Flashback – Before the Burn
"They say the end started with fire. But for me… it started with silence."— Kaito Ichiro, Age 17
⌛ Date: 48 Minutes Before Global Reset
Location: Sector 7 – Abandoned Residential Zone
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
I held the door shut, my arm screaming with pain. Something on the other side kept slamming into it, harder and harder.
Boom.Boom.BOOM.
"KAI! GET OUT OF THERE!"
My brother's voice. Distant. Panicked.
He was at the top of the stairs, a flashlight in one hand, backpack in the other.
"Forget the cat!" he shouted. "The whole building's going down!"
I looked back.
In the dark, I could still see Momo, our three-legged cat, cowering in the corner of the apartment kitchen.
There was no time. The infected were almost through the door.The fire was already crawling up the stairwell behind him.Smoke choked the hall.
And then—
CRACK.
The lock snapped.
I felt the door shudder. Something pushed through — not a hand, not human.
A limb, like melted bone and twitching wires, slithered into the room.
They weren't infected. They were being rewritten.
"KAI!"
"GO!" I shouted back. "I'll catch up!"
I lied.
And he believed me.
That's what still haunts me.
⏳ 36 Minutes Before Reset
I sealed the kitchen door with a broken pipe and a fridge.
I found Momo. She was shivering in the sink.
I held her tight, wrapping her in my hoodie.
"Just a bit longer," I whispered. "He'll come back."
But he didn't.
Instead, I heard the stairwell collapse.
CRASH.
And with it, my only exit.
⏳ 30 Minutes Before Reset
System Status: "Initializing…"
Kaito Ichiro: Sync 99%
I looked out the window.
The sky was cracking.
Not clouds.Code.
The entire city skyline was dissolving, pixel by pixel, as if someone had hit a delete button on reality.
My System interface blinked on for the first time.
[ERROR: Late Synchronization Detected] [System Allocation Failed] [You Have Not Been Assigned a Core Trait] [You Have Not Been Assigned a Starting Class]
"No… no, no, no—"
And then the screen changed.
It wasn't System code.
It was a message.
Written in red:
"You weren't supposed to be left behind."
"Let us make you whole."
I looked at Momo in my arms. She'd stopped breathing.
⏳ 2 Minutes Before Reset
I stood in a burning apartment, holding a dead cat, watching the world collapse into numbers.
And then I said yes.
To whatever was asking.
"Fine. You want me?" I whispered."Then take me."
📍[Subject K-021 Linked to Rogue Core]
[WARNING: Core Allocation Bypassed][Subject Now Operating Outside Global Balance Protocols][System Override Authorized]
[Memory Fragment Locked][Emotional State: CORRUPTED]
As the Reset wave swept over Sector 7, the building collapsed inward.A single boy stood at the center of the fire, untouched.
Not dead.Not alive.
Just… rewritten.
"He left me," Kaito whispered to no one.
"Now I'll never let him forget it."
Back To Present
"Survive. Adapt. Or be forgotten."
The moment Kai crossed the threshold of the overgrown metro tunnel, his System pulsed violently.
[Environmental Sync: Zone 3 - Underground Transit Ruins] [Threat Level: Moderate to Critical] [System Adapting to Local Conditions...]
The air was thick with mildew and metal. Faint echoes of crumbling civilization whispered from the depths, like the ghosts of trains long buried.
He could hear his heart beating. Or maybe—
Was that someone else's?
Kai turned off his lantern.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
He moved slowly, foot by foot, deeper into the tunnel. Cracked screens flickered along the walls, randomly coming to life — showing bursts of surveillance footage, looping cries for help, and in one glitching frame…
His brother.
Just for a second.
Frozen. Staring into the camera.
"Don't trust them, Kai."
What the hell?
The feed vanished.
He backed away, nearly tripping over a broken rail. His System vibrated again.
[Neural Imprint Detected: K-021] [You Are Being Observed] [Recalibrating System Parameters...]
"I'm not K-021," Kai whispered, breath shaking. "That's not me..."
But the tunnel didn't care.
A cold wind surged from deeper in the ruins — unnatural. Like the tunnel was breathing.
🔧 Evolution Unlock: Craft-Based Mutation
Kai crouched near a collapsed maintenance hatch. Inside were dozens of rusted parts, corroded wiring, and shattered optics.
Most players would've ignored it.
But Kai's eyes scanned, sorted, mapped.
He didn't need a weapon.
He needed control.
"If I can bypass the grid," he murmured, "I can reroute energy to my system, trigger an overload—"
Crafting Skill Unlocked: Improvised Node Splicing]
[Ability Gained: Convert Scrap into Functional System Relays]
[Warning: High Instability]
"Perfect."
For two hours, Kai worked in silence — twisting copper, draining batteries, breaking screens and redirecting their energy into a scavenged console core.
Then—
Fzzzzk!
It worked.
Lights flared. The tunnel's long-dead infrastructure flickered to life, and a power node synced with his wrist module.
But the moment it activated—
⚠️ Emergency Broadcast Received
[Incoming Signal: Admin-Level System Ping Detected]
[Message Authenticated from Rogue Core: K-021]
"...What?"
Kai staggered back.
A voice came from the broken speakers above, low and layered, like several people speaking at once:
"You finally touched the system, Kai."
"You woke it up."
"And now... it's waking up them too."
A distant screech echoed from deep within the tunnel.
Not human.
Not mutant.
Something older.
Something that remembered the world before the Reset.
The lights around Kai began to blink, one by one, going dark behind him as if something was moving—fast—through the tunnel toward him.
Kai turned to run, only to stop dead in his tracks.
There, standing between him and the exit—
A man wearing a half-burnt firefighter's jacket.Face covered.Left arm replaced with glimmering red steel.His brother's voice came from his lips:
"You shouldn't have come back here."
"We buried you," Kai whispered. "I saw the fire—"
The man raised a single finger to his lips.
"Shhh. They're listening."
"And you're not supposed to be alive."