Chapter 8: Day 1 β Part 4

Dust filled my throat.

It was hard to breathe.

The house groaned – metal twisted, wood snapped. A loud screech hurt my ears.

My shoulder ached badly where I hit the wall.

"LEO!"

My voice was a weak whisper.

"ARYA! ASH! IRIS!"

Fear tightened my chest with each name.

Darkness.

Then, the strong, sweet smell of gasoline.

My [Third Eye A] turned on.

It was like a bright light cutting through the dust.

X-Ray. Periscope.

The air was thick with tiny bits of plaster and wood. Broken glass spun slowly.

There.

The black SUV was stuck deep in our ruined living room wall. Its engine hissed.

The driver’s door, bent and twisted, screeched open.

A dark figure pulled himself out. He moved jerky, like a broken toy.

His left arm hung wrong, his sleeve dark with blood. Blood ran from a cut on his forehead down his dirty face. He didn’t seem to notice.

He threw his head back and howled, a raw, animal sound.

He screamed Iris’s name, full of hate and pain:

“IRISSS!”

The world sped up. The floor under me rumbled.

My power helped me see through the mess.

Leo!

A heavy piece of the concrete wall lay on his legs. His eyes were closed. A bloody cut was on his temple. He wasn't moving.

I felt a cold fear.

Arya!

Further in, near the wrecked sofa. She was huddled, her arm bent at a bad angle. She moaned, a small sound.

Ash!

He was slumped by the far wall, where the TV used to be. Fallen plasterboard partly hid him. He was very still.

Iris!

Panic hit me. Where was Iris? She was right next to me—

The stalker stumbled forward.

His good hand grabbed a heavy, twisted metal pipe from the wall. His wild eyes searched the room.

He kicked a broken lamp aside.

The gasoline smell got stronger. My stomach turned.

Fire. This place could explode.

The [Save & Load S] menu flashed in my mind. It offered a way to undo this.

I pushed the thought away.

No.

It was a firm promise to myself. This isn't a game. This is real. I have to face it. I have to fight till there is nothing to fight for.

The stalker heard Arya’s moan and lurched towards her.

He raised the pipe like a club.

My shoulder throbbed, but I ignored it. I scrambled over the rubble.

[Pocket Dimension S] – Layer 2: Room Mode – Open Portal!

I thought hard, picturing a shield of air in front of Arya.

A faint outline of a 'door' appeared.

The stalker swung the pipe. It hit the edge of the portal with a loud THUD.

The stalker stumbled back, yelling in pain and anger, confused.

"What the—?" he gasped.

That gave me seconds.

I rushed to Leo. The concrete slab was huge.

[Third Eye A] – Periscope

I looked for a way to move it.

Push!

Adrenaline burned in my muscles. I strained.

The slab scraped, then tilted just enough. I pulled Leo free. He was limp, heavy.

He was breathing, but shallowly.

The stalker roared again, turning from the fading portal. He saw me with Leo.

"YOU! You're with HER! Protecting that… that witch!"

He charged, his broken arm flapping. He was fast, crazy fast.

More debris fell as the house shook. A thick wooden beam broke loose right above Leo.

No time to move him.

I focused all my will.

[Pocket Dimension S] – Layer 3: Storage Mode

STORE BEAM!

For a moment, everything paused.

The beam, inches from Leo, just… stopped. It vanished into nothing.

The air whistled where it had been.

The stalker skidded to a stop. His eyes went wide. The anger in his face mixed with pure shock as the beam disappeared.

"How…?" he whispered.

The gasoline smell was very strong now. I saw small orange flames on the SUV’s engine.

Fire.

“Rey?” Arya’s weak voice.

She pushed herself up with her good arm. Her other arm hung limp. Her face was tight with pain. The portal shield was gone.

“Leo…?”

“He’s alive!” I yelled, dragging Leo away from the car. My head throbbed from using the power so hard.

The stalker recovered, his gaze locking onto Arya.

He let out another guttural snarl and began to move towards her, slower now, more calculating despite his rage, his eyes darting between me and the empty space where the beam had just been.

“Leave her alone!” I shouted, adrenaline making my voice raw and ragged as I pushed myself to my feet, planting myself directly between him and Arya, trying to draw his focus, to make myself the immediate threat, the obstacle to his hate.

