What woke her up was neither pain nor exhaustion. It was the freezing cold.

  A thin sheet of snow covered her clothes. She jerked upright; her limbs felt like stone. For a moment, she couldn’t remember where she was—she couldn’t even remember who she was. Then her memories returned like a flood.

  The first thing she did was vomit. Once the little food in her stomach was out and she could breathe again, she stood up. She had passed out from blood loss and shock. The strange dream still lingered in her mind.

  Her class had spoken to her. It had told her to her face that she was mediocre. That she was a person without ambition or desire, living a flat, unremarkable life.

  It was true.

  She tried not to look at the corpse lying behind her, but the system reminded her anyway.

  [You have defeated the Stalker.]

  The next window surprised her. Her heart tightened.

  [Mission failed]

  [Out-of-Class result obtained]

  Was she not supposed to kill him? But things had reached that point. The emptiness in her stomach grew. It felt as though the child she had killed was gnawing at her insides.

  [Emotional instability detected]

  [Persona activated]

  [The Author is watching you]

  A ringing filled her ears. Static hissed like a radio scraping against her skull. Sloane covered her ears. She couldn’t move until the noise faded.

  When she saw the name of the skill, she realized her conversation with the Author hadn’t been a dream. This time, the notification didn’t appear as a window.It fell directly into her mind.

  I will reshape you, Rover. But first, I will begin by freeing you from your burdens.

  The voice was the same soft one from her dream.

  “Are you… the Author?”

  Yes. I am the womb of fiction.

  “Were you the one making the voices in my head?”

  No. You can’t blame me for the anomaly’s work. I came to give you my first creation. My mediocre book, Rover.

  The words were directed straight at Sloane.

  I can turn your suffering into something else. Into something that will protect you.

  Sloane lost control of her hand. Her fingers snapped without her will.

  Have fun, my little word—

  [Persona deactivated]

  She felt the Author withdraw from her mind, as if a heavy rock had been lifted from inside her skull. Control returned to her hand.

  “What was that just now?”

  She heard someone breathe behind her.

  “What the—”

  She hadn’t even noticed the approach. None of her skills had activated. A short woman stood before her. Her movements were erratic and unbalanced. With her blunt-cut black hair and lively face, she carried a childlike cheer.

  “Yahoo!” the woman said sweetly. “Wow… you’re taller than I expected.” She took two quick steps and stood right in front of Sloane, examining her face. “And older than I thought.” Disappointment colored her voice.

  Sloane was only thirty. Aside from a few strands of white hair, she still looked young. The remark stung.

  “I’m not old. Look at yourself—you look like a little boy.”

  She didn’t know why she was bickering like a teen. She felt strangely relieved, as if a burden had been lifted—but she couldn’t remember what that burden was.

  “Do we know each other?” she asked. Clearly, the woman knew her.

  “How could you forget me?” the young woman said in mock hurt. Her voice was full of life. Sloane felt envy stir in her chest. What wouldn’t she give to be young again?

  “I’m deeply offended, Soly.”

  Soly…

  She knew that name well. Even as an adult, her mother used to call her that. Longing for her family welled up inside her. She pushed back the tears.

  “Don’t call me Soly. No one calls me that. Only—”

  “Only our mother calls us Soly,” the young woman said.

  Confusion seized Sloane. She looked at the cheerful girl again. Her clothes, her gestures, her voice—finally her face. All of it was familiar.

  “You… you’re me!” Sloane shouted. “That’s it—I’ve finally lost my mind. There’s no other explanation. I’m seeing my past!”

  The younger Sloane laughed. “No, Soly, you’re not crazy. We’re still in the apocalypse—but now you’re not alone.”

  “Did the Author do this? How?”

  The version of her standing there was ten years younger—short hair, tight clothes, just like when she was in her twenties.

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  “I’m your childhood persona, Soly. I’m here so you don’t have to remember. Though… you really shouldn’t have killed that kid over there. It was awkward.”

  She gestured toward the small mound beneath the snow.

  “No way, I would never kill a child!” Sloane protested.

  “Soly… do you remember our childhood?” the younger Sloane asked calmly.

  “Of course I do! We lived… um… there…” Her thoughts blurred. It was like water spilled over inked pages.

  My childhood… it’s gone.

  The younger Sloane nodded.

  “Gone, right? Because I have all of them.” She tapped her head. “They’re here. Our house had two floors. We used to swing in the garden. Flowers bloomed in summer and we played with our dog… until a car hit her. Oops. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Sloane remembered. “Yes… and her name was—”

  “Pestil.” The memory settled into place.

  “Our mother’s cakes… and remember the first bike our father bought us? Red, with a ridiculously loud horn. Every time we used it, the neighbor would chase us.”

  The memories flickered in Sloane’s mind. Nostalgia stung her nose.

  “You can’t steal my childhood from me!” She grabbed the younger Sloane by the collar, fingers shaking. “Give them back! Give me my memories!”

