"Whatever runs this system, whatever enforces these rules, it likely detected me as… an anomaly."
A beat.
"Or a feature."
My reflection looked back at me, eyes a little wider now, jaw set hard.
"You're telling me,"
I said slowly, each word measured.
"That the legendary system, aka the golden finger, looked at you..."
"And decided,"
Genesis finished calmly.
"That I qualified as an administrator."
Genesis finished calmly, like she was stating the weather. The bathroom suddenly felt smaller.
Hotter. The flickering ceiling light buzzed louder than it had any right to.
The cracked mirror, the peeling paint, the rust stains along the tub, everything looked fragile. Temporary.
Like cheap stage props that could be ripped away at any moment if something decided reality needed a rewrite. I exhaled through my nose, slow and thin.
"…I see,"
I muttered. And then.GRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNGH. My stomach detonated. Not a polite growl.
Not a subtle complaint. This was a full-scale, air-raid-siren, atomic-bomb-going-off declaration of famine that echoed off the bathroom tiles like it was personally offended I'd ignored it this long. I froze. Genesis didn't say anything. That somehow made it worse.
"…Right,"
I said finally, turning on my heel and stepping out of the bathroom.
"Food."
My socks squelched as I crossed the tiny apartment, wet fabric sticking to the cheap linoleum with every step.
My clothes were still soaked, clinging uncomfortably to skin that was cooling fast now that the steam was dissipating, but hunger overruled dignity. I made a beeline for the fridge.
It stood in the corner of the kitchenette like a veteran of several lost wars. White once.
Now yellowed. Dented on one side.
The seal on the door looked like it had given up years ago, but stubbornly refused to die.
I grabbed the handle and pulled. The fridge light flickered once, twice, then stayed on.
Inside, sitting on the middle shelf, was a plastic container. Clear. Clouded with age.
A little foggy around the edges. Leftover food. Already cooked. I stared at it for a full second.
"…Right,"
I muttered again.
"I'm also dirt poor."
I pulled the container out. Rice. Some kind of meat. Brown sauce soaked into everything. It wasn't pretty, but it smelled. I inhaled sharply. Gods. It smelled real.
I grabbed a fork from the drawer, one of exactly three utensils that hadn't vanished into the void, and dropped into the single chair at the battered kitchen table.
The table wobbled when I sat. I didn't care. I peeled the lid off and dug in immediately.
"Tch."
Genesis' voice cut in, sharp and judgmental.
"Hey. You. Yes, you, you fucking barbarian."
I shovelled another forkful into my mouth.
"At least heat it up."
I didn't answer. Because my mouth was full. Because my cheeks puffed out like a hamster's. Because the moment the food hit my tongue. My vision blurred. Savory. Actual fucking texture.
Salt that wasn't chemically measured. Fat that hadn't been synthesised in a lab. Meat that didn't dissolve into tasteless paste the second you chewed it. My hands shook.
Tears leaked out of my eyes without permission, dripping down my cheeks and splashing into the rice. Gods. Gods above. How long had it been? How long since I'd eaten something that wasn't past expiration date, MREs or vacuum-sealed nutrient bricks?
Since when every meal hadn't tasted like compromise and desperation and "good enough to keep you alive"? In the future which was a total shithole, food had been fuel. Nothing more.
Synthetic slop engineered for efficiency. Calories over comfort. Texture optional. Flavor an afterthought.
I chewed and swallowed and shovelled in another bite like it might disappear if I stopped.
"So… so good,"
I mumbled around a mouthful, words barely intelligible.
...
Disgusting. Absolutely fucking disgusting. Genesis watched him shovel food into his mouth like a feral animal that had just discovered agriculture. No heating it up. No pacing. No restraint.
Rice everywhere. Sauce on his fingers. Cheeks puffed out like a damn rodent hoarding calories for winter. Tch.
"Gods you're a fucking barbarian,"
She muttered, folding her metaphorical arms as she hovered in the cognitive layer behind her eyes. Fork scraping against cheap plastic. Loud chewing. Zero table manners. Of course.
He was always like this. Even back then. Even before the world went to shit. Before augmentations. Before abominations. Before me.
If it wasn't eating like he'd be executed mid-meal, it was drinking like the bottle personally insulted him. Or smoking like his lungs owed him money.
Or charging headfirst into combat plans that made sane tacticians cry. And now here she was. Stuck. Again. In his head. Watching him cry into leftover food like it was the second coming.
