---
No blood.
No body.
No broken locks.
Just a man who vanished from a locked room in the dead of night.
---
Yoon Sera had investigated dozens of high-profile cases in her career as a Legal Intelligence Investigator.
She'd dealt with crimes that wore suits and smiled on camera—
White-collar corruption. Corporate betrayals. Political blackmail.
But this case?
It didn't feel real.
It felt like fiction.
---
Kang Juhwan.
A reclusive author known for his disturbing psychological thrillers.
He was last seen at 11:34 p.m., in his private, soundproof writing room.
The surveillance footage was clear:
No one entered.
No one left.
No sounds.
No movement.
Just silence—
And then… nothing.
---
The next morning, he was gone.
No struggle.
No forced entry.
Just a single thing left behind:
A book.
---
It sat exactly in the center of his desk.
Thick. Leather-bound. Unmarked.
No title.
No author.
No publisher's logo.
Sera flipped it open.
Blank.
All of it—except for the first two pages.
> "This book finds the people it needs."
"There are many different worlds. When one is destroyed, it rewinds itself—
and calls upon those it needs to save it."
She frowned.
A game? A code? A twisted confession?
Still… she took the book home.
---
That night, after she closed the case file and powered off her laptop,
Sera sat at the edge of her bed—book in hand.
Still blank.
Still silent.
Until suddenly… it wasn't.
---
The pages beneath her fingers rippled.
She froze.
Ink began to bleed onto the paper—like it was being written in real time.
> "He was born to a woman who never wanted him.
Raised in silence. Grown in neglect.
In the end, he chose to become destruction—
because love never chose him."
Her breath caught.
The ink was fresh.
Still wet.
She turned the page.
> "She was the daughter of a man who only wanted power.
A girl unloved. A pawn in someone else's game.
She dreamed of becoming something special—
but couldn't even control her own life."
Sera scoffed.
Tragic drama? Another twisted story?
But her fingers tightened around the book.
---
She remembered the silence in her childhood home.
Her mother walking away without a word.
Her father's praise—cold, conditional, never warm.
She remembered growing up unseen.
Unloved. Forgotten.
Her chest ached.
> "I experienced the same things they did... but I never became like them."
She hadn't broken.
She hadn't turned into a villain.
She hadn't let the world swallow her whole.
She had survived—
And refused to become what they did.
---
The next page turned on its own.
> "They were fated to save the world—
But their love destroyed it instead."
Her pulse spiked.
And then—
One last line appeared:
> "You are needed."
"The story has ended."
"A new one begins."
The ink faded.
The pages turned white.
---
The air around her pulsed—once, twice—
Then the room around her rippled like water.
She stumbled to her feet.
But—
The floor was gone.
---
Light swallowed her.
Sound vanished.
The world collapsed.
And then—
nothing.
Only the flutter of pages.
Only the echo of fate.
---
⚫ To Be Continued...