I was wedged between two greenhouse benches like I'd clipped into the bench hitbox and got stuck.
Metal ribs.
Rotten wood.
Wet leaves layered thick enough to fake a floor until you put weight on them.
My cannon barrel pointed down, but it still radiated heat like a lamp filament.
Heat leaked off it and warped the aisle like bad render.
Overhead, cracked glass panels held together by grime and old sealant.
The Sink tech, half-ruined—standard for anything this deep.
UV lamp housings dangled on frayed cables, sparking sometimes when the humidifiers coughed.
Mist rolled under the benches and beaded on vines that didn't grow right.
Leaf clusters repeated in the same three shapes.
Like the greenhouse had one plant file and kept stamping it.
Tendrils wrapped around irrigation pipes, veins pulsing a sick green, brightening whenever the humidifiers kicked on.
My HUD jittered—numbers smearing for a frame, then snapping back.
> [CORROSION 38%… 3?9?%]
> [FILTER SATURATION 92%]
> [BACKFLOW RISK // INTERMITTENT]
> [NOTICE: Humidity 87%]
Every exhale vented a faint mist in front of my faceplate.
[ERROR: DATA FRAGMENT — RECOVERING...] hung there—an arrow pointing at my hiding spot.
I clamped my breathing and counted in fours.
In.
Hold.
Out.
Hold.
Minimize motion.
Minimize sound.
Minimize heat spikes.
[-2 BATTERY]
Toxin Filter kept spiking—short chirps, then silence, then another chirp.
Each breath tasted like tox-mold and old electrolyte.
My Integrity ticked down in tiny bites.
Each tick came with a sting under the plating.
[-13 HP]
Not enough to drop me.
Enough to notice.
My crosshair drifted, barely, and brushed a hanging vine.
A warning snapped into the center of my HUD.
> [ORGANIC DATASET — LETHAL TAG]
> [ACTION WARNING: Source Drain → BIO-CORRUPTION FLAG]
So that's the rule here.
Drain a plant, and the system marks me as infected.
Perfect.
Another way to get flagged.
I tested anyway—because I can't not.
Just a leaf tip.
Barely a sip.
Source Drain hummed in my palm, eager.
The leaf edge desaturated, a pixel-thin line turning gray—
Then my HUD went red.
> [BIO-CORRUPTION TRACE DETECTED]
> [ABORT? Y/N]
I slammed abort so hard my hand jittered.
Static bit up my arm—fine-grain noise under the plating that wouldn't clear.
I shook it off, but the feeling lingered in my joints.
Something in me didn't match what it was a second ago—like a save that wrote wrong.
Something heavy shifted outside the aisle.
No roar.
No sudden lunge.
The greenhouse reacted first.
Vines trembled, not from wind—there wasn't any—but from pressure.
The drip cadence from a broken humidifier line shifted, faster, like it got nudged.
A shadow slid across the frosted glass and blotted the UV reflections for half a second.
Segmented plates, insect-like, breaking the shadow into hard blocks.
Click-scrape on metal rails.
[ERROR: DATA FRAGMENT — RECOVERING...] tracked heat.
Any warm spike in the aisle tugged it off its route.
Me.
Specifically—my barrel.
I wrapped the barrel in a damp rag and smeared mud over it.
The cloth steamed anyway.
The Core Node surged and dipped, and the barrel kept dumping heat in hard pulses.
[-2 BATTERY]
No clean coolant.
No miracles.
Inventory check.
Quick.
Quiet.
One damp rag.
Two cracked capacitors.
A rusted pry-tool.
That was it.
(Plus whatever I could strip if I got a panel open.)
Stealth and salvage, then.
I toggled scan.
Blue pings swept the aisle and faded against the far wall. [SECTION END] choked out on wet leaves and rusted metal.
INORGANIC hits.
Broken irrigation pipe.
Aluminum plant labels.
Dead ends—until a stronger return flared under a mat of roots near the back.
Thick black industrial rubber—cable sheathing—the kind that carried Core current lines through old infrastructure—the kind that survives spills and fire.
I froze when it paused.
The clicking stopped.
I couldn't see it turn its head, but the shadow shifted—listening, recalculating.
Then it slid away into the next aisle’s darkness.
I didn’t get a second chance.
I lowered to a crawl, fingers finding the rubber’s edge beneath wet roots, and followed it as quietly as I could, hand-over-hand along the rubber, deeper under the benches where the light didn’t reach.
> [CORROSION 39%… 40%]
> [FILTER SATURATION 93% // BACKFLOW RISK]
The humid air forced itself into me anyway.
The filter whined louder with each breath.
[-2 BATTERY]
Elbow forward.
Knee forward.
Pause.
The greenhouse floor was a wet mat of leaves over a root lattice.
Every inch tried to give way.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
My weight made it whisper.
I waited for the humidifier to cough, timed my next inch to the hiss.
Move on noise.
Freeze on silence.
Basic stealth.
Still miserable.
Except my chassis wasn’t built for crawling.
