The Porsche's windshield wipers smeared the rain into liquid mercury, distorting the heiress's face behind the glass. Her lips moved again—*I remember too*—just as the car's dashboard screens flickered. Navigation maps dissolved into a pulsating countdown: **11:59:59... 11:59:58...** The numbers burned retinal-bright, searing past his pupils straight into the hindbrain where primal terror lived.
Lin's fingernails bit into his wrist. "That's not a timer." Her voice was too calm. "That's an *expiration*."
Behind them, Zhang made a wet, disbelieving sound. The cafeteria doors burst open—not with students leaving, but with black-clad figures pouring in. Their visors reflected the frozen monitors, scrolling the same phrase in endless loop: **[CHARACTERS #0421, #0778, #1305: CONTAINMENT FAILURE]**.
The heiress—Song Luying, though no one dared use her full name—revved the engine. Her manicured thumb hovered over the gearshift. "Get in or die standing there." Her smile didn't reach her eyes. "Again."
Lin moved first, sliding into the passenger seat with the precision of someone who'd rehearsed this. Zhang followed, his shoulder clipping the doorframe hard enough to leave a smear of blood on the leather. He stared at it, horrified. "I bled last time too."
The operatives' rifles clicked.
Song grabbed his collar, yanking him into the backseat as she floored the accelerator. Tires screamed. The first bullet shattered the rear windshield, showering them with diamonds of safety glass. The second grazed Song's shoulder, painting a crimson stripe across her ivory blouse. She didn't flinch.
"Seatbelts," she said, and wrenched the wheel left.
The Porsche fishtailed around a maintenance van, its bumper clipping a trash can hard enough to send garbage flying like confetti. Zhang clutched the headrest in front of him, his knuckles bone-white. "You—you weren't supposed to—"
"Love you?" Song's laugh was a blade twisted between ribs. "I don't." The countdown on the dash hit **11:48:33** as she swerved onto the expressway. "But I remember three hundred and twelve iterations where letting you win destroyed the world."
Lin twisted in her seat, scanning Song's profile with clinical intensity. "How far back does your memory go?"
Song's grip tightened on the wheel. "Far enough to know we're not characters." Her gaze flicked to the rearview mirror—to *him*. "We're *errors*."
The operatives' motorcycles materialized in the rain behind them, headlights cutting through the downpour like surgical lasers. Their visors flashed: **[TERMINATE WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE]**.
Lin pulled a burner phone from her pocket, its screen already filled with lines of code. "The narrative's patching itself." Her fingers flew across the keypad. "Every loop tightens the noose."
Song took a corner so sharply the Porsche balanced on two wheels. "Then we break the loop." She reached across the console, her bloodied fingers interlacing with Lin's. The car's AI system screeched—a sound no luxury vehicle should make—as the countdown stuttered. **11:39:17** flickered to **11:39:16**, then jumped back.
Zhang made a choked noise. "It's reversing?"
"No." Lin's glasses reflected the aberrant numbers. "It's *choosing*."
The lead operative's bike surged alongside them. His visor slid up, revealing not a face, but another screen—this one scrolling the first paragraph of Chapter One, the words dissolving as they watched.
Song smiled. And drove straight into the guardrail.
The world tore open in a cacophony of twisting metal and shattering glass. He glimpsed Lin's hand still clutching the phone, its screen now displaying a single word in glowing text: **OVERRIDE**.
Then everything went black.
And the last thing he heard was Song whispering, "Welcome to the story they tried to delete."