[Debuff duration expired]

  [Current Charisma: 35]

  Sloane lowered the pocketknife toward the trembling, twisted neck of the creature.

  With horror, she realized how technical and irreversible it was to end a life. This was not a game played with ink on paper; it was the merciless surrender of flesh and bone.

  The foreign warmth seeping into her hands felt far more real than the system’s cold notifications. Killing was not in the clay of her soul.

  And yet, for the first time, she was meeting the dark face of a godlike arrogance: Erasure.

  Starting a story was difficult; ending it with blood left an irreparable hollow in her spirit.

  [+1 Charisma]

  A stat in exchange for a life.

  It wasn’t out of pity for the apocalypse’s creatures that she thought this way. She would survive, and every step would become the fruit of that goal.

  “It’s over. I did it!” she said excitedly. She hoped something inside her had changed, but she was still the same Sloane.

  [Event Ranking]

  [1st Elun the Ruler – 400 kills]

  [2nd Dirhan the Warlord – 350 kills]

  [3rd Verasety the Assassin – 200 kills]

  Sloane stared in disbelief at the number of kills people had achieved alone.

  She hadn’t even managed to defeat one by herself. The only creature she had killed was already dying and defenseless. She couldn’t describe the injustice she felt.

  Are you going to cry, big baby?

  The thought flared in her mind, carrying anger with it.

  “Enough! Get out of my head!”

  Her shout echoed through the small room.

  [Stalker has found your location]

  As soon as she saw the notification, Sloane ran out of the building she had entered. Her eyes searched every corner. When she reached the street, she saw the child standing in the middle of the road.

  The murderous child who had overturned all her values stood before her again.

  The distance between them and their stance in the middle of the street reminded her of old cowboy films. They had no guns, but neither hesitated to show their knives.

  Sloane felt confident, at least because she had a weapon. Her only problem was the dilemma of whether she could kill a child.

  Everyone knew the unwritten rules of the apocalypse:

  Those who live make the rules.

  Those who defend morality are fools.

  Only survival matters.

  She raised her creature-bloodstained knife toward Duren.

  The childlike innocence on Duren’s face twisted into a huge grin. “Ready to play?” he asked cruelly.

  One of them would die here.

  “I’m sick of your disgusting game!” Sloane shouted.

  Despite the fear gripping her heart, she had made her decision. I will live.

  Duren slowly circled her, sizing her up. He noticed that his entertainment had changed, the light in her eyes was different. Those thoughts faded quickly in the child’s mind and were replaced by the thrill of the game. The tip of his knife trembled—not from fear, but from excitement.

  “Is all of this just a game to you, runt? Weren’t the innocent people you killed only trying to help you?”

  Sloane hadn’t wanted things to go this far. She still hoped to find a way out by talking.

  Duren laughed.

  “You keep asking the same question in circles: Why? I don’t have a reason.”

  “You’re sick fuck,” Sloane spat.

  Duren pretended to cry. Sloane’s nerves tightened. Everything the child said was true, and her passive abilities weren’t working. It had to be the effect of his Stalker class.

  Her Reality Check skill was still on cooldown. She had been caught at the worst possible time. All her hope rested on that skill. She needed to buy time.

  While calculating in her head, Duren suddenly closed the distance and caught her off guard. His small body moved with agility. Sloane dodged, but felt warmth in her leg. The adrenaline masked the pain.

  The child attacked again. Sloane stepped back and felt another warmth in her arm. Her stomach wound throbbed. She couldn’t counterattack—the difference in their classes gave the child the advantage.

  “You’re bleeding,” Duren said, gripping the tip of his knife with his other hand.

  He struck a third time. This time Sloane saw the blow coming. Her knife swung up to block it. Both cut each other’s hands. Duren pulled back in pain. Blood flowed from his wound. The rage spreading across his face frightened Sloane.

  He attacked wildly. Sloane couldn’t respond. Small and large wounds opened across her body. As Duren lost control and lunged, a kick to his stomach sent him flying back.

  Pain exploded from his abdomen into his whole body. He gasped for air.

  “I will kill you!” he snarled hoarsely.

  Seeing the child lose control, Sloane realized she had a chance. Her greatest fear was the moral collapse of killing a child.

  If I kill this child, will I become a monster?

  Doesn’t the one who kills a monster become the monster?

  In her eyes, children were always innocent.

  Duren was simply a sick child who used innocence as a weapon. No different from a murderer. Being a child did not cleanse his crime.

  For the first time, Sloane felt the upper hand was hers. Her knife made her palm itch, as if it wanted to taste Duren.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Her mind went to the man who had tried to deceive her in the bathroom at the beginning of the apocalypse. Hadn’t he said something similar?

  She couldn’t remember his name, but when she read his thoughts with her passive skill, his last sentence came back:

  My palms are itching…

  The name came to her: Mark.

  The man who chose to kill because he could. How had she forgotten the first person who had tried to kill her? Everything was trying to kill her—it was natural she forgot.

  Sloane felt an irresistible urge to kill Duren. She wanted to be rid of him with her whole being. Mark’s words and her thoughts overlapped perfectly.

  I am becoming Mark. Becoming something evil.

  Hesitation spread through her body like a shockwave.

  I am choosing to be a killer willingly.

  All her values collapsed. Her stomach churned. Everything she had built inside herself crumbled one by one. The hand holding the knife no longer felt like hers.

  Duren, who was catching his breath on the ground, didn’t miss the opportunity. He drove his knife into Sloane’s foot.