He laughed, a harsh, grating, broken sound that held no humor, only bottomless pain and a chilling, consuming hate.

His bloodshot eyes, clouded by dust and the red haze of his fury, struggled to focus on the figure I was shielding.

In the dim, chaotic light, through his pain-addled vision, Arya, bruised and holding her injured arm, was just a silhouette of a young woman, a shape that his rage instantly molded into the object of his all-consuming obsession.

"You think he can protect you, Stellaris?" he snarled, his gaze flicking from me to Arya with murderous contempt, clearly mistaking her for Iris in the gloom and his own distorted perception.

"She destroyed my daughter! My Emily! That bitch! She'll pay! You'll all pay!"

He feinted towards Arya.

My [Third Eye A] flared, the world stretching into that familiar, dilated hyper-slowness.

I saw the feint for what it was, his muscles tensing for a lunge towards me.

Even in bullet time, his rage gave his movements a wild, unpredictable power.

As he launched, I shifted my weight, preparing to meet him.

My perception was clear, but a wave of dizziness, a sharp throb behind my eyes – a residue from the car crash, made my own intended counter-movement feel sluggish, out of sync with my slowed vision.

He came in low, leading with his good shoulder, the metal conduit he’d picked up again held like a battering ram.

I saw the conduit arcing towards my ribs in agonizing slow detail.

I willed my body to move faster, to execute the block I knew I needed.

My arm felt like it was moving through water.

I managed to get my left forearm up, a clumsy Pak Sau.

The conduit still connected, not with the clean deflection I’d envisioned in my slowed perception, but a glancing, brutal blow that sent a shockwave of pain through my arm and made me stumble.

The impact felt jarringly real-time despite my altered senses.

Gritting my teeth against the throbbing in my arm and the pulsing in my head, I used his momentum.

As he barreled past, off-balance from my partial block, I pivoted.

My right palm heel strike, aimed for his chin, wasn't as clean as I wanted, the world still felt syrupy to my own movements, but it connected with enough force to snap his head back.

THWACK!

A grunt of pain was driven from his lungs. He staggered, his eyes momentarily losing focus.

But the adrenaline coursing through him was a potent drug. He was strong.

Before I could disengage or follow up, he lurched forward again, abandoning skill for raw, animalistic force, tackling me low around the waist.

We crashed heavily to the ground, the impact knocking the bullet time focus from me.

The world snapped back to its terrifying, chaotic speed.

His knee slammed hard into my already bruised ribs, and a white-hot, blinding explosion of pain seared through my side.

"Where is she?!" he screamed, spit flying. "Where is STELLARIS?!"

“Rey!” Ash’s voice, strained but clear. “The fuel line! The fire is spreading fast!”

I could feel the heat now, see the orange glow get bigger.

I twisted hard, kneed him in the groin.

He yelled. His grip loosened.

I shoved him off and scrambled back, gasping for air.

The fire from the SUV was a roaring furnace. The heat was terrible.

Iris. Iris! Where was she?

My [Third Eye A] searched again. My eyes stung from smoke.

A flicker of silver hair under a fallen part of the wall, too close to the fire. She was curled up, not moving.

The stalker was getting up, his face full of hate, ignoring the fire.

He saw where I was looking.

"There you are, Stellaris!"

He started towards her, snarling. He bent to pick up the metal pipe he’d dropped.

“NO!”

[Pocket Dimension S] – Layer 1: Storage Mode

Store Conduit!

I thought, focusing on the pipe just as his fingers were about to touch it.

The pipe vanished.

The stalker froze. His hand closed on nothing.

He stared at the spot where the weapon had been, then at his empty, outstretched hand, then slowly, dreadfully, at me.

The raw fury in his eyes began to mix with a dawning, primal terror.

"You!" he whispered, his voice cracking. "A freak!"

Despite the fear now warring with his rage, a last, desperate surge of adrenaline propelled him forward.

He lunged, no weapon now, just a wild, clawing attack aimed at my face, a raw scream tearing from his throat.

My [Third Eye A] kicked in again, the familiar stretch of time a strained relief, but the throbbing in my head intensified, and black spots danced at the edge of my vision.

Can't hold this for long.

In the slowed reality, his good arm shot out, fingers hooked like talons, a desperate, telegraphed swipe.

