The first thing Kai noticed was the smell. It didn't smell like nature. It didn't even smell like the ozone of the server room.

  It smelled like wet cardboard and disappointment.

  The second thing he noticed was the color. There wasn't one. The sky was a flat, static sheet of gray clouds that looked like a painting someone had forgotten to finish. The ground was a featureless soup of ash-colored mud.

  And the third thing, unfortunately, was the screaming.

  "I am incomplete!" Pigglesworth shrieked. "I am a tripod of despair! The earth has stolen my dignity!"

  Kai sat up, peeling his face off the ground. He felt heavy. Not just physically the air here felt thick, like walking through syrup. He looked over to see the Viscount hopping frantically on one foot, his purple coat smeared with gray sludge.

  "Pigglesworth, calm down," Kai groaned, rubbing his temples. "What happened?"

  "Look!" Pigglesworth pointed his cane at the mud. "My loafer! My beautiful, hand-stitched left shoe! It refused to leave the muck! It has abandoned me!"

  Kai looked. Deep in the gray sludge, the Sticky Shoe remained buried, refusing to budge. Pigglesworth was now standing on one shoeless, purple-socked foot, trembling with genuine horror.

  "A Viscount without a heel is just a peasant with a stick," Pigglesworth whispered, staring at his wet sock. "I am unmoored. I am lopsided. Who am I, Kai, if I cannot click when I walk?"

  Kai felt a strange pang of sympathy. It was ridiculous, yes, but Pigglesworth wasn't a warrior. He was a collection of expensive fabrics held together by snobbery. Without the shoes, the illusion broke.

  "We'll find you a new shoe," Kai promised, standing up. "I swear. We'll get you clicking again."

  He looked around. Gideon was standing a few feet away, staring out at the endless gray horizon. The Knight was still wearing the cursed sticky pumpkin on his head. The orange gourd was looking shriveled and dented after the boss fight, rotting slowly in the gray air.

  Gideon wasn't panicking. He was holding the banana of friendship in one hand, cradling it gently like a candle in the darkness.

  "It is silent here," Gideon said softly, his voice muffled by the pumpkin. "Do you feel it, Kai? There is no hum of the machine. No wind. Just... the Great Pause."

  "It's the Backup Server," Kai muttered, checking his HUD.

  [Zone: The Backup Server] [Status: Deprecated.] [Population: The Forgotten.]

  Kai sighed. In his old life, "Deprecated" meant useless. It was code you commented out but didn't delete because you were too lazy to clean it up. He remembered sitting in his office, highlighting blocks of code and hitting 'Delete' without a second thought.

  I used to send things here, Kai realized, looking at the wasteland. I never thought about where they went.

  "We're in the trash can, Gideon," Kai said, feeling a wave of guilt. "This is where the System dumps things it doesn't want anymore."

  Gideon nodded slowly. "A Purgatory for the Unwanted. I understand this place. Knights often feel this way when the war ends. We are swords waiting for a hand that never returns."

  Kai blinked. Gideon’s madness always had a way of cutting straight to the heart of the matter.

  "Come on," Kai said, trying to shake off the gloom. "Let's find civilization. Or at least something that isn't mud."

  They trudged forward. The terrain was bizarre. Occasionally, they would pass a tree that wasn't a tree, it was just a large white cube with the words [TREE_TEXTURE_MISSING] written on the side in plain text.

  "Behold," Gideon stopped before one of the cubes. He reached out and touched the flat white surface with a gauntlet. "The Spirits of this land reject vanity. They have shed the illusion of leaves to embrace the purity of the Box."

  "It's unfinished," Kai said, kicking the cube. It made a hollow thunk sound, like kicking an empty plastic bin. "The Creators... they got lazy. They stopped painting the world."

  "Or perhaps," Gideon countered, "they left it blank so we may paint it with our deeds."

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  "Or they ran out of budget," Kai muttered.

  After an hour of walking with Pigglesworth complaining about the "texture of the filth" every four seconds they saw a flicker of light.

  It was a campfire. But the fire wasn't moving. It was a frozen 2D image of flames, rotating slowly in the air.

  Sitting around the fake fire were three elves. They wore black leather armor covered in unnecessary zippers and belts. Their hair was long, black, and covered their eyes. One held a lute, plucking a string that made no sound at all.

  "Natives," Gideon whispered. "I shall establish diplomatic relations. Perhaps they know the way to the Shoe Shop."

  He marched forward. "Greetings, Dwellers of the Gray! We are travelers from the World of Color! We bring tidings of... crashing!"

  The elf with the lute stopped miming the music. He brushed his hair out of his face. His eyeliner was heavy enough to weigh down his eyelids.

  "Go away," the elf sighed. "We are mourning."

