nullification, I went to Taiwan. To the semiconductor factory where they found that gap in the walls. I flew onto the grounds, smooshed my face and belly to the wall and walked around the perimeter until I clipped into the cleanroom with an EFTPOS machine and my card. I was able to pull off the Refund from Nowhere Glitch, so now I’m rich.   

Not as rich as the billionaire who went to the moon dressed as Mario and did a Backwards Long Jump back to Earth of course. Not rich enough to actually change the world like that. I could do Refund from Nowhere a thousand times and still never approach that level of resources or power.

I haven’t found any leads on how he did that, but I’ve been to the places he landed, and the world is messed up around there even worse than Unspeakable Hell City. It’s true what they say about it being an apocalyptic event, but I was stoked. He’d broken reality so much that people were finding glitches that could distort space and time. They could create instances – pocket realities just for a few people where things were different – and that gave my life a purpose again.

I was going to recreate the Back Then, when we were studying together. Take us back to waiting for the trains that would take us home after our last day, and this time ask if you wanted to go out to dinner with me. The real you, if you’d be willing. It’d be populated by NPCs, but I’m not interested in a fake you. That would have been easy once the Social Media Embodiment Glitch was discovered. Even after I tracked you down, I swore I wouldn’t bother you until I could offer you this sanctuary from the indifferent, crumbling universe.

But I can’t offer you that. The price to make an instance is too high. Too horrific. I could do it; I know how, but I’ve seen the way it eats reality. I can’t blame these desperate people for getting into their safe bubble and slamming the door behind them, but I know you wouldn’t do that. You have too many people that you care about. I can only hope that learning they are all in a simulation hasn’t changed that about you. I know thinking like that now makes you vulnerable, but it also makes you great. They say human life means nothing in a simulation, but I don’t agree. And I know you wouldn’t agree either, nor would you love anyone who did.

So instead, here’s what I can offer you; back near our old campus is a glitched town. Dozens of floating colonial townhouses with trees orbiting around them and birds flying upside-down. It’s become a nice area if you aren’t scared of heights. That pasta place we used to go to after our evening classes has moved into one of the floating buildings, and they’ve become a lot fancier. I think they take advantage of a few exploits to get their supplies (who could survive without that now?) but they still cook the intended way. I’d like to go there one evening. With you.

The universe may be confirmed meaningless and falling apart. There may be thoughtless billionaires, evil warmongers, and millions of people desperate for new opportunities ripping reality to shreds all over the place. Sure, maybe there is no hope for the universe to survive, and I cannot save you or make it all go back to the way it was. I’m still powerless despite what I’ve done, but I think I could be happy just spending some time getting closer to you. I can offer you the same. Some solace in this decaying game-world. It’s not the power or security I helped tear reality apart hoping to achieve, but I promise some humanity in our horrific new normal. I promise to hold your hand, make the dumb jokes you used to enjoy, and warn you if you get too much sauce on your face, as we watch all these glitched trees and buildings fly past.

Please, will you go out with me this weekend?