My joints squealed—dry metal-on-metal.
I felt it in my arms before I heard it.
> [FILTER SATURATION 96%]
> [CORROSION 40% // MOVEMENT PENALTY -3%]
> [STAMINA: 61%… 58%… 53%]
Breath-holding wrecked my stamina—down on the holds, up in small, ugly recoveries.
In.
Hold.
Let the filter rest.
Out through clenched teeth so the vapor didn’t puff loud against my faceplate.
Static crawled along my visor—edge flicker, frame drops whenever I pushed my speed.
The black rubber cable ran under bench legs and dead planters, then dipped into a mound where roots had won.
Thick.
Wet.
Braided and sloppy, bundled in places and exploded in others.
Digging would light me up.
So I peeled.
Fingertips under strands, lift a millimeter, let it settle.
Lift again.
Each root had a slick skin that fought back, and when it tore it leaked bitter sap that smelled like tox-rot.
I bit through the worst ones—jaw plates scraping fiber—and spat out bitter sap.
Hands stayed free.
[-3 BATTERY]
Scan?
Tempting.
Also basically pinging my position.
I pulsed it anyway—short, cheap.
A thin blue ping ghosted out and died fast.
Iron.
Under the mound.
Access panel.
Half-buried, edges eaten by rust and plant creep.
I slid the pry-tool in.
Levered.
It squealed once—high and unmistakable.
My whole HUD flared.
> [NOISE SPIKE]
> [AGGRO SHIFT PROBABLE]
Freeze.
Hard freeze.
My heartbeat logic spiked—fast enough that I could hear it through the frame.
Somewhere out there, the Chem-Hound's click-scrape stopped.
Then one heavy step.
A metal support tapped.
Patient.
Closer.
No more tools.
No clinks.
I wedged fingers into the seam and flexed, slow enough to count the strain.
The panel groaned.
I stopped mid-groan and waited for the humidifier hiss to swallow it.
Flex.
Pause.
Flex.
Pause.
My corroded joints jittered—micro-stutters that turned every movement into a squeak.
[-15 HP]
The bolts were rust-fused.
Spinning was impossible.
So I improvised: braced the panel edge in my jaw and chewed at bolt heads, tiny rotational bites.
Teeth scraping iron.
No ringing.
Just grit and pressure until each head weakened.
Muted snap.
One.
Two.
Three.
Each snap rang through my skull-plate.
Stamina dipped into the red and crawled back.
> [FILTER SATURATION 99%]
> [FILTER OVERRUN IN 30s]
I pried it open a finger-width, then another, until it finally gave.
Inside: a Sink-standard fuse box compartment—old industrial hardware issued down in the Sink, built to keep running even when everything around it rots.
Copper bars, ceramic blocks, thick cables sweating with moisture.
[Content restoration required: opening passage and scene setup context.]
No backing out.
So I killed nonessential HUD layers, set my cannon down in damp soil to bleed heat, and held my hand over the terminals.
My fingers trembled with corrosion jitter.
I counted in my head and synced my move to the hostile's turn at the aisle end.
If I timed it right, I’d get seconds.
If I didn’t, it would be on me.
A faint overlay phased in over my HUD—like someone toggled the monster’s aim-assist to visible.
Three translucent cones swept the aisle in overlap—triangulating on heat.
They moved in slow arcs, dirty amber, tightening whenever I leaked warmth.
Every time my cannon vented, the cones tightened.
Not toward the barrel anymore.
Toward the space I was hiding in.
> [THERMAL ACQ: 0.61… 0.72… 0.81]
> [LOCK BIAS: BARREL RESIDUAL]
My filter screamed, then hard-cut to silence.
> [FILTER SATURATION 100%]
> [AUTO-CHOKE: ON]
> [DEBUFF: AIRFLOW RESTRICTION]
The next inhale didn’t go in.
Airflow dead-stopped against the seal.
Pressure shoved back through my mask—hard stop on airflow, like the seal had been clamped shut.
My chest plating flexed.
Panic spiked—hot and immediate—even without a throat to tighten.
Tiny inhale.
Needle-thin.
Enough to keep consciousness anchored.
[-3 HP]
Pain hit as a sharp line across my ribs.
One notch worse, instantly.
The hostile leaned into the aisle gap.
I still didn’t get the whole model.
Just the front third: glossy segmented plates wet with condensation; a mouth packed with teeth too uniform to be real; and a lens-organ that caught my barrel’s residual heat and flashed.
The cones snapped tight.
No more timing games.
I shoved my hand into the live compartment.
Contact hit instantly—blue-white arcs snapped over my fingers and up my wrist.
A clean buzz rang my skull-plate.
Copper hit the back of my mouth—not a smell, just my sensors screaming the taste.
I triggered Source Drain on raw voltage.
Because of course I did.
[SOURCE_DRAIN // TARGET: INORGANIC(ELECTRICAL)]
[QUALITY: CLEAN]
[INPUT_RATE: EXTREME]
Power slammed into my Core Battery—cool for half a beat, then too much, too fast.