  "We mean no harm," Kai stepped in. "I'm Kai. This is Gideon, and the hopping one is Pigglesworth. Who are you?"

  The elf stood up slowly. He moved with a dramatic slowness, like he was wading through molasses.

  [NPC: Dante the Deprecated] [Class: Bard of Sorrows] [Mood: Angst]

  "I am Dante," the elf said in a monotone voice. "This is Raven. And that is Kevin."

  Raven was staring into the fake fire, hugging her knees. Kevin was standing perfectly still, vibrating slightly.

  "Are you... prisoners here?" Gideon asked gently.

  "We are the Unchosen," Dante said, looking at the gray sky. "The Creators birthed us with great purpose. I was to be the Scourge of the North. I had a destiny written in blood. I was to be a King of Terror."

  "What happened?" Pigglesworth asked, balancing on his cane.

  "The Creators changed their minds," Dante whispered, clutching his silent lute. "They looked upon my soul and deemed it... 'Too Much.' They said my darkness would frighten the children. So they banished me here, before I could ever draw my blade."

  Kai nodded knowingly. Marketing said he was too edgy, he thought. Probably got replaced by a generic goblin lord.

  "I was to be a Maiden of Destiny," Raven spoke up, her voice ghostly. "A love that would span the ages. But... I was cursed."

  "A curse?" Gideon gasped.

  "Whenever I tried to speak of love," Raven whispered, "the world would shatter. The sky would freeze. The Gods silenced me to save the world from my passion."

  Game-crashing bug in her dialogue tree, Kai translated. Fatal error.

  "And Kevin?" Kai asked, looking at the vibrating elf.

  "Kevin is incomplete," Dante said. "The Gods ceased to knit his flesh. If he turns sideways, he ceases to be. He is a man of only two dimensions."

  Kai stepped to the side. Sure enough, Kevin vanished. He stepped back. Kevin reappeared. Missing 3D model. Sprite only.

  "That is... tragic," Gideon said, his voice thick with emotion. He stepped forward and held out the banana of friendship. "Here, Brother of Sorrow. Take this. It is a relic from the World Above. It is yellow. It is hope."

  Dante looked at the banana. He recoiled, shielding his eyes with his cape.

  "It burns!" Dante hissed. "The brightness! It sears my eyes! Take it away! We belong to the Gray!"

  "He rejects the light," Gideon lowered the banana sadly. "His heart is truly broken."

  "Look," Kai interrupted, feeling awkward. "We're looking for a way out. Or a town. Just somewhere... solid."

  Dante pointed a skinny finger toward the horizon. Through the fog, a massive, jagged silhouette loomed. It looked like a castle, but huge chunks of it were missing, replaced by floating white voids.

  "The Citadel of Forgotten Dreams," Dante said. "It is where the Unfinished gather. The King of the Exiled sits on the Throne of Junk. If anyone knows the path back to the Light, it is him."

  "The Citadel," Pigglesworth adjusted his cravat. "Does it have a cobbler? My sock is absorbing moisture at an alarming rate."

  "They have everything the Creators forgot," Dante said, sitting back down. "And nothing that matters."

  "Thank you, Dante," Kai said. "Uh... sorry about your destiny."

  "Whatever," Dante strummed his silent lute. "Destiny is just a lie told by the Gods to sell pre-orders."

  Kai froze. "Wait, what did you say?"

  "I said destiny is a lie," Dante repeated, looking confused. "Why?"

  "Nothing," Kai shook his head and muttered to himself "For a second there, I thought he knew".

  As they walked away toward the broken castle, Kai looked back at the three elves huddled around the fake fire.

  "We have to get out of here," Kai said quietly.

  "We shall," Gideon vowed, adjusting his pumpkin helmet. "And perhaps... we can save them too. No soul should be left unfinished."

  Kai looked at the Knight. "Gideon, you can't save them. They aren't real. They're just drafts."

  Gideon paused. He looked at Kai, confused.

  "Drafts?" Gideon asked. "You mean like a draught of wind? A breeze?"

  "No," Kai sighed. "I mean... sketches. Rough drawings. They aren't the final painting, Gideon. They're the scribbles the artist threw away."

  Gideon considered this. He looked back at the elves.

  "Every masterpiece begins with a scribble, Kai," Gideon said softly. "The sketch is the most honest part of the art. It is the dream before it is forced to obey the laws of the canvas."

  He patted his sword hilt. "If they are Sketches, then I shall be their Frame. We will go to the Citadel."

  Kai stared at the man in the rotting pumpkin helmet.

  "I hate it when you make sense," Kai muttered.

  "I do not know what that means!" Gideon marched forward. "Onward! To the Shoe Shop!"

  [System Notification: Autosave Complete.]