Pain came first.
Not physical—
existential.
Shin felt himself tear apart.
Sound reversed. Sirens screamed inward. Heat snapped into cold. Light folded into darkness. His stomach lurched as if gravity had forgotten its direction.
He tried to scream.
Nothing came out.
The world collapsed into white.
---
Then—
Air.
Normal air.
Too normal.
Shin gasped violently and sat upright.
His chest heaved like he'd been drowning for hours. His hands flew to his body—his ribs, his arms, his face—checking desperately, irrationally.
No blood.
No burns.
No debris.
His fingers dug into fabric.
Fabric?
He froze.
The bed beneath him was soft. Familiar. The mattress dipped exactly where it always had.
A ceiling fan spun lazily above.
Click. Click. Click.
That sound—
His eyes widened.
"No," he whispered.
The room was intact.
Too intact.
The cracked wall near the window—gone.
The scorch mark on the floor—gone.
The emergency bag by the door—still neatly packed, untouched.
His breathing became shallow.
"Hey."
A voice.
From the hallway.
His heart slammed so hard it hurt.
"Shin," his mother called. "You'll be late again."
The world tilted.
His vision blurred instantly. His throat closed as if something had wrapped around it.
Her voice.
Alive.
Casual. Annoyed.
The sound he had replayed in his head a thousand times—always ending in silence—now existed again like nothing had happened.
He stumbled off the bed.
His legs almost gave out.
He grabbed the doorframe, fingers whitening as he leaned into it, head spinning violently.
"This isn't—" His voice cracked. "This isn't real."
He stepped into the hallway.
Light poured in from the kitchen.
The smell of rice.
The clatter of dishes.
His sister stood there.
Alive.
Hair tied loosely. Sleeves rolled up. Complaining about something trivial—something stupid.
She turned.
"Oh, you're up?" she said. "You look like hell."
Shin stared at her.
His lips trembled.
His knees buckled.
He collapsed to the floor.
"Oi—!" She rushed over. "What's wrong with you?"
She touched his shoulder.
Warm.
Solid.
Real.
That was it.
He broke.
Shin clutched the fabric of her sleeve like a lifeline and sobbed—not quietly, not politely, but raw, humiliating, animal sounds ripping out of him.
"I'm sorry," he choked. "I'm sorry—I'm so sorry—"
She froze.
"…Did you hit your head?"
Their mother rushed in. "What happened?"
Shin couldn't answer.
How could he explain that he had watched them die?
That he remembered their last breaths, their final expressions, the weight of their bodies when they stopped being warm?
He buried his face into his sister's side, shaking uncontrollably.
She hesitated—then awkwardly patted his head.
"You're weird today," she muttered. "Skip school if you're sick."
Sick.
He almost laughed.
---
Time confirmed itself slowly.
Too slowly.
The calendar on the wall read two years earlier.
The news played softly in the background—no emergency alerts. No gate warnings.
His wrist—
Shin stared at it obsessively.
Nothing.
No mark.
No system.
For a horrifying moment, panic surged.
Was it a dream?
Then—
A faint pulse.
A subtle pressure behind his eyes.
And words burned into existence.
> System synchronized.
Temporal anchor established.
Warning: Emotional overload detected.
He stared.
His vision blurred again—not from tears this time, but rage, fear, grief all colliding at once.
"So it wasn't a dream," he whispered.
His hands clenched.
His nails dug into his palms until it hurt.
Good.
Pain meant this was real.
---
That night, Shin didn't sleep.
Every sound made him flinch.
Footsteps in the hallway.
A door closing.
His sister coughing in her room.
Alive.
Every breath they took felt temporary now.
The future sat in his chest like a loaded weapon.
He knew what was coming.
The gates.
The monsters.
The day everything burned.
And worse—
He knew what he would let happen this time.
The thought made him nauseous.
He pressed his forehead against the wall and whispered into the darkness—
"I won't hesitate again."
The system flickered faintly.
Silent.
Watching.