  The blade pierced through her shoe and into bone. She felt the crack of it inside her body. Unbearable pain turned into a scream that echoed down the street. By reflex, she kicked Duren in the face with her other foot. The child flipped backward and crashed onto the road. He spat blood. One tooth was broken.

  With trembling fingers, Sloane gripped the knife’s handle. It was warm and slippery. At the tip of that metal was not a monster— it was her own flesh. She pulled the blade out. Her foot tensed as if it no longer belonged to her. Then the pain spread through her body like a scream that had arrived too late.

  Her skin tore. Her breath caught.

  Her knees gave out and she collapsed. Tears streamed from her eyes. Both of them rolled on the ground in agony. Sloane was the first to stand. Limping and staggering, she walked toward Duren. She held the child’s knife. The child moaned in pain on the ground.

  Kill him!

  You’ll become a murderer, don’t!

  Either you… or him…

  Different voices rang inside her head.

  With his remaining strength, Duren lunged at her. When Sloane stepped on her injured foot, she cried out. They fell together. Duren clawed at her face with his small hands. The knife fell from Sloane’s grasp. She tried to shield her face with her arms. Duren sank his teeth into her arm. Like a rabid dog, he wouldn’t let go.

  Sloane smashed the child’s head with all her strength, again and again. She hit. And kept hitting.

  Even when Duren’s teeth loosened and his small body collapsed onto her, she did not stop. She didn’t remember how long she continued.

  She pushed the ugly weight off her. Duren’s body slowly sprawled across the road. It did not move.

  She had not wanted that violence.

  She had not glorified it.

  She had experienced how it shattered her soul.

  Sloane lay on her back in pain and suffering, the body of the child she had killed beside her. She watched the sun hide behind the clouds, as if it were trying to make her pay for her sin.

  Snow began to fall again. Small flakes quickly turned into large ones.

  It was as if nature was covering humanity’s crimes with snow. Even it seemed disturbed by witnessing such torment. The street looked like it was covered with a white sheet. But Sloane’s world was silent. Everything moved slowly. She couldn’t even feel her pain.

  She placed a hand on her chest. She thought her heart had stopped beating. She had done the one thing she never wanted to do. She was afraid to turn her head and look at the body beside her. If she did, she thought Duren would look back at her and ask the question he had been asking from the beginning:

  Why? Why did you kill me?

  “Because it was the only way for me to live,” Sloane said, crying.

  She didn’t know if this sentence was true or merely bearable. The words had left her mouth, but had not reached her heart.

  Living was no longer the same as breathing.

  Living was simply not dying.

  You are lying to yourself.

  Sloane shuddered at the thought echoing in her mind.

  [Character integrity limit exceeded]

  [Integrity shattered]

  [Quest progress critical]

  [Quest: Be yourself or become someone else]

  She saw the snow-filled sky darken. She felt the consciousnesses the anomaly had planted in her head gnawing at her brain.

  “Stop trying to justify yourself,” a clear voice said.

  Sloane saw glowing halos in the darkness. They drifted around her.

  “Where am I?” Sloane asked. There was no fear in her voice. Where did her emotions go?

  “Why is everything dark?” She tried to move, but she had no body. Only herself remained: her soul.

  “You are on the path where all the lost fall, Rover. You are on the thin rope beaten by imposed truths and the desire to escape reality. You are the prisoner whose final wish is asked before execution.”

  Another voice appeared, much softer than the first. Its tone filled Sloane, as if it knew her.

  A sun tore through the darkness. The halos scattered. “The moment the monster awakens inside the most innocent soul… But what is your monster made of, Rover? Is it forged in the drunkenness of worldly pleasures, or sharpened by defeat in inner conflicts?”

  “I—I don’t understand. What is happening to me?” Sloane said. She felt nothing. As if her existence had been erased, leaving only her mind behind.

  “Your self has surrendered,” the soft voice said simply. “You are with me, between life and limbo.”

  “Who are you?” Then she asked herself: Who am I?

  The soft voice chuckled. “I am the Author,” it said. “I decide the birth, rise, brilliance, and extinction of a fiction, a dream.

  I am a great mother who weaves emotions and thoughts.”

  “And you,” the Author continued after a pause, “is my most mediocre book.”

  Mediocre. The word echoed in the void.

  Sloane was not affected by the Author’s words. Her feelings were gone. “You are only an allegory I created. You are not real.”

  The sun-like Author gazed at her.

  “Seven billion people, seven billion potentials—and you are what I get, Rover. I read your life. No achievements. No ambition. No passion. You merely exist, a toothpick wedged between gears. You commit the sin of wasting the potential sleeping inside you.”

  “I crush my ego so I don’t become the person I fear. What’s wrong with punishing my soul?”

  Only Sloane’s soul remained— her deepest thoughts she had never told anyone.

  “Did you think that would make you happy?”

  Sloane could not answer.

  “I can give you a purpose. A life you won’t regret, a life you won’t look back on. All you have to do is surrender to me.”

  “What can you give me? Didn’t you say I had no ambition or passion?”

  The darkness vanished. It was replaced by the only place where Sloane had ever found peace: her room. When Sloane was in her room, the outside world was not real. There was no time here. No expectations to fulfill. This was the only place where she did not fight herself. The sun-like halo was very close now.

  “I will give you something you will never forget,” said the Author.

  [Character integrity shattered]

  [Quest updated]

  [Choice made: Become someone else]

  [Reward: Persona acquired]

  [Penalty: You became someone else]

  “Someone inside me died today. Now I walk, carrying their corpses.”

  — Sloane