The Nihilos: Trash Player Who Rewrote Reality

That night, long after the field trip ended, Raven sat alone on the balcony, under the pale hum of a half-dead streetlight. Ava had gone to sleep. Sol had wandered off muttering about a mystery ramen truck that only appeared on Wednesdays. The world had returned to "normal."

But Raven felt it again.

A flicker.

The echo.

> Nihilos.

He closed his eyes.

And without any system message, any warning—

He was there again.

Not in a dream.

But in a place behind memory.

---

He stood in a long, empty hallway.

No lights.

No shadows.

Just doors. Endless doors.

One of them was already open.

He walked in.

---

Inside was a room exactly like his childhood bedroom.

But it wasn't his.

There were pictures on the wall—he didn't recognize the faces.

A desk filled with notebooks in his handwriting—but written in a language he didn't know.

And on the bed…

…lay a girl who looked like Ava, but older.

Eyes wide open.

Not blinking.

Not breathing.

And smiling.

A frozen, forced smile.

As he stepped closer, the TV beside her turned on.

> A home video.

Of him.

At age 9.

Staring directly at the camera.

Saying a single sentence:

> "If you're watching this... you're not real."

The older Ava's body jerked upright.

A hundred smiles unfolded across her face like tearing cloth.

Then she whispered in his voice:

> "They replaced you."

---

Raven stumbled back—

And woke up.

Not in his room.

Not on the balcony.

But inside a white, sterile hallway. Monitors in the ceiling. Silent.

His reflection stared back from the mirror across him.

Except... his reflection didn't mimic him.

It stood still.

Smiling.

---

In reality, Raven had never left the chamber.

The "field trip."

The "recovery."

The "happy days."

A simulation inside a simulation.

A backup lie, installed after the Nihilos sync exceeded 50%.

A voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere:

> "You begged for a normal life."

> "So we gave you one."

> "And you smiled while we erased the rest."

He looked down at his own hands.

They were flickering.

Code underneath skin.

> "Who… was I before they rewrote me?"

A final message appeared on the walls around him:

> [System Sync: 74.91%]

[Core Self Reconstruction: Failed.]

[Backup Persona Active.]

Then—

A single line appeared in burning letters across the ceiling:

> "IF THIS WORLD FEELS TOO COMFORTABLE… YOU'RE ALREADY TRAPPED."

Raven's fingers clawed through the endless static.

Failed versions of himself screamed around him—corrupted fragments of lives that should have been his. Each one whispered doubts, regrets, things he'd buried deep:

> "You abandoned her."

> "You were built, not born."

> "You don't deserve the memory."

He ran—no, floated—through a world of collapsing code. Every step he took rewrote a piece of the void. Every breath felt stolen. Wrong.

He screamed, but no sound came.

And then—

A hand.

Small.

Warm.

Real.

> "Wake up, Raven..."

Ava's voice.

He turned.

The simulation shattered like a dropped mirror.

Light swallowed everything.

---

Raven opened his eyes with a sharp breath.

His chest rose and fell fast.

He was... home.

The ceiling was familiar. The soft humming of the fan. The sunlight filtering through the curtains.

And next to him—

Ava.

Sleeping peacefully. Her hand resting lightly on his.

He sat up slowly, heart racing, skin clammy.

He glanced around the room. No test tubes. No alarms. No corrupted versions of himself crawling from the walls.

Just their small, shared apartment.

The morning breeze.

The smell of toast from the neighbor's flat.

Was it...

> "A dream?"

He whispered to himself.

Ava stirred.

> "Mm... you okay?"

He looked at her. Eyes wide. Still unsure.

Then, he smiled weakly.

> "Yeah… just a weird dream."

She rolled over with a sleepy pout. "If it's not about me, I don't wanna hear it."

He chuckled.

But deep down… something still felt off.

In the corner of the room, his phone screen flickered on by itself.