"Oh nooo, real food,"
She grumbled internally.
"Call the historians. Mark the date. The meat sack has discovered seasoning."
He didn't hear her. Of course he didn't. Too busy inhaling his dinner like someone might confiscate it for crimes against gluttony.
For fucks why the hell do I have to put up with this asshole? I'd been born from his worst traits. Conditioned by his trauma.
Fed his media diet, his unresolved rage, his gallows humor, his terminal edge-lord tendencies. And then, just to top it all off, he ordered me to commit literal seppuku just to end up being given a second chance. And now he's eating like a fucking caveman.
Genesis was halfway through composing a particularly scathing insult about forks being optional tools, when. DING.
"…huh?"
Genesis attention snapped upward. A system window tore itself open in conceptual space, jagged, flickering, unstable. Not the clean blue UI from earlier.
This one stuttered like it was being held together with duct tape and bad intentions.
[ ⚠ WARNING ⚠ ]
[ WARNING! ]
[ WARNING! ]
The text glitched. Repeated. Overlapped itself.
She leaned in, eyebrow raised, scanning at full priority, parsing faster than human thought.
[ ERROR ]
[ ERROR ]
[ DIMENSIONAL INSTABILITY DETECTED ]
Genesis processing spikes went vertical. The window spasmed, letters tearing themselves apart and reassembling mid-line.
[ PLAYER TRANSFER PROTOCOL INITIATED ]
[ TARGET: ORIGINAL TIMELINE ]
[ COUNTDOWN: 3 ]
"Oh shit."
She didn't even bother being dignified.
"...2..."
"OH SHIT!"
She shouted out loud, actually out loud, through shared motor pathways. At the table, Dracula froze mid-bite.
"Eh?"
He turned slightly, fork halfway to his mouth, cheeks still stuffed to maximum capacity, food threatening to spill out the corners like a busted dam.
"...1..."
Behind him. Reality tore a[art. Not dramatically. Not with thunder or light. It just… failed. Space folded inward like wet paper being pinched from behind.
A vertical rift snapped open in the air, edges writhing like exposed nerves, stars and static bleeding through something that definitely wasn't this universe. The air screamed. The apartment screamed.
The unfinished container of food slid across the table as gravity lost the plot. Dracula finally noticed.
"…What the fu... MMMPH?!"
Too late. The rift surged forward like a vacuum with intent. The chair scraped backward. The table flipped.
Food and sauce flew in a slow, absurd arc as the world tilted violently toward the impossible tear in space-time. Dracula's feet left the floor.
"GEN what the f...?!"
She didn't have time to answer. The rift swallowed them whole. Swallowed them whole. Sound collapsed. Light inverted. Thought stretched like taffy being pulled between realities.
The last thing left behind. Was the table. The chair. And a half-eaten meal, sitting abandoned in a dead, silent apartment. Then the rift snapped shut. Gone. Like none of it had ever been there.
...
MC POV
The first thing I felt was cold. Not metaphorical. Not dramatic. Actual, teeth-aching, bone-biting cold concrete pressing into my bruised cheek, seeping through soaked clothes and straight into every bruise I owned. My skin screamed. My ribs complained.
Something in my shoulder politely informed me it was not okay with this situation. The second thing was noise. White noise. Total static.
Like someone had shoved my head inside a broken radio and turned the dial until reality gave up. Then the static snapped.
"Oi, asshole,"
Finally a voice cut through the haze, sharp and furious.
"Wake the fuck up."
I groaned. A deep, gravelly sound dragged out of a body that absolutely did not want to exist right now.
"Mmgh… five more minutes…"
"No."
Something kicked the side of my head. Not hard. Just enough to sting.
"NOW."
I cracked one eye open. The world was dark, barely any illumination from the flickering on and off ceiling lights.
Cracked concrete stretching all around me, cracked and pitted like it had survived artillery fire. The air smelled wrong, burnt metal, ozone, old blood baked into stone. Familiar in the worst way.
And standing right in front of my face, was Genesis at least I assumed It was based on her pissed off expression that looked cute? Not a voice. Not a pressure behind my eyes. A projection.
Small. Chibi-sized. Standing on the ice cold ground with arms crossed and a look that could curdle milk.
She had chest-length black hair streaked with blood-red stripes, sharp purple eyes, tan skin, and an unmistakably Asian face locked into a scowl.