The last keystroke echoed louder than it should have in the empty office. I didn't even bother checking the report. It could have been perfect. It could have been a mess. It didn't matter.
I finally switch off my desktop and pack up to leave the office. No hesitation. No second glance. I wasn't staying a second longer.
In reality, packing up meant simply sliding my water bottle into my bag. There isn't much to pack. There never is.
The hallway outside is dim, lit only by the exit signs. The elevator doors slide open without resistance, and I step in like I've done a thousand times before. Not thinking. Not feeling. Just moving.
Halfway down, my stomach gives a quiet, hollow growl. I ignore it. I'm used to that sound—it's just another part of the routine. Still, I make a mental note: convenience store, two blocks from home. A triangle kimbap (popular Korean snack or light meal consisting of rice, various fillings, and dried seaweed formed into a triangle shape), maybe some banana milk. The same quick, forgettable fixes I've been living on as sustenance for years.
It doesn't matter if I'm truly hungry. It doesn't matter if I'm truly tired. My body moves through the same motions, like a machine that doesn't need a reason to run. The elevator hums softly around me, its descent slow and almost reluctant, as if the building itself doesn't want to let me go.
Outside, the night air was cool, and a fine drizzle drifted down—light enough not to hurt, yet persistent enough to cling. Beads of water formed on my coat, tracing slow, uncertain paths, as if they couldn't decide where to fall.
I didn't open my umbrella. A few blocks home wasn't worth the effort, and besides… some part of me welcomed the rain.
The street ahead glistened under the lamps, the glow fractured into ripples where water pooled in shallow dips. My footsteps made no sound against the damp pavement, swallowed instead by the rain's steady rhythm. There was something almost forgiving in that hush, as though the drizzle understood the heaviness I carried and chose to soften it. Each drop seemed to wash a little of it away, until the ache in my chest loosened—not gone, but gentler, like a bruise fading in the dark.
I walked without rush, letting the quiet patter fill the silence I carried with me.
It wasn't the first time I'd left this building thinking, If something happened to me on the way home, maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
Not because I was reckless. I always waited for the lights to change, always crossed when I was supposed to.
But the thought… sometimes it was there. Like a shadow keeping pace beside me.
The crosswalk sign flashed green, and I stepped forward with the others. The drizzle made the city blur at the edges — cars idling at the line, neon signs bleeding into the wet road.
I'm halfway across the intersection when I hear it.
A ding.
Soft, unfamiliar — like a notification tone I've never set. But the sound hadn't come from my phone.
It had come from… somewhere inside my head.
Something in my peripheral vision flickered. A faint blue box hovers in the air.
[Warning: Mental Resilience Threshold Reached – 50%]
[System Initialization Sequence Ready]
I stop in my tracks. The words vanish before I can blink. I shake my head. I almost laughed — but only a dry, humorless sound escaped.
I'd read enough light novels to recognize the cliché. The "heroine" about to be whisked away into a new life. It was a nice thought, I supposed. A pretty hallucination.
The kind of thing my mind might throw at me as a parting gift before the next day of the same miserable routine.
It's nothing. I'm tired. Overworked. That's all.
The crowd keeps moving. I trailed behind.
That's when it hits — a snarl of an engine, sudden and wrong, cutting through the rain. A blur of headlights tearing past the red light.
I turned. Too late.
Light filled my vision.
Noise swallowed the world.
Metal twisted, sharp and final.
A brutal weight slams into me, stealing my breath and folding the ground out from under me.
And the absurd thought struck me: maybe I'd read one too many light novels for this to feel strange. In that moment, I felt it — relief.
The faintest smile tugged at my lips.
Finally.
Finally, the exhaustion, the humiliation, the years of being stepped on — it would all be gone. No more dragging myself through empty days.
But then in the heartbeat before everything went black, regret surged in — sudden and swift.
Not the kind you whisper about over coffee. The unbearable kind that crushes your chest.
I didn't want things to end like this. I wanted the days when I stood my own ground. When my ability was proof enough. When I wasn't someone to be pitied or made fun of.
I wanted the confidence I'd had before the bridge broke.
I wanted it all back.
The rain was gone. The street was gone. Even the lingering smell of exhaust and wet asphalt was gone.
There's no pain, just weightlessness — as if I'm floating, sinking, and falling all at once.
Somewhere in that blur, I hear a voice, steady and mechanical:
"Fatal Condition Detected"
"Searching for Compatible Environment…"
"Match Found – Transfer Protocol Initiated"
I want to speak, to ask what's happening, but my lips won't move.
Light closed in around me, narrowing to a single point.
When I opened my eyes again, the first thing I saw was my ceiling. The same off-white paint. The same faint water stain near the corner from the leak upstairs.
I blinked. The hum of the refrigerator carried from the kitchen. The faint tick of the wall clock resounded.
I was home. I was fine. But how?
Somewhere between leaving work and now, I must have… collapsed? Fallen asleep?
Maybe the accident was just a dream — another one of those surreal, too-vivid moments my mind made when it was overtired.
I was still here. Still safe.
I exhaled slowly, sinking into the familiarity of it.
And as though it was self-aware of the right moment to appear, a panel of pale blue light hovered in the air above me, impossibly crisp, impossibly solid this time.
Letters shimmered on its surface, waiting for me to read:
[Welcome, User]
[Core Modules Unlocked: Star Sense, Script Master, Performance Boost]
[Revive. Survive. Thrive]
My breath caught. The panel didn't fade when I blinked. It didn't vanish when I turned my head.
It stayed, as if it had been here all along.
And just like that, my second bridge had been built.