The light faded.The sky stitched itself back together like nothing had happened.But the silence that followed wasn't natural — it was programmed.
People around me blinked, confused. A few looked at the sky where the message had been, murmuring about drones or holograms. Most kept walking. Humans were good at pretending nothing was wrong until the world made it impossible not to.
It only took five minutes.
[Scenario 1: Proof of Existence — begins now.]
The voice wasn't in my head. It wasn't in the air either. It was everywhere.Like the world had decided to speak all at once.
People froze. Then the screaming started.Phones, screens, billboards — every device flickered to the same sentence:
[You have been selected.]
[Prove your existence within 30 minutes.]
Someone laughed nervously beside me. "What the hell does that even mean?"
I didn't answer. I already knew.
In Heaven Falls Twice, this was where half of humanity disappeared.Instantly. No warning, no explanation. Anyone who failed to "prove" themselves vanished like data deleted from a file.
I remembered every word from that chapter.Do-hyun survived because he was holding a mirror. The system had accepted the reflection as proof of life.
A stupid, accidental loophole.
I ran into the convenience store on the corner, ignoring the clerk shouting after me. I grabbed the first handheld mirror I saw near the cosmetics rack.
[Timer: 00:28:42]
My hands shook. Every detail matched the story — down to the countdown.Outside, chaos erupted: people shouting into their phones, crying, running. The clerk cursed at me again, but his voice cut off mid-sentence.
I turned — and he was gone.Only his uniform and name tag remained, folded on the floor like he'd never been inside them.
[Population decreased by 0.000013%.]
The world's population count blinked in the corner of my vision. My breath caught.I could see the system interface. That only happened to Do-hyun in Chapter 8.
The text appeared in the corner of my vision — faint, translucent, like a system overlay from a game.It wasn't in the original scenario description.Which meant something was already different.
I clutched the mirror tighter.
"Don't look," I muttered.In the novel, people who panicked, who doubted their own existence, were erased faster. The system didn't accept hesitation.
Twenty minutes passed in chaos.People begged, fought, prayed — anything to prove they were real.Some drew blood, some screamed their names until their voices broke.None of it mattered.
When the countdown hit zero, the city went quiet.
[Scenario 1 Complete.][1,839,221,743 survivors remain.]
Half the world. Just like the novel.
My knees gave out. I stared at the mirror in my hands — a spiderweb of cracks running through it, but still holding my reflection.
I'd survived.But survival wasn't the same as safety.
In Heaven Falls Twice, the first scenario had been the tutorial.The easy one.And the next one — Scenario 2: The Stranger's Promise — was when the protagonist appeared for the first time.
Jin Do-hyun.
The hero of the novel.The man who'd survived the first apocalypse in his world.
And if the story was truly following the same order…then he would arrive tomorrow.