Chapter 1
In a small, 177.5 sq ft one-bedroom apartment, only the lights coming off from a computer monitor lit the space.
Clack, claaack. Intermittent typing noises and notification alarms filled the room and were broken by deep sighs in between.
Sigh...
Clack, clack.
Ding, ding.
“Haaaa.” This dreary and dark room was my work studio and home. The non-stop ringing notification alarms were the comments I was getting for the last chapter of my fantasy web novel that I had been writing for about a year. These were the sort of responses I was getting:
—The master of great beginnings and terrible endings.
—Damn it, I can’t believe I followed this novel until the end. I want to cry.
—I was mentally scarred from his last novel, so I was planning to skip this one but...
—I think the author is seriously sick. His endings are always crazy.
—I kept thinking about dropping this novel but held on till the end. Why do I love torturing myself?
Every single one of them was insulting the ending of my novel. It was understandable because all my stories ended with bad endings.
‘I killed all of them this time too.’
It wasn’t just an ordinary bad ending but the worst kind where all the main characters died. I didn’t want to make an ending like this either, but that was what ended up happening as I continued writing. Perhaps, this was one of the symptoms of my trauma, and it was impossible for me to make an ending while keeping any of my characters alive.
“...Damn it,” I recalled a past memory. It clung to me harder the more I tried to push it away and its fragmented pieces solidified into shape. It was late in the night when we were on the road. The inside of the car was quiet, and my older teammates were dozing off in the backseat. It was then a huge truck appeared in view all of a sudden. The truck’s headlights trespassed into the center line and flashed the inside of our car instantly. By the time I realized what was going on, everything was over then. Excavate this data, retracing it to n0v*lbin★
‘Stop.’ I tried to stop thinking, but the more I struggled, the image of that memory became clearer in my head.
Tick, tock. The ticking sound of my watch filled up my room.
Drip, drop. Water droplets dripped from the faucet that wasn’t fully turned on.
Ding, ding. And notification alarms continued to ring nonstop.
—Everyone dies for real lolol.
—Is this the rumored novel with the best ending of all time?
“But why would they?” A part of me thought it could be Yeon-Hoon though there was no way. I just got a message notifying me of his death, and he was someone who had been unconscious for years. Yet, for some strange reason, my heart and thoughts kept leaning toward the direction that he was alive. I slowly accepted the call and placed the phone to my ear.
—...
A heavy silence circled my ears for a while. I wondered if there was some mistake with the telecommunications company and if I was getting an erroneous call.
—Tae-Yoon.
I heard Yeon-Hoon’s voice then. I gripped the phone tighter, and I almost bit my tongue from shock. Is this really his voice? Maybe it was someone who had a similar voice to him. No, it was definitely Yeon-Hoon’s voice. I didn’t know how to answer him or what was going on. How was I getting a call from a dead person? But I couldn’t miss this chance to talk to him after so long. My voice trembled as I spoke, “...Yeon-Hoon.”
Whoosh!
The moment I called his name, I felt a strange sensation all over my body. It felt as if my entire body was being lifted by an invisible hand.
“What is going on...!” Then my vision spun, and the space around me changed.
“What?” I was sure I was lying in my narrow, dirty one-bedroom apartment, but in an instant, I was transported to a pure white space. I floundered in the air but while all this was going on, I didn’t let go of my phone. I wasn’t even curious about the reason for this sudden strange phenomenon.
“Yeon-Hoon...!” The only thing on my mind was conversing with the voice that I heard across the phone.
[Beginning Transference.]
A robotic voice that sounded void of all human-like qualities rang inside my ears.
Whoosh! My vision whirled once more, and I was transported to another space. I thought I had returned to my one-bedroom apartment when I heard another voice.
“Tae-Yoon, aren’t you sleepy? All the other guys are sleeping. Why don’t you also take a rest? I will wake you up when we arrive at our dorm.”
But it was somewhere else. It was the place of my memories that I didn’t want to recall at all costs—the memories of the incident that ruined all of us and had been tormenting me for the last five years. I was inside the car that Yeon-Hoon was driving.
“...This is insane.” And across from our car, there was a 10-ton truck flashing its headlights and heading our way from the center line. Simultaneously, a mechanical voice rang inside my ear.
[Save the members of the group, ‘Siren.’]
[Upon success, you will progress to the next mission.]
[Upon failure, all members will die.]
[You’ll be bestowed with the power of ‘Insight’ as a variant.]
What in the world was going on? I didn’t understand the situation at all, but I knew what I needed to do.
“Woo Yeon-Hoo, step on the gas pedal!”
I couldn’t let my teammates die again.