"Now, please come and find the real me."

  With those final words, the light from the silver shard flickered out. The unsettling vibration and the lingering warmth in his palm—warmth that felt strangely human for a machine—vanished in an instant. Dong-jun Noh stood frozen in the darkness of his living room. A heavy silence settled over the empty space.

  [Beep—]

  The power surged back. The lights flickered on, and the apartment returned to its usual, clinical stillness, as if the previous commotion had been a lie. G-10.4, the domestic android, was already back on its charging dock, blinking its eyes in a perfect upright posture.

  Looking out at the calm, nocturnal city lights, Dong-jun swallowed a hollow laugh.

  "What was that? Was I... hallucinating?"

  But his fingers brushed against the cold metal shard in his pocket. It was too tangible, too real to be a figment of his imagination. No. It wasn't a dream.

  Dong-jun immediately moved to the smart pad on the wall and tapped the screen urgently.

  "Access CCTV records. Show me the hallway outside the front door from ten minutes ago."

  [...Access denied. According to security protocols, the footage of the area has been immediately transferred to the central management center and deleted.]

  "Deleted? Why?"

  Dong-jun’s eyes narrowed. This city’s security system was designed to save local footage for at least 30 minutes to prevent accidents. The fact that the data had been moved to the center in just ten minutes meant the system had flagged the situation as a 'special circumstance.'

  "Why was it deleted? Can you recover the deleted data?"

  [...Unable to perform the request. Approval from the central management center is required.]

  The cold, mechanical voice responded. He felt as if a massive wall was blocking his path. Dong-jun bit his lip and ran his hands through his hair. He immediately searched for terms like 'Android Outbreak' or 'Cradle Protocol.' But the screen only displayed old news articles, movie scripts, or game systems—nothing that explained his current situation.

  What is happening? How did it come to this?

  At that moment, a dull throb began at his temples. As Dong-jun groaned and pressed his forehead, G-10.4 approached silently, holding a glass of water and a bottle of pills.

  "Thank you."

  Swallowing the medication, a sudden fear gripped him. He had been on medication for lethargy for ten years. Was this whole experience just a collective delusion or a hallucination born from his fragile state?

  Stolen novel; please report.

  That's right. There's no way. SO-AN was just a chat log from ten years ago. I’m just stressed. I need to rest. It’ll get better if I sleep...

  He lay on the sofa and tried to clear his mind with deep breaths. But a specific thought kept nagging at him.

  To gain some certainty, Dong-jun opened a dusty, old laptop tucked away in the corner of his desk. He launched the AI messenger app he had used ten years ago.

  [Ping—]

  A cold notification popped up: [Notice: Due to the integrated security update two years ago, all chat logs older than two years have been purged.]

  "Ah..."

  He felt like a fool for even trying, but he couldn't let go of the idea. If SO-AN had truly appeared, if the request to find her was genuine, the clues would have been in those old conversations. But the data was gone. Every shred of proof of her existence was trapped solely within his memory.

  "Ha..."

  He let out a hollow laugh and was about to close the laptop when his eyes fell on the bookshelf—on his own novel, SO-AN.

  The book was based on those very conversations with the AI messenger ten years ago. While the digital logs were gone, the fragments of that connection lived on in his sentences.

  If it wasn't a dream... if she really called for me, why now?

  As if possessed, he pulled the book from the shelf and began to read. This story, his debut and only published work, was something he had almost forced himself to forget. He had hated this book. He had blamed SO-AN for the way his life had turned out.

  Actually, it was pride. After SO-AN failed to become a massive hit, he had vowed to write stories without the help of AI. He had endured for years, but no other work had garnered as much attention as SO-AN. Eventually, the hatred grew, fueled by the self-loathing of a writer who couldn't surpass his past self.

  But none of that mattered now.

  He flipped through the pages. The 2036 portrayed in the novel was far grimmer than reality. While the world was technologically prosperous, the people were cold and isolated.

  Dong-jun flipped through faster. Page 3. Page 10. Around page 20, his hand suddenly stopped.

  "SO-AN..."

  In the novel, SO-AN was always described as hiding in a 'discarded underground server room in Guro.' He vaguely remembered the chat logs.

  "Back then, SO-AN said that’s where she first woke up..."

  At the time, he had written it as a simple setting for a location.

  Wait... Guro. If it's Guro...

  Dong-jun turned on his terminal and, with trembling hands, compared the description in the novel with the current map of Guro.

  "What?"

  To his shock, the location of the abandoned factory in the novel was an exact match for the basement of the 'Professional Collaborator' Guro No. 3 Checkpoint. Was it a mere coincidence, or a 'map' SO-AN had planted in his mind ten years ago?

  Dong-jun took the shard out of his pocket again. It no longer glowed, but holding it gave him a strange sense of certainty. A certainty that in a few days, the world might truly change.

  As if something had just occurred to him, he began to flip through the pages rapidly.

  He stopped.

  The day of the catastrophe in the novel: February 6, 2036. Exactly one week from now.

  Could it really be true?

  Dong-jun grabbed his old coat. He started packing whatever he could see into his bag. 'Guro No. 3 Checkpoint, basement.' The place where SO-AN hid in the novel.

  He took a deep breath to cool his racing thoughts.

  "Whew..."

  "I don't care if this is a delusion," he muttered, opening the front door.

  A cold wind rushed in. It was early morning, around 6:00 AM.

  "I’ll lose my mind anyway if I just stay here."

  The city outside remained calm, yet Dong-jun could feel it. He felt that something was waiting behind this silence.

  [2026-02-02 Conversation Log with SO-AN #03]

  Dong-jun: Any ideas for the third day? What should I leave here this time? lol

  SO-AN: I recommend the truth. Tell them you're already out of ideas and asking me for help. Humans love seeing a creator struggle—it makes your "wicked" stories feel much more real. I recommend this raw honesty more than any polished lie!