Shin learned early that silence was safer.
Not the peaceful kind—
the kind where you didn't speak too much, didn't react too strongly, didn't give people a reason to notice you.
At school, he always sat by the window. Teachers mistook it for thoughtfulness. Classmates mistook it for arrogance. In truth, it was neither. The sunlight made it easier to stare at something without being questioned.
When awakenings began, people checked their wrists.
A flash of light.
A sudden gasp.
Sometimes applause.
Shin checked his every morning anyway.
Nothing ever appeared.
The skin was the same dull color. No warmth. No mark. No sign that the world had chosen him for anything.
He stopped checking after his sister awakened.
She came home shaking that day, eyes too bright, her wrist glowing with unstable patterns she couldn't yet control. Their mother cried openly. Their father laughed—too loud, too proud, as if the moment would vanish if he stopped.
Shin stood near the door holding a glass of water no one asked for.
No one looked at him.
That night, his sister knocked on his door.
She never knocked softly.
"Hey," she said, leaning against the frame. "You okay?"
He nodded too quickly.
She frowned. "You don't have to pretend with me."
He wanted to say I'm happy for you.
He wanted to say I'm scared.
He wanted to say don't leave me behind.
Instead, he said, "You should sleep. Training starts early."
She smiled. A little sad. A little proud.
"I'll protect you," she said. "Okay?"
Shin watched her walk away.
He didn't understand then why that sentence hurt more than anything else.
---
The world didn't collapse all at once.
It eroded.
At first, it was just news reports.
"Localized Gate Incident."
"Minimal casualties."
Then sirens became routine.
His father started coming home later, smelling of dust and metal. His mother began packing emergency bags without ever talking about them. Shin memorized escape routes without realizing he was doing it.
People started looking at him differently.
Not cruelly.
Dismissively.
"Non-awakeners should stay back."
"You'll slow us down."
"Let capable people handle it."
Once, during an evacuation drill, a man shoved Shin aside so his awakened son could get through first.
Shin fell.
No one helped him up.
He didn't blame them.
That realization scared him more than the fall.
---
The Large Disaster didn't announce itself.
There was no countdown.
No warning.
The sky cracked.
Not like thunder—
like glass.
Dark veins spread across blue, slow and deliberate, as if the world itself were being peeled open. People stopped screaming before they understood why.
Shin was running home when it happened.
He tripped twice.
Scraped his palm.
Didn't stop.
Half the house was gone when he reached it.
The front wall had collapsed inward. Smoke poured out like breath from something dying.
"Mom!"
"Dad!"
His voice sounded small.
He climbed over debris, hands shaking so badly he couldn't feel the pain anymore.
He found his mother under the dinner table.
Her eyes were open.
She looked surprised.
Shin touched her cheek.
Cold.
He didn't cry.
Didn't scream.
He sat there a moment too long before remembering his father might still—
The explosion finished the thought for him.
---
His sister arrived like a storm.
Bloodied. Glowing. Terrified.
She grabbed his shoulders hard enough to hurt.
"You're alive," she said, like she hadn't dared believe it.
He nodded once.
She moved him behind her as the ground split again.
Monsters poured out—wrong shapes, wrong sounds, wrong existence.
She fought like she was burning herself away.
Every strike cost her.
Every breath was heavier.
"Run," she said.
"I won't," Shin said.
She smiled.
The same smile from years ago.
"Idiot," she whispered.
The barrier shattered.
She shoved him back.
The last thing he saw was her back—straight, unmoving—before light swallowed her whole.
---
Shin didn't remember falling.
The world tilted. Then dust filled his mouth. Something warm ran down his face. His body refused to move, like it had already decided to stay.
"Hey."
A rough, breathless voice.
A hand grabbed his collar and dragged him up.
"You alive?" the girl asked.
She looked worse than he felt.
One arm hung wrong. Her shoulder was soaked dark. The awakened mark on her wrist flickered weakly.
He nodded.
"Good," she said. "Then move."
Sirens wailed somewhere far away.
She half-dragged him through smoke and ash toward the evacuation trucks—huge armored carriers already pulling away, people screaming as they were crushed together inside.
"Why—" Shin tried to speak.
"Don't," she said. "Save it."
The ground rippled.
Something huge roared behind them.
She looked back.
For a split second, fear stripped everything else from her face.
Then she shoved Shin forward.
"Truck. Now."
Hands pulled him inside as the ramp began to close.
He turned.
She was still outside.
"Come on!" he shouted.
She smiled.
Not bravely.
Apologetically.
"Sorry," she said. "Bad timing."
The monster emerged fully then—armor, bone, shadow—each step cracking the street.
She raised her arm. Light flared weakly.
Shin watched it shatter.
The ramp slammed shut.
The truck lurched forward.
Someone cried. Someone prayed.
Shin stared at the metal floor.
Everyone he tried to reach was gone.
Not because he chose wrong.
Not because he hesitated.
Because the world didn't wait.
---
They told him he was lucky.
They told him to be grateful.
Shin sat alone on the curb hours later, clothes stiff with blood that wasn't his. His hands shook uncontrollably.
Then—
A light.
A translucent window hovered before his eyes.
> System awakening…
Temporal reversal available.
Rewind time?
YES / NO
Shin froze.
He wasn't awakened.
He never had been.
His breath caught.
Shock hit first.
Then disbelief.
Then regret so sharp it felt physical.
Tears welled up. He wiped them away angrily—then laughed, a broken, empty sound that startled even him.
"What… is this?" he whispered.
Anger rose.
Sadness crushed it.
Hope flickered—and terrified him.
His chest tightened. His breathing became uneven. He pressed his palms to his face, shoulders shaking as everything he had held back finally spilled out.
Then, slowly—
It stopped.
The shaking eased.
The noise inside his head quieted.
Calm settled in, heavy and unnatural.
Shin lowered his hands.
He looked at the window again.
"If this is a joke," he murmured, voice hoarse, "then it's a cruel one."
He inhaled once.
Steady.
"…But if there's even a chance…"
His finger moved.
He pressed YES.
And the world burned backward.