  “Soly, stop—I’m you!” the younger Sloane gasped.

  “They’re safe with me. I only told you the good ones. I carry the bad ones too.”

  “Give them back!”

  “Remember the nightly fights? How we covered our ears with a pillow?”

  The memory struck. A small girl crying in bed, blaming herself.

  Sloane’s grip loosened.

  “I thought you’d kill me for a second, Soly~”

  Sloane wasn’t listening to her. She was trying to piece everything together in her mind, trying to understand what the Author had done to her.

  She looked at the small body now completely covered by a blanket of snow. Her younger self had said she killed him—but the memories had not returned.

  “Soly?” Sloane snapped back to herself. “What are we doing? Say something. It’s freezing.” Wrapped in thin clothes, the younger Sloane was shivering.

  “The temperature will keep dropping. We need to find thicker clothes,” she said calmly. She had returned to her old, resolute self.

  “Great! We’re going shopping.” The younger Sloane started running ahead.

  “Wait! God, you’re such a child,” Sloane sighed. She noticed dozens of wounds, big and small, scattered across her body. She couldn’t remember how she had gotten any of them. There was a bite mark on her arm—a dog bite? she wondered. She took a step to catch up with her younger self, but pain shot through her foot and she collapsed.

  The younger Sloane ran back.

  “Shit, I forgot! The little bastard hurt you back then. My fault, sorry—hehe.” She slipped Sloane’s arm over her shoulder. The two of them walked slowly down the snow-covered street. “It’d be good if we could find a pharmacy on the way.”

  Sloane stayed silent. A question gnawed at her mind. She wondered how she should address herself. Should I say Sloane? No, that feels strange. Hey, you? No, that’s not it either.

  “Say it already,” the younger Sloane said.

  “Say what?”

  “Whatever’s on your mind. It’s just us. There’s no stranger here.”

  “How did you kn—”

  “I am you, Soly.”

  Sloane cleared her throat. “You said I killed that child.” The words made her shiver.

  The younger Sloane nodded. “Yeah. You’re on the right track.”

  “How can you endure it then?” Sloane saw the smile on her younger self’s face fade for the first time. They stopped. The snowfall grew heavier.

  “A person,” the younger Sloane said softly, her voice almost a whisper, “realizes that pain is easier to bear when it’s faced piece by piece instead of all at once.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sloane said. Her voice was sincere.

  “For what?” the younger Sloane asked. She didn’t think she had said anything that deserved an apology.

  “For being weak. I’m sorry for dumping this pain on you.” A broken smile appeared on the younger Sloane’s face.

  “Idiot. We’re Sloane. Who else would we rely on if not ourselves? Apology accepted, Soly.”

  As they walked, they left footprints behind them. Soon, the tracks were buried beneath fresh snow. Sloane thought she finally understood what the burden truly was…

  A person does not carry their burden on their shoulders; they carry it in their memories. Pain itself is not heavy—what is heavy is remembering it over and over. That is why the mind tries to divide the load: one part to forget, one part to endure, and one part to keep living.

  A human denies what they cannot carry; hands off what they cannot deny to someone else; and what they cannot hand off, they name it not mine.

  This is how a burden is carried—not whole, but broken into pieces. And perhaps surviving is not about defeating pain, but about learning to live with it.

  ---

  A new fluctuation occurred in the system. No one could say for certain why the apocalypse had truly begun. The chaos it brought with it might have been the work of an entity. After all, assuming that only humans lived in this dreadful universe would be laughable.

  From a high point still standing among the ruins of civilization, the view was pitiful. Rising smoke and falling snow softened the violence of the destruction, if only slightly. A masked man claimed the scene with his gaze. He watched—and did not intervene. Beneath the mask, only he could hear his own breathing.

  “I thought I would find you here. Seems I was right,” the woman said. She was wearing a mask as well. Their clothes were identical; what distinguished them were their masks.

  The man responded with a simple growl.

  “The world wasn’t ready for the system, yet you still initiated the sequence. What were you thinking?” The woman knew she wouldn’t get an answer, but she asked anyway. “The probability of emergence is one in a hundred billion. And there are only seven billion subjects here.”

  “They’re slow, but they’re coming,” the man said, referring to their mortal enemies. “We can win without it, but that would only carve another notch into the endless cycle. I don’t care about probabilities. The harvest must continue until we succeed.”

  “So we’re buying time for its return? I never took you for a fatalist,” the woman said. There was no mockery in her voice. “You’ve changed.”

  The man turned toward her. She could feel the gaze hidden behind his mask and took a step back.

  “Someone who loses everything changes.”

  The woman hesitated. What’s that supposed to mean?

  “There’s a different feeling in me toward this world,” the man said, then turned back to the view.

  “Y–You are never wrong about your feelings, Arbiter.” the woman said. She wasn’t lying.

  “Yes. I’m not.”

  “I didn’t outgrow my childhood. It was taken from me.”

  —Sloane