The subway gate creaked open with a mechanical groan, revealing a rusted platform lit by pulsing red lights. A sign above the entrance flickered:
> "ADMIN ACCESS ONLY – RESTRICTED FILES AHEAD"
Raka hesitated. "You sure this is the way?"
Iqiww gave a half-smile. "Nothing about this game has been the way since the day we logged in."
They stepped into the train.
It was abandoned — dusted with static, its digital seats worn and flickering. A single system voice echoed as the train lurched forward:
> "Now descending to The Backlog. Mind the gaps… in memory."
---
The journey down felt like forever.
Each window flashed pieces of content that never made it into the final game: a water map that collapsed mid-animation, a dual-wield class stuck in T-pose, and even a shopkeeper hero with no dialogue — eyes hollow.
As they passed deeper, the walls outside the train grew darker — covered in corrupted posters and "Coming Soon" banners that never came.
When the train screeched to a halt, they stepped into complete silence.
The Backlog was a vast underground maze — half-codebase, half-tomb. Empty hero selection pods lined the walls, still humming. Inside each pod was a frozen figure: characters with no names, designs incomplete, their faces blurred by data fog.
Raka stepped closer to one of the pods.
The figure inside looked eerily familiar.
> [ERROR: FILE_ID_RAKA_01_BETA]
His own avatar. But different. Younger. Wounded. Eyes glowing with a faint red hue.
"That's… me?" he whispered.
"You in a timeline that never happened," Iqiww said, voice low. "The devs tested hundreds of possible player paths before release. You were one of them. And the system archived every single version."
Raka backed away.
But then — one of the pods hissed.
The glass shattered outward.
From within stepped a shadowy figure wearing a tattered version of Raka's original costume. His movements were sharp, brutal — and he spoke with Raka's voice.
> "You abandoned us. You chose the path that got people killed."
The system pinged:
> [SHADOW FILE INITIATED – V.0.91_RK]
Objective: DELETE CURRENT PLAYER INSTANCE]
---
The fight was relentless.
The Shadow Raka used skills that Raka remembered, but with broken timing — beta versions of his moves, unbalanced and raw. He moved without hesitation, as if every frame of the battle was pre-recorded.
Raka struggled.
He wasn't fighting another player.
He was fighting a version of himself who never lost.
Every slash was filled with anger.
Every dodge, a judgment.
"Why did you give up?" the Shadow hissed. "Why did you stop playing after the finals? We could've been legend!"
Raka's breath was ragged. "Because… it stopped being fun."
A pause.
Just for a second.
The Shadow froze — then screamed in data distortion. That one line hit deeper than any sword. It shattered the illusion.
Iqiww rushed in — stabbing the pod's core — and the Shadow dissolved in a digital howl.
> [Shadow File Terminated]
[Fragment Acquired: FRAG_ID_06 – "Echo of Self"]
---
After the battle, they sat beside a broken server bank, the silence pressing around them.
Raka clutched the new fragment, still shaking.
"Is this what it's gonna be like?" he asked. "Facing versions of ourselves? Pieces of what we could've been?"
Iqiww didn't answer right away.
Then: "The deeper we go… the more personal it gets."
---
At the far end of the chamber, an old admin terminal blinked online. A final message scrolled across the screen:
> "One fragment left."
"But not all files want to stay forgotten."
A portal opened — swirling with white and red data.
And from inside, something watched.
---
To Be Continued…