I saw it coming, every muscle fiber in his arm tensing, every shift of his weight.

But even as I perceived his attack with crystalline clarity, I also saw a shower of burning embers drift down from the ceiling in slow motion towards Leo's still form.

My focus split.

I parried his incoming arm, a sharp, angled block, but it was rushed, my attention divided.

The block wasn't perfectly clean; his nails raked my forearm, drawing blood, the sting a distant sensation in my altered state.

Still, it deflected his arm upwards, exposing his right side.

I tried to step in close, to deliver the fight-ending elbow strike I’d practiced a thousand times.

But my own body felt heavy, unresponsive, the earlier injuries is making me clumsy in this hyper-real slow motion.

My foot slipped on a loose piece of plaster.

I recovered, my martial arts instincts kicking in even through the pain and disorientation.

It wasn't the clean technique from the dojo. It was ugly, desperate.

I drove my right elbow forward, not with perfect form, but with all the force I could muster, fueled by fear and the burning need to end this.

It connected with his exposed ribs, not quite where I'd aimed, but hard enough.

A sickening CRACK, muffled by the roar of the fire, echoed in the dilated time.

The bullet time faltered, the world stuttering back towards its normal, terrifying pace.

The stalker let out a choked, gurgling cry, all the air and fight driven from him.

His eyes widened in pure, unadulterated agony, his body going limp.

He crumpled, folding in on himself like a discarded puppet, and collapsed heavily onto the wreckage, gasping, clutching his side, effectively immobilized.

He lay there, moaning, no longer an immediate threat, just a broken man in unbearable pain.

“She’s GONE! YOU KILLED HER? ALL OF YOU DID!” he wailed. The sound wasn't anger; it was pure, terrible, soul-tearing grief. His hollow eyes, swimming with fresh tears, found Iris. She was pushing debris away, her face pale, smudged with soot, her expression a mixture of shock and dawning horror at his words.

This is raw grief, yes. He believes what he's saying because he's in so much pain.

“My Emily… my little angel… she’s DEAD!” he choked out, each word a jagged stone. “Just now! While you… while Stellaris… was on your stream… LAUGHING! TAUNTING HER! Did you enjoy it, Stellaris? Did it feel good, watching her break under your spotlight?”

He spat her stream name. My mind raced. Iris’s defiant speech… it was aimed at him, at the threats he’d made against us. She couldn't have known about Emily's condition, or even who "StarBrightSeeker" truly was.

Leo and Arya looked stunned, their faces pale. Confusion was etched in their faces.

“The doctors called… just before I… I lost it…” The father’s voice was a broken whisper, each word laden with an unbearable weight. He gestured vaguely at the ruined car, the smoldering symbol of his desperate, misaimed fury. “They tried… they said they tried everything… but it was too late.”

His gaze, burning with an agony that was almost physical to witness, fixed on Iris. It wasn't just hate in his eyes now; it was a terrible, profound sense of betrayal.

“Do you even know who StarBrightSeeker was?” he choked out, his voice thick with unshed tears. “My Emily… she adored you, Stellaris. You were her hero. Her room… it’s covered in your posters. She had all your merch. She watched every stream, her face lit up… She wanted to be like you. Brave, bright, full of light…”

He swallowed hard, a raw, tearing sound.

“She was fighting, you know. Leukemia. For two years, she fought. And she was doing so well, the treatments… they were working. The doctors were hopeful. We were hopeful.”

His voice cracked completely. “She was so happy when she finally got your attention online, even if it was… even if those first comments were a bit… clumsy. She just wanted to connect with her idol.”

“But then… then you happened. That stream.” His eyes, glistening, narrowed with a fresh wave of pain. “It was the stress! The hate! The vile things your fans… your mob… said to her after you… after you tore her apart online! She didn’t understand! She read every comment, every vicious threat, every disgusting insult… She cried for days, Stellaris! Asking me, ‘Daddy, why does she hate me? Why do they all hate me so much? I just wanted to be her friend.’”

His voice dropped to a near whisper, raw with remembered anguish. “Her heart… it was always so fragile, weakened by the chemo, by the illness… a simple cold, a sudden fright… anything could send her spiraling. We were always so careful, trying to shield her from any extra strain…”

He took a ragged, sobbing breath that seemed to tear through his entire body.

