Each week, I send out a story via my email newsletter. Each story is around 1000 words, sometimes less, sometimes more. The stories are in a variety of genres: supernatural, thriller, sci-fi, horror, and sometimes romance, and all of my stories typically feature a gay protagonist.
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This is story number 33 of the series. Enjoy!
The Glitch
Reality hiccupped.
For a single heartbeat, the code cascading across Remy’s monitor dissolved into static, the hum of the lab muted, and the edges of his vision pixelated like a broken vid feed. Then everything snapped back—the cursor blinking, fans whirring, and the sour tang of recycled air stinging his nostrils. Remy shook out his cramped fingers, blaming fatigue, unaware the universe had just warned him it was only on loan.
Remy’s fingers flew across the keyboard; lines of code flared across the screen. This update to the station’s environmental systems was tricky, but he was locked in, his mind fully focused. He didn’t even hear the soft whoosh of the lab doors sliding open.
“Burning the midnight oil again, huh?” a voice said behind him. “One of these days I’m gonna glue your cute butt to a chair in the mess hall and force‑feed you some actual food.”
Remy grinned and swiveled around in his chair. “Jace! When did you get back from the mining sector?”
His boyfriend leaned against the doorframe, arms folded across his lean, muscular chest, dark curls tumbling into his eyes. “Just now. Thought I’d stop by and make sure you weren’t wasting away in here.”
“Aw, you do care,” Remy teased. “I’ve just gotta finish this and then I’m all yours, promise.”
Jace sauntered over, brown eyes twinkling with mischief. “I’m gonna hold you to that.”
He bent to plant a kiss on Remy’s lips—warm, deep, lingering. Remy sighed into it happily. God he’d missed this—missed him. Being stationed on opposite shifts on in the research colony meant they sometimes went days without seeing each other.
But as Jace started to pull away, something strange happened. His face…glitched—like a video feed fritzing into static—just for a millisecond before returning to normal.
Remy blinked rapidly. “Whoa. Did you see that?”
“See what, babe?” Jace cocked an eyebrow.
“I…nothing. Never mind. Probably just sleep deprivation kicking my ass.”
“Well then, let’s get you to bed, shall we?” Jace waggled his brows suggestively.
“Okay, okay. Just give me five minutes to wrap this up.”
True to his word, five minutes later Remy powered down his workstation. Together they stepped into the curving glass passageway that ringed the station’s living quarters. Beyond the transparent panels, an angry red planet glowered, its surface scoured by endless dust storms.
Remy shivered, feeling the illogical but unshakable sensation of the void pressing in hungrily on their little bubble of light and warmth.
“I don’t know how the terraforming teams can stand it out there,” he murmured.
Jace squeezed his hand. “The same way we stand it in here. We don’t have much choice. Unless you wanna go back.”
Remy laughed hollowly as they turned toward the habitation wing. “Ah yes, back to the smoking crater that used to be Earth. I think I’ll take my chances with—”
He broke off with a strangled gasp, because it had happened again. Jace’s whole body blurred and pixelated, reality hiccuping. Remy actually felt it this time—a glitch in the input from his optic nerves.
“Remy? You okay?” Jace grabbed his shoulders, brow furrowed in concern.
“I…something’s wrong, Jace. With me, I think. I keep seeing—”
“Shh, it’s okay. We’re almost back to your pod. Just a little farther.”
Jace kept up a stream of soothing words, guiding a numb and dazed Remy through the winding corridors. But now that he’d noticed the glitches, he couldn’t stop seeing them everywhere—a door flickering out of existence for an instant, a potted fern blurring into a tangle of texture‑less polygons, the floor underfoot stuttering like bad holo‑film.
By the time the pod doors sealed behind them, Remy was shaking. He collapsed onto the foam mattress and dragged his knees up to his chest.
“I’m losing it,” he whispered. “I must have picked up some kind of computer virus. It’s messing with my neural implants—I’m hallucinating—”
Jace knelt in front of him, taking Remy’s face in his hands, his touch grounding and real. “Remy, listen to me. You’re not hallucinating. What you’re seeing…it’s not a glitch. It’s the truth.”
“W‑what? What are you talking about?”
Jace closed his eyes, took a deep breath. When he opened them again, they were filled with a terrible mixture of sorrow and love.
