Chapter 1
The stone floor was cold. Not just cold devouring. It sank into my bones, claimed them as its own.
But I didn't shiver. Not out of strength.
I wasn't even sure if I still had a body.
I tried to open my eyes. Maybe I did.
But nothing changed.
The dark around me wasn't the absence of light.
It was the absence of everything.
Then came a voice.
Not loud. Not soft.
Not outside me. Not inside either.
It was beneath.
"Your name no longer matters."
I tried to speak.
My lips wouldn't move.
My tongue was stone lodged in a throat carved from silence.
"But if you wish to be remembered…
you must make a vow."
A flicker cut through the void.
Lines of text, hovering midair, etched in nothing.
『SYSTEM INITIATED』
Task #001: First Breath
Time Limit: 00:30
Reward: +1 Soul, +1 Endurance
Breath?
My chest burned.
Lungs empty.
Heart still.
Some part of me wanted to live.
The rest had already surrendered.
Another voice joined. Younger. My own, but from long ago.
"If you hadn't run that night… he'd still be alive."
I clenched my hands.
Cracks ran down my fingers
not blood, but dust and decay.
"You let them die."
No.
"If you were never born, none of it would've happened."
Enough.
I couldn't scream.
But something inside me shattered.
The floor beneath me split.
Heat rose through the cracks.
I smelled blood.
Not mine.
And then,
I breathed.
It wasn't air.
It was something older, heavier.
A shadow I pulled into my chest like I was drinking the night itself.
[TASK COMPLETED]
The system whispered
not in words, but in sensation:
> Soul +1
Endurance +1
Then, truth etched itself into me:
Strength: 3
Endurance: 3
Intellect: 5
Soul: 2
Resolve: 9
They didn't shine.
They didn't hum.
They weighed,
like chains forged from forgotten names.
As breath returned, so did shape.
Chains. Stone. A world carved in ash.
Gray walls wept rust. The air stank of old death.
Then
a door.
Not made. Remembered.
It wasn't built from wood or stone.
It was built from memory.
Every crack whispered.
Every hinge groaned like a buried regret.
Words carved across it:
"You were forgiven the first time.
Chosen the second.
The third… is yours to decide."
From the other side,
footsteps.
Not walking.
Dragging.
Something that had forgotten how to move.
I stepped back.
But there was no back
only void.
Then it came.
A figure.
Humanoid, but wrong.
Its legs faded into smoke below the knees.
No face.
No eyes.
But it saw me.
『HOSTILE DETECTED』
Task #002: First Contact
Objective: Survive
Reward: Unlock random ability
I didn't think.
I moved.
My hand scraped the ground
stone? No.
A fragment. Bone-shaped.
A rib, maybe mine.
I gripped it tight.
The shadow approached.
Closer.
Closer.
I struck where its head should've been.
No scream.
No blood.
Just a shock
a crack inside me, like a memory splintering.
[TASK COMPLETED]
New Ability Unlocked:
Silent Strike — Deals spiritual damage. Activates when balance is broken.
I gasped.
Air cut like knives.
The shadow melted.
No trace left.
Except in me.
The door creaked open.
Not loudly.
It wasn't a sound.
It was a presence.
And through the open crack
light.
But not sunlight.
It felt like a forgotten touch.
Like the memory of warmth.
A figure stood there.
A woman.
Back turned.
Still.
But I knew her.
Even without seeing her face.
Because she was the last one
who chose to forget me.
I stepped forward.
The door began to close.
"You cannot pass without a vow."
That voice again.
Older than time.
I pressed my hand to the stone.
Cold.
But not the cold of death
The cold of being remembered
by someone who wished you didn't exist.
My lips moved.
"Not for the forgotten.
For those who chose to forget."
The door opened.
And I stepped into life for the second time.
Not to become someone.
But to make sure no one remembered.
The door didn't open with sound.
It opened with weight
the kind that made your knees ache and your spine feel too small.
I stepped through.
There was no floor.
No ground to stand on.
But I didn't fall.
The air was thicker here.
Not fog. Not heat.
It was like stepping into a memory too old to belong to you.
And then it spoke.
Not the voice.
The system.
This time, it wasn't a whisper.
It was a presence dense and absolute.
"You have crossed the Threshold."
"The soul must be tempered to hold memory."
"Initiating: Core Alignment."
Before I could even breathe, the world around me twisted.
I was no longer walking.
I was inside.
Inside what, I couldn't say.
It looked like a room.
Familiar in shape, unfamiliar in texture.
The walls pulsed like flesh.
The ceiling breathed.
And on the far end
a door.
Small, wooden, scorched around the edges.
"Memory Lock detected."
"Breaking seal…"
The door burst open.
And I saw myself.
Younger.
Dirt on my face.
Knees scraped, hands bloody.
Crouched behind a wall in the rain.
Lightning lit up the sky.
A scream echoed nearby.
A man's voice.
Calling for help.
I remembered this.
I didn't want to.
But I did.
I had run.
I had left him behind.
The younger me sobbed.
Didn't scream.
Didn't call out.
Just cried.
And the system, watching from nowhere, from everywhere, spoke again.
"Alignment incomplete."
"Subject failed to intervene."
"Administering emotional penalty."
Pain.
Not physical.
Not immediate.
It bloomed like rot from the center of my chest,
spread into my limbs,
climbed into my skull.
I gasped.
I dropped to my knees.
My hands dug into the floor except it wasn't a floor anymore.
It was water.
Black, still, freezing.
My reflection stared back at me.
But it wasn't me.
Not really.
Its eyes were hollow.
Not dead
unmade.
"Only those who remember... can truly suffer."
I gritted my teeth.
"Why are you showing me this?"
No answer.
The memory played again.
Me.
Running.
Leaving.
And this time, I saw something different.
The man calling for help?
His face was clear now.
Not a stranger.
My brother.
I wanted to speak.
To say something.
Anything.
But the system wouldn't let me.
It wrapped around my throat like smoke.
It wanted silence.
It wanted me to feel,
not escape.
"You are not ready."
"Soul instability detected."
"Beginning seal protocol."
The memory collapsed into itself.
The walls bled light.
I was pulled backward
not flying, not falling just drawn,
as if the room had exhaled and I was the breath.
Then
Darkness.
Stillness.
And a single pulse of white light.
In the void ahead, a message appeared:
SYSTEM UPDATE: FRAGMENT RESTORED
Core Integrity: 62%
Emotional Anchor Detected
Passive Penalty Applied:
Physical Pain Now Mirrors Memory
I opened my eyes again.
Back in the gray corridor.
Back in that cold, colorless in-between.
But something was different.
My ribs ached.
Not a wound.
Not a strike.
It was remorse,
and it had found a place in my bones.
I stood slowly.
There was no reward.
No stat increase.
No fanfare.
Only silence.
And yet
I felt something.
Not power.
Weight.
And in that weight…
was purpose.