The minutes ticked by faster than expected after the crimson countdown appeared in the sky like a scar carved into the heavens, visible to everyone in every world connected to the [System].
Alice and Aurelia stood close beside Alex as he spoke with Arcelia, who for the first time since waking up seemed to have found the courage to speak up.
Her voice was hesitant at first, uncertain, but her questions held weight, questions that had been bottled up for too long, buried beneath trauma, loss, and confusion.
Until now, she'd only been surviving on instinct, unsure if she'd woken into a salvation or a punishment.
To open her eyes and find the world on the brink of collapse was a cruel joke in itself.
Whether it was divine irony or some twisted form of karma was something not even she could say.
She had suffered so much before all this.
Waking to a world ending felt like either divine cruelty or fate handing her a final chance to witness its conclusion.