“None of this is real, Remy. Not the station, not the planet, not…not even me. We’re inside a simulation.”
Remy barked out a half‑hysterical laugh. “Wha—a simulation? What are you on about? We’re not—”
“We are. I’m so sorry. You weren’t supposed to know—none of us were. It was the only way they could get the program to run. If we realized it wasn’t real, it would destabilize and crash.”
Jace’s words slammed into Remy like a gut punch. His pulse roared in his ears; for a moment he thought he might faint. Dimly, he recalled training back on Earth—the VR sims they’d run to prep for life in the colonies. Impossibly detailed, virtually indistinguishable from reality…
But no. This was his life—his reality. It couldn’t just be some colossal computerized lie.
“Why?” he croaked through numb lips. “Why would they put us in a simulation?”
Jace smiled sadly. “Because the real world out there…it’s gone, Remy. Earth, the colonies, all of it. There was a war—bombs, plagues…we’re all that’s left. The last remnants of humanity, our minds uploaded into a simulation while our bodies sleep in cryo‑pods drifting through space. They didn’t want us to live with that knowledge. They wanted to give us hope.”
“How do you know all this? If we’re not supposed to know it’s a simulation?”
“Because the upload didn’t take properly with me. My mind kept rejecting the illusion. They had to tell me the truth and made me promise not to tell the others.” Jace looked away, jaw tight. “I didn’t want to lie to you, Remy, but I didn’t want to ruin your reality either. I thought it was kinder to let you live in blissful ignorance. But now…”
The simulation shuddered, the walls wobbling like gelatin. Remy’s head throbbed; for a moment, he could almost see the endless star‑flecked void beyond the illusion.
Jace gripped Remy’s hands, urgent now. “Listen. This simulation—it’s not perfect. It needs updates and patches. Sometimes things slip through, like the glitches you’ve been seeing. I think…I think it’s starting to break down.”
“Break down? What does that mean?”
“It means this reality is going to collapse, sooner rather than later. And you need to make a choice, Remy. You can let that happen—let yourself get pulled out of the simulation—or you can stay. With me.”
Tears streaked Jace’s face. “I can’t leave, Remy. Even if this world isn’t real, my feelings for you are. I don’t want to face whatever waits for us out there. I just want to spend whatever time we have left together. Please…stay with me.”
Remy’s heart cracked like glass. Jace was asking him to willingly live a lie. But it was a lie they could share—in a world where they still had a future, still had hope. Slowly, he reached up and brushed a tear from Jace’s cheek.
“Okay,” he whispered. “I’ll stay.”
Jace folded him into his arms as the simulated corridor around them trembled, polygons shedding like ash from a burning hologram. Remy closed his eyes, held on tight—and chose the lie.
A klaxon wailed. Red system text cascaded across the air like an emergency banner: PURGE INITIATED : CORRUPTED INSTANCES DETECTED.
Walls melted to wire‑frames. Colonists in the distance froze mid‑stride, then shattered into glowing shards that zipped upward and vanished. The world was deleting its own ghosts.
Remy’s breath caught. Jace still clung to him, but his outline jittered—skin dropping to monochrome, then refilling with color in a loop. Each cycle lasted longer; each refresh left more gaps. Through the tears Remy glimpsed scrolling code and the dark starfield beyond.
“I’m still here,” Jace whispered, voice echoing with static. “I promised I’d stay with you.”
Remy tightened his grip, anchoring them both. “Then I’m staying too. Whatever it costs.”
The purge advanced—floor tiles flickering out, gravity hiccupping. Yet around the couple a bubble of reality stubbornly persisted, the simulation allocating precious resources to their shared decision. It was enough to keep them together, but not enough to keep Jace whole.
Pixels bled from his hair; his left hand stuttered, vanishing for entire seconds before re‑rendering. Pain flashed in his eyes—not physical, but existential, the agony of partial erasure.
“It’s okay,” Remy murmured, brushing glitch‑static curls from Jace’s forehead even as they dissolved under his fingers. “I see you. I’ll always see you.”
The klaxon faded; the purge moved on, satisfied the critical corruption had been contained. The corridor rebuilt itself in pristine high‑resolution, but Jace remained imperfect—forever glitching, a living reminder of the price they had paid for blissful illusion.
Remy kissed the half‑transparent boy he loved and whispered, “Worth it.”
THE END