THE FIRST GLITCH

Anya was living in Sameer’s hoodie. She told herself it was just because it was comfortable—which it was—but the soft, worn fabric felt like a constant, warm hug. She had worn it back to her dorm that night and had conveniently "forgotten" to give it back the next day. The memory of Sameer gently draping it over her shoulders played on a loop in her mind, a sweet, quiet moment that overshadowed all their previous awkwardness.

The National Cyber Warfare competition qualifiers were in full swing, a multi-day digital marathon that ran in the background of their lives. For Anya, it meant a constant state of split focus. One half of her brain was dedicated to her classes and the project with Sameer; the other half was navigating firewalls and hunting for vulnerabilities as Nyx.

She, Sameer, and Maya had claimed a table in a quiet section of the library. It was their unofficial headquarters now. Maya was sketching in a notebook, Sameer was methodically refining their project's backend, and Anya had her screen split in two. On the left was their project code. On the right was the competition’s live feed—a frantic, real-time battleground.

A new challenge popped up: a time-sensitive data extraction. The goal was to infiltrate a dummy server and retrieve a specific file. It was a race against the clock. In her haste, Anya—as Nyx—found the file, downloaded it, and uploaded her flag to the scoreboard. It was a clean, fast victory. But in her rush, she made a careless error: she forgot to scrub the metadata from the file she’d used to breach the system. It was a digital footprint, a basic mistake she hadn’t made in years.

Nyx: (in her private chat with Glitch) Whoops. Got sloppy. Left some metadata behind.

Glitch: (Maya, typing from across the table) No one will notice. You were too fast.

Anya minimized the chat window, her heart still beating fast from the adrenaline. No one would notice. It was a minor slip. She turned her full attention back to the project, trying to match Sameer’s intense focus.

Anya: "Okay, how's the data validation script looking?"

Sameer didn't look up from his screen. He was pointing at a section of their shared code with the tip of his pen.

Sameer: "It's good, but this module is vulnerable. If we're not careful with the file uploads, we could leave behind traces in the metadata. It's a classic rookie mistake. A good hacker could trace an error like that right back to the source."

Anya froze.

The words echoed in the quiet library, seeming impossibly loud. Metadata. Rookie mistake. It was as if he had plucked the exact thoughts from her head and said them out loud. The timing was too perfect. The phrasing was too specific.

She stared at him. He was just looking at the code, his expression one of pure, logical analysis. He was talking about their project, about a hypothetical security flaw. He wasn’t talking about her. He couldn’t be.

But the feeling was unsettling. A tiny flicker of static in the connection she felt with him. A glitch in the system.

Anya: (forcing a casual laugh) "Wow. Good catch. I totally missed that."

Sameer: "It's an easy thing to overlook when you're in a hurry," he said, finally looking up at her. His eyes were soft, completely unaware of the internal chaos he had just caused.

Anya’s brain scrambled for a logical explanation. He was a genius. Of course he would think about security flaws like that. The competition was just making her paranoid, making her see connections that weren't there. She was stressed, and tired, and living in a cute boy's hoodie. That was all.

Anya: "Yeah, you're right. Let's fix it."

She shook off the strange feeling, the moment of déjà vu already fading. Across the table, Maya lowered her sketchbook, a single eyebrow raised. She had heard the comment and seen the look on Anya’s face. She didn't know the context of Nyx's recent mistake, but she recognized the look of a very strange coincidence. A small, knowing smirk touched her lips before she went