The world began on an ordinary morning.
The sunlight streamed into the classroom on time, casting the shadows of the curtains precisely onto the edges of the desks. The bell rang once, and only once.
There was no restart notification.
There was no trace of 'what had happened'.
The class roster was reloaded.
The attendance was correct and the seating arrangement reasonable.
Every name could be clearly written, read aloud and memorised.
Every name could be written clearly, read aloud and memorised.
Mio sat down and opened her textbook.
She moved naturally, pausing only for a moment as her gaze swept across the class, not even realising what she was looking for.
The seat by the window was empty.
It wasn't empty because 'someone was missing'; no one had ever been assigned to it in the first place.
She looked away without giving it much thought.
The first lesson began and the teacher called the register.
Every name was called.
The rhythm was smooth, without any pauses being skipped.
Without any skipped pauses.
Without any skipped pauses.
The world was functioning perfectly.
During the lunch break, the students conducted their routine patrols of the corridors.
Their tablets were clean, with no greyed-out entries or anomaly alerts.
One of them whispered, 'It went smoothly this time.'
The student council president nodded. 'The variables have been cleared.'
No one mentioned the 'world bug'.
The corridor behind the old library had been sealed off.
A new notice had been posted on the noticeboard:
'Due to security checks, the area is temporarily closed.'
The crows had disappeared.
The entrance to the nightclub's basement had been completely sealed with cement, leaving no trace of a pry mark.
It seemed as if it had never existed.
Mio suddenly stopped on her way home from school.
She looked at the sky, her brow furrowing slightly.
An indescribable feeling welled up in her chest.
It didn't hurt.
She wasn't worried.
It was just a small, empty space.
She raised her hand and pressed it against the wall.
'Never mind,' she told herself.
She told herself.
That night, she had a very short dream.
There were no images, only a vague voice.
The voice seemed to travel through several layers of water, and she couldn't make out what it was saying.
She couldn't hear what was being said.
She only remembered that the voice was very steady.
as if saying:
'I'm still here.'
When Mio woke up, her pillow was dry.
After sitting for a while, she suddenly realised that she was clutching something in her hand. She took it out and saw that it was a well-folded piece of paper.
It was a well-folded piece of paper.
There was no name on it, only a sentence she had written herself:
'If you feel the world is normal, then it has succeeded.'
Mio stared at the words for a long time.
She didn't know why she had written it.
She didn't know.
who she was reminding.
Outside the window, the world continued to move forward.
It was stable, complete and without errors.
Only one person was missing:
Someone who should have been remembered.
When Mio passed that row of seats for the third time, she finally stopped.
The window seat was empty.
This wasn't just a temporarily empty seat; it was officially recognised as such — the desk and chair were there, but the number had been skipped, like a deliberately left blank space in a layout.
She stood there for a while, feeling an inexplicable unease.
'Has this seat always been empty?'
she asked casually, as if in casual conversation.
Her classmate thought for a moment and replied, 'Yeah, it's always been like this.'
Her tone was certain.
Mio nodded, deciding not to press the matter further.
But during the next class, she couldn't help but glance at the desk again.
That desk was too clean.
There were no scratches or stickers, not even any from fingernails.
It looked like a brand new prop.
During the lunch break, she subconsciously put her bag on that seat.
The next second, she quickly took it off.
It wasn't because someone had reminded her.
but because she suddenly had a strong feeling that she shouldn't be occupying that spot.
She shouldn't be occupying that spot.
This stunned her.
'What am I doing?'
She frowned, trying to convince herself that she was just overthinking things.
It was afternoon roll call.
As usual, the teacher read out all the names.
The roll call ended abruptly.
But Mio clearly felt the rhythm was off.
It was like a song with a short interlude that had been cut, yet no one else seemed to notice.
The bell rang and the crowd began to surge.
The empty seat was constantly obscured by passing figures, then revealed again and again.
But it remained empty.
Mio suddenly realised something strange:
This seat
had never been reallocated.
Not because the number of students was just right,
But because the system had deliberately avoided it.
After school, she passed the administration office.
The door was ajar and she could hear a hushed conversation inside: 'Is the empty space still there?'
'Is the empty space still there?'
'Yes, but it's fine.'
'Why not fill it in?'
'Filling it in would only make it more noticeable.'
Just consider it redundant.'
Mio paused.
Redundant.
The word gently bumped into her mind.
That night, she returned to her room and opened her notebook.
She turned to the last page.
blank.
But as she looked at that page, she felt strangely certain that something had been written there.
Something had been written here.
She picked up her pen and hovered the nib over the paper.
She couldn't remember anything.
Yet, instinctively, she drew a straight line in the corner.
She stopped.
That line made her heart tighten.
It resembled the first stroke of a name she couldn't recall.
Mio slammed the notebook shut.
Her breathing became erratic.
'No.'
She began to realise that
The world wasn't entirely stable.
