Glitched

Robin paused on his walk down the street when he caught something out of the corner of his eye. Looking down the alleyway he was passing, it seemed to him as though there was something sticking out of the ground that shouldn't be there. Curious, he approached it. He had only just caught it out of his eye, as it was a small thing, just barely poking out of the ground. As he came towards it and kneeled down, it seemed to shift in color, making it even harder to see. It also seemed to make the smallest of twitching motions seemingly at random.

Robin looked at the object, trying to determine what it was, and suddenly it occurred to him that the color of it had seemed to change because it had become shaded as he grew close. But that didn't make any sense. The angle of the sun hadn't changed, and there were no other sources of light that could reach it where it was. In fact, it was in direct view of the sun. Robin scratched his head, confused. It was almost as though its shadows had been inverted from what they were supposed to do.

He reached out a hand and tried to pick it up, but it was steadfastly stuck. The texture was flat and smooth, impossibly so. It made it hard for Robin to get a grip on it. It was also ice cold to the touch, making his hand feel as though it were frozen, and yet when he pulled away from it, instantly his hand's temperature returned to normal.

Robin sat down, looking at the object, trying to determine what was happening. The only thing that he could think of were the glitches that occasionally happened in video games when an object collided with another in a way that wasn't accounted for. But that couldn't be possible, could it? This was the real world.

He reached out once again, and this time tried to push on the object. Immediately it sunk down further into the ground, and this time pulled his hand with it. Panicked, he tried to pull his hand out of the ground, but it was steadfastly stuck. His eyes widened in fear, and he looked back towards the street where he had come from, but could see no one. He didn't know how they would help him, anyway. It seemed to him that the only possibility was to amputate his hand, and he'd rather not have to do that.

Seeing no other option, he slowly and gently pushed his hand deeper into the ground. It went in easily, meeting no resistance, all the way up to his shoulder. Giving in, he kept going, and a moment later his head was completely submerged. However, he wasn't surrounded in stone. He could see a thick layer of pitch black beneath him, seemingly made of the same material which he had seen poking out of the ground.

It wasn't long before he feel beneath the solid ground he had been standing on only moments before, and Robin found himself standing on the smooth, icy substance that he couldn't explain. He looked back up at the space where he had come from, and he could see up through the ground easily, as if it wasn't there. Carefully, he walked back towards the street, and before long he found another person. They seemed to be floating above him, walking on nothing.

"Hello!" he called out.

But the person didn't hear him.

He reached his hand up, and though he couldn't see the ground, he could feel it. It was solid again, and he wasn't going to be able to make it back up to the surface. He had glitched himself out of the world. And unfortunately for him, Robin had no reset button.