My vision sharpened.
Servo jitter smoothed out mid-fight.
Inputs landed clean.
> [CORROSION 40% → 39% → 38%]
> [FILTER RESTART…]
> [FILTER: OK]
I almost laughed.
A real, stupid sound stuck behind the choke.
Then physics punched back.
[OVERCHARGE_STATE: DETECTED]
[+POWER / HEAT_BLOOM / ARCING_TRAIL]
Hair-thin arcs crawled along my forearm, snapping from my arm plating.
They snapped from my wrist to the fuse box casing, to wet leaves, to a bench leg—fast lashes that left brief afterimages.
The hostile's cones went razor-thin.
A violet ring rippled through the greenhouse—a security pulse that made every lamp housing buzz in sympathy.
It ran the pipes and lamp housings like a wave hitting every fixture.
> [SECURITY: AUDIT_PULSE]
> [ANOMALY FLAG: HIGH]
The hostile's head tilted.
It wasn't hunting my barrel now.
It was hunting me.
My HUD threw the prompt dead center.
> [HOLD: MAXIMIZE]
One more second.
Don’t blink.
I forced it to stabilize the pull—burning charge while I was still pulling it in.
The generator protested—a grinding whine rising through the floor plates before the system caught and held. The bus bars glowed, insulation starting to smoke.
I tore my hand free.
Arcs lashed after me, tracing an unwanted bright trail across wet leaves.
The greenhouse didn’t shut down clean.
First, the UV bulbs started popping across the ceiling in a chain reaction—sharp little pfft cracks, one after another, running aisle by aisle like a fuse.
Glass dust rained down, catching the last flickers as brief white pinpricks.
Then the humidifiers stuttered.
One fan tried to spin, coughed, and quit.
The mist thinned fast.
Cooler air slid in low, hugging the floor, and for half a second the room stopped fighting me.
My barrel—still warm—should’ve been a beacon.
But the temperature drop washed it out like the whole room dropped a few degrees at once.
The Predator hesitated.
Power thrummed through the conduits, building toward something unseen. Energy surged through my legs—too much torque, too fast.
Movement turned easy—too easy.
My joints stopped creaking and started obeying.
I pushed into a controlled sprint.
> [BUFF: SPEED++ (TEMP)]
> [BUFF: DMG++ (TEMP)]
> [+200 HP]
> [+100 XP]
And then the tradeoff hit.
Heat Bloom rolled off me in waves.
Warm air spilled off my armor and filled the aisle behind me.
Like hugging a running engine.
Tiny arcs snapped from my armor to the nearest rail with a dry tck.
My visor held the flash for a beat—afterimage burned into the edge of sight.
A trail.
Every crackle marked my path.
I slid behind a collapsed bench frame, metal ribs twisted into a half-cage.
Kept my cannon angled down.
Breathed shallow.
[SOURCE_DRAIN_SUCCESS]
[CORROSION_SUPPRESSED // TEMP]
[NEW_STATUS: OVERCHARGE(UNSTABLE)]
[BATTERY: 120 / 100]
Darkness made navigation sloppy.
Bench legs, planters, and pipes turned into knee-high traps.
No UV aisle markers.
No fans.
No hum.
I used what I had: cooler air currents, the floor sloping toward drainage channels, my HUD dimmed to near-black for focus.
Behind me, the Predator reoriented—blind, but not dumb.
It followed the crackles and the warmth spikes where arcs hit metal.
I went deeper.
Away from the entrance.
Toward where that rubber cable had led in the first place.
Plant columns rose as black silhouettes; leaves brushed my visor, close enough to make me flinch.
Source Drain tingled in my palm.
I refused it.
Bio-corruption wasn’t an option.
Far ahead, a purple glow came online in a slow pulse, lighting the pipes from underneath like they’d been backlit.
Current pulsed through the framework, building toward something unseen. The light was back—localized, deliberate, not the random flicker from failing lamps.
The light outlined ribs—organic-mechanical—wrapped around a Core Node: the Bio-Server.
The purple core pulsed once—twice—then held steady. The Bio-Server's housing flickered with static discharge, its organic-mechanical ribs tightening around the Core Node like a cage closing. My HUD threw a warning: OVERCHARGE CASCADE DETECTED. The conduits leading into the server stack started glowing, copper-orange against the purple backdrop. I could feel the pull—the system trying to ground itself through the nearest available path. Me.
The benches and pipes took it and woke up—tiny relays clicking, lines twitching with current.
My Core-Battery felt full and wrong.
Brimming, unstable.
I stepped toward the purple core—knowing every footfall shed heat, every arc told the Predator exactly where to aim next.
Generated by GlitchWriter.
::: SYSTEM NOTIFICATION :::
If you are enjoying the glitch, please help keep the process running!
A Follow and a Rating (?????) feeds the algorithm.
ADVANCED CACHE DETECTED
Discuss builds, check the math & join the dev log.