It had simply hidden the problems.
in the mundane,
and the non-existent seat
was slowly widening the cracks.
As the morning reading session drew to a close, the homeroom teacher began taking the register.
His voice was steady, as if this were an everyday occurrence and the only one that would ever happen.
"Zhang Qiming."
"Here."
"Lin Kexin."
"Here."
Chalk dust accumulated in the tray on the blackboard, and the sound of footsteps passing by outside the window was broken into segments.
"..."
The teacher glanced down at the register.
Then, she called out the next name.
In that instant, the entire class fell silent.
This wasn't the silence of someone being suddenly scolded.
Not because of embarrassment or daydreaming,
but rather—
As if someone had pressed pause.
No one looked up.
No one uttered a sound.
Even their breathing slowed by a beat.
Mio could sense those 0.5 seconds.
Though brief, it was crystal clear.
It was like suddenly losing the signal in your headphones, but before you could react.
The teacher paused.
"... Hmm?" He frowned and glanced down at the attendance list again.
The next second, he continued reading:
'Zhou Zihan.'
"Here."
The world returned to silence.
Some turned pages, some yawned and some pushed their pens back from their desks.
As if nothing had happened.
But Mio's fingers remained suspended in mid-air.
She slowly raised her head and looked at the row in front.
There were no empty seats.
No one turned around.
There was no sign of 'one person missing'.
But she was certain—
It wasn't a pause.
It wasn't that someone hadn't responded.
It was as if the whole world was blind to the act of responding itself.
The bell rang.
The sound of chairs scraping the floor became grating again.
Someone complained, 'Attendance was so slow today.'
Someone laughed in agreement.
Mio looked at the date in the corner of the blackboard.
Everything was correct.
Everything was normal.
But those 0.5 seconds remained stuck in her mind like a deleted recording.
She tried to recall the name.
But she found herself unable to even articulate that she 'couldn't remember'.
Only a vague feeling remained.
as if someone had just knocked on the door.
The door didn't open.
The person who had knocked was gone.
Mio began to doubt herself,
but herself.
She wrote today's date in the corner of her textbook.
After writing it, she crossed it out.
Then she wrote it again.
No problem.
Her handwriting was clear and the ink hadn't smudged.
She breathed a sigh of relief, but still didn't feel at ease.
During the lunch break, only scattered sounds remained in the classroom:
Some were sleeping, while others scrolled through their phones with headphones in.
Mio pulled a sticky note out of her pencil case.
She paused for a moment, as if considering something.
Then she wrote a word.
Very ordinary.
Two words.
No emotional connotation.
She stuck the sticky note in the corner of her desk.
Ten minutes later,
Mio looked down.
The sticky note was still there.
The words were still there.
She frowned, tore the note off, folded it in half and put it in her bag.
The second test. Third period in the afternoon.
The teacher wrote formulas on the blackboard; the sound of the chalk cutting cleanly through the air.
Mio opened her bag.
The sticky note was still there.
She stared at the two words on it for a long time.
They weren't blurry.
It hadn't been scribbled over.
It wasn't gibberish.
It was just too normal.
This made her uneasy, however.
She changed her approach.
She wrote a sentence on a scrap of paper.
Halfway through, she stopped.
Her trembling fingers hovered over the paper.
She realised something:
If that 'empty frame' wasn't an illusion,
It meant that the world hadn't erased 'people', but rather erased 'acknowledged existence'.
She took a deep breath and finished the sentence.
'Get out of class' ended.
Mio tucked the scrap paper into her book.
She deliberately avoided looking at that page.
After school, she sat in the library for an hour.
She flipped through books, looked up information and daydreamed.
When she turned to that page again,
The draft paper was still there.
The sentence was still there,
but a line was missing from the middle.
It hadn't been erased.
It wasn't torn.
It was as if that line had never been written.
Mio's heart sank.
She quickly tried to recall the sentence.
But she could only remember the beginning:
The rest —
— was completely gone.
She closed the book.
Her palms were sweaty.
For the third test, she chose the most direct yet foolish method.
She walked over to the noticeboard.
Student council notices, competition lists and lost property notices were posted there.
Mio took out a pen and wrote something in the blank space in the corner.
Her handwriting was small and understated.
After writing it, she stood there looking at it.
One minute, two minutes...
Five minutes.
The words were still there.
She turned and left.
Taking three steps.
She felt an extremely abrupt pressure press down on her from behind.
It was as if she was being watched.
Mio turned around sharply.
The words on the notice board were still there.
But she suddenly realised something:
She couldn't remember what she had just written.
It wasn't that she had forgotten the content.
She couldn't even remember what it was.
She only knew this:
That line of text shouldn't have been forgotten.
Mio took a step back.
Her throat tightened.
This wasn't an illusion; it was a test.
This was—
— the world's response to her.
For the first time, she realised this clearly:
Something was observing to see if she had noticed.
And she had been marked.