[LOCATION: THE FATAL EXCEPTION] [STATUS: NOT RESPONDING]

  The raft bumped gently against the Blue Screen. It didn't make a thud. It made a dull, digital bloop sound, like a notification bubble popping in a vacuum.

  They were at the end of the universe. The River of Code didn't flow into an ocean. It dead ended against a wall that stretched up to infinity and down to the core of the earth. It wasn't stone, and it wasn't a forcefield. It was a solid, blinding shade of "Error Blue."

  Hovering in the center of the wall, fifty feet high, was a sad face emoticon and white text that burned their retinas:

  :( YOUR REALITY RAN INTO A PROBLEM AND NEEDS TO RESTART. ERROR CODE: 0x0000000_END_OF_WORLD

  Kai reached out to touch the wall. "DO NOT TOUCH THE PIXELS!" Borg shrieked, diving to grab Kai’s wrist. "That is a Class-1 Fatal Error! If you touch the Blue, your nervous system will crash! You will need a hard reboot!"

  "It's the end," Gideon slumped down on a crate of [Common Top Hats] they had salvaged from the bridge. He put his head in his hands. "There is no door. There is no lock. There is only the Sad Face. The Sad Face is the final boss."

  Kai looked back. The toxicity of the Comment Section was fading, replaced by a terrifying silence. The Great Polish was still coming. The wall of white erasure had crested the final bend of the canyon. It was moving slower now, chewing through the heavy data of the river, but it was unstoppable. "There has to be a way through," Kai muttered, scanning the wall with his Admin Vision. "The Patch Notes said the Source was here. But there’s no code. It’s just... a flat texture."

  "It is," Maya whispered.

  The artist was standing at the very edge of the raft, balancing precariously on a pile of [Legendary Boots]. She wasn't looking at the error code. She was looking at the color. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her brush.

  "Maya?" Kai asked. "What are you doing?"

  "It's flat," Maya said, her eyes wide. "Don't you see, Kai? The rest of the world has depth. Even the glitchy parts have wireframes. But this..." She gestured to the massive blue wall. "It has no depth map. It’s just a 2D image projected in a 3D space. It’s a backdrop."

  "So?" Grom asked, racking the bolt of his gun nervously as the White Wall crept closer. "It is still a wall. Walls stop bullets."

  "No," Maya smiled. She dipped her brush into the green sludge of the river. The toxic code coated the bristles like glowing paint. "It's not a wall. It's a canvas."

  Maya stepped off the raft. She didn't fall into the water. She stepped onto the very lip of the Blue Screen, where the physics of the river collided with the error message. The friction there was weird. She stood sideways on the water.

  She began to paint. She didn't paint a shield. She didn't paint a monster. She painted a black circle in the middle of the bright blue error message, right underneath the :( . Then she added perspective lines, shading and a vanishing point.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "What is she drawing?" Pigglesworth squinted, adjusting his monocle. " It is very derivative."

  "She is painting a tunnel," Kai realized. "She’s forcing perspective."

  Maya worked feverishly. Her arm was a blur of motion. The Great Polish was roaring behind them now, erasing the river. The sound of deletion SHHH-THUNK …. was getting louder. "Done!" Maya gasped, stepping back onto the raft.

  It looked... fake. It looked exactly like what it was: a black circle painted on a blue wall. It had cartoony depth lines. "Maya," Kai said gently. "That is beautiful. But we cannot walk into a painting. That only works in cartoons!"

  "In a broken world," Maya said, panting, "perspective is reality. If the System thinks there is depth, there will be depth."

  She looked at Kai. Her hands were covered in green sludge. "You have to believe the depth is there, Kai. If you hesitate, you crash."

  Kai looked at the fake tunnel. He looked at the wall of white erasure closing in on them. It was fifty yards away. He looked at his friends.

  "I trust the artist," Kai said.

  He grabbed the rudder of the raft. "EVERYONE, HOLD ON TO SOMETHING!"

  "What?!" Grom yelled.

  "RAMMING SPEED!" Kai shoved the raft hard.

  The raft slid across the sludge, picking up speed. They were heading straight for the solid blue wall. "WE ARE GOING TO CRASH!" Borg screamed, covering his eyes with his clipboard. "IMPACT IMMINENT! WE ARE NOT COMPLIANT WITH PHYSICS!"

  Kai didn't flinch. He steered straight for the black paint. It's a tunnel, he told himself, forcing his brain to ignore the screen. It's not a wall, It's a hole…. It's a hole.

  The nose of the raft hit the black paint. It didn't crunch. It sank into the darkness.

  The world twisted. The 2D paint stretched into 3D space. The fake perspective lines suddenly became real geometry. WHOOSH.

  They passed through the Blue Screen like a needle passing through fabric. The cold blue light vanished. The sound of the roaring river vanished.

  THUD.

  The raft hit something hard. Not water. Not dirt. Carpet.

  Kai opened his eyes. The raft had beached itself on a surface that was gray, fuzzy, and smelled like stale dust. He stood up, his legs shaking. "Is... is everyone alive?"

  "I am alive!" Gideon checked his limbs. "I have not been reanimated!"

  "Where are we?" Grom stood up, spinning the barrels of The Severance Package. "This environment... It is sterile.."

  Kai looked up. And up. And up. They weren't in a canyon anymore. They were in a room. A massive, colossal room that stretched for miles. The "sky" was a white drop-ceiling with giant fluorescent lights humming miles above like artificial suns. The "ground" was ugly gray office carpeting, the fibers as thick as trees.

  To their left, rising like a tower, was a white ceramic cylinder. It was a Coffee Mug. It was the size of a skyscraper. On the side, printed in font the size of a normal house, it read: #1 DEVELOPER.

  To their right was a yellow square floating in the air, large enough to be a billboard. It was a Sticky Note. It read: TODO: FIX THE PHYSICS ENGINE (lol jk).

  "By the Gods," Gideon whispered, staring up at a black mesh office chair that rose into the clouds like a mountain range. "We are in the Realm of the Giants."

  "No," Kai stood up, dusting off his robes. He looked at the chaos of the giant desk. He saw a titanic keyboard in the distance. He saw a mouse the size of a tank.

  "We're in the Source Code," Kai whispered. "We made it to the Developer's Office."

  [ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: THE FOURTH WALL] [LOCATION DISCOVERED: THE D..DESK]