I woke up choking.
Not on smoke.Not on blood.
On air—too clean, too sharp, like my lungs weren't used to it anymore.
I rolled onto my side, coughing hard as the ground beneath me crunched softly. Gravel. Asphalt. Something familiar.
"Jiho."
Do-hyun's voice grounded me instantly.
I forced my eyes open.
We were back in the city.
Not my city exactly—but close enough that my chest tightened anyway. Tall buildings loomed overhead, screens flickering with static-filled broadcasts. Sirens wailed somewhere far away, distorted and looping like broken audio.
The sky was wrong.
Not red. Not black.
Just… gray. Flat. Like someone had forgotten to finish rendering it.
Do-hyun knelt beside me, already scanning our surroundings, posture tense.
"You okay?" he asked.
I nodded slowly. "Yeah. I think."
I sat up—and froze.
People were walking past us.
Alive. Normal. Carrying bags, talking, arguing on phones.
No monsters.No scenarios.No system messages.
For a heartbeat, hope flared in my chest.
Then I noticed their eyes.
Every single one of them looked… empty. Not dead. Not possessed.
Just slightly off. Like they were following instructions they couldn't hear.
Do-hyun noticed it too.
"This isn't right," he said quietly.
A large screen on the side of a building flickered violently, then stabilized.
BREAKING NEWSUNEXPLAINED CITYWIDE BLACKOUT CONTINUES
The reporter's face twitched mid-sentence, then resumed like nothing happened.
I swallowed.
"The system didn't reset," I whispered. "It patched."
Do-hyun's jaw tightened. "Meaning?"
"It couldn't erase me," I said. "So it rewrote everything else."
As if on cue, my vision blurred.
Text flickered at the edge of my sight—faint, unstable.
[OBSERVATION MODE: ACTIVE][PRIMARY TARGET: JIHO][SECONDARY VARIABLE: DO-HYUN]
Do-hyun stiffened. "You see something."
"Yeah," I said. "And it sees us back."
A child nearby stopped walking.
Slowly, unnaturally, he turned his head toward us.
Then another person did the same.
Then another.
Too many.
Their mouths didn't move, but the voice that came out of all of them at once was the same—layered, mechanical, furious.
"YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE."
Do-hyun stepped in front of me without hesitation.
"Back off," he said coldly. "Or I start breaking things."
The people didn't react.
Instead, the street shifted.
Buildings stretched upward like reflections in warped glass. The road beneath us cracked into neat geometric lines.
The city was becoming a stage.
I felt pressure building behind my eyes.
J-1's words echoed in my mind.
You're not a solution. You're a contradiction.
I exhaled slowly.
"Do-hyun," I said, voice steady despite the fear crawling up my spine. "Whatever happens next—don't trust what the world tells you."
He didn't look back. "I never do."
Good.
Because the system finally spoke directly to me.
Not through screens.
Not through people.
Straight into my head.
[JIHO.][YOU HAVE REJECTED ALL ACCEPTABLE ENDINGS.][A NEW PATH HAS BEEN GENERATED.]
The air vibrated.
Something massive began forming above the city—an outline only I could see. Not a monster.
A structure.
A final arc.
I clenched my fists.
"Yeah," I muttered. "I figured."
Do-hyun glanced back at me, eyes sharp. "What's coming?"
I met his gaze.
"The system," I said, "is done pretending."
The sky cracked.
And the next scenario began.