At the end of the corridor stood a child. No—a thing wearing a child’s shape. It had the hat of a Paldea student, but its face was the error screen: white noise, static, and two glowing red dots where eyes should be.
Her Pokédex read: “SPECIMENS: 0.”
“The zero is not a zero,” she whispered.
Elara tried to close the software. The Switch’s Home menu didn’t respond. The power button didn’t work. The clock on her wall read 3:03 AM and hadn’t moved in the last hour she’d been playing.