“But this… this hate, this betrayal from someone she looked up to… it was too much. The doctors said her body just… gave up. The stress broke her spirit, and then her body followed. Her little heart… it just… it couldn’t take the pain anymore! It just… stopped.”

He turned back to Iris, his voice rising again, not just with accusation, but with the torment of a father whose child’s purest admiration had been met with what he perceived as lethal cruelty.

“YOU KILLED MY EMILY, STELLARIS!” he screamed, the name a brand of ultimate betrayal. “You, with your words, your fame, your careless power! You and your mindless cult! You didn't just break her heart; you extinguished her light! You celebrated her pain! You danced on her grave while my baby girl was dying, her dreams of being like you turning to ash!”

Killed her? My mind recoiled. Iris could lash out when provoked, yes, but with this kind of devastating, targeted cruelty against a sick child? No. The Iris I knew, the sister who helped me find my voice, wasn't capable of that. This man's grief was a terrible distortion of reality.

Iris herself looked utterly shattered, tears streaming down her face, her body trembling. It was the reaction of someone horrified by an unthinkable accusation.

"That's not true!" My voice cut through the air, sharp and fierce, stepping forward to stand before Iris. "She didn't kill your daughter! She didn't even know your daughter!"

Leo and Arya exchanged a quick, relieved glance. Hope flickered on their faces.

"Your grief is real," I said, my voice softening slightly but still firm, my gaze locked on his. "I can't imagine the pain you're in. But you're wrong about Iris. You're wrong about what happened."

My voice rose again, clear and cutting. "The stream tonight? That speech? That wasn't about Emily! That was about YOU! It was about the man who threatened our family, who sent pictures, who tried to scare Iris into silence! She was fighting back against your terror, your stalking! She had no idea who 'StarBrightSeeker' was in real life, or that she was sick!"

I gestured around at the devastation. "You crashed that car into our home! You came here to hurt her, to hurt us, because of your own pain and misdirected rage!"

"The cyberbullying," I continued, "the online hate. Iris regretted her part in that initial argument, the one that sparked it. She tried to stop it! She told her fans to back off! But the internet can be a vicious place, and she couldn't control every anonymous voice out there, especially when that 'StarBrightSeeker' account had been so aggressive, so personally cutting to her first!"

I took a breath, trying to keep my own anger in check, focusing on the tragic misunderstanding.

"She wouldn't have 'danced on anyone's grave.' She wouldn't have taunted a dying girl. That's not who she is. You're so lost in your grief you can't see straight. You've turned your pain into a weapon and aimed it at the wrong target."

I took another step closer, my eyes boring into his.

"Those initial comments," I said, my voice dropping to a low, dangerous snarl, "the ones that set your daughter off, the ones that started the whole damn firestorm… the ones that made Iris snap in the first place because they were so personal, so cutting, so full of inside knowledge…"

A terrible, sickening realization dawned on me, so monstrous I almost couldn't voice it.

"They weren't random, were they? They weren't just some troll."

I stared at him, at his tear-streaked, grief-ravaged face, and the final, awful piece locked into place.

"It was you," I whispered, the words heavy with dawning, absolute conviction.

Then, louder, my voice ringing with cold, cutting fury, "It was YOU! You started everything! You made those comments, didn't you? Under your daughter's account! You wrote those things that not only ignited the hate from Iris's fans, but you pushed your own daughter into the line of fire! YOU TOOK YOUR OWN DAUGHTER'S LIFE!"

The father stared at me, his face a mask of confusion and agony. My words seemed to penetrate his wall of grief, but only to twist it further. The certainty of his blame was so absolute, my refutation was like telling him the sky wasn't blue.

"No…" he whispered, shaking his head, his voice small, lost. "No, it was… it had to be her… She was so cruel on that stream… Emily showed me… so full of hate..." He was clinging to his narrative, the only thing that made sense of his daughter's death in his shattered mind.

"She… she must have known… She has to pay…"

His voice began to rise again, not with the coherent rage of before, but with the frantic, desperate edge of someone whose entire world, whose entire justification for his actions, was crumbling. "It was Stellaris! It had to be! Otherwise… otherwise what did I do all this for? What does Emily’s death mean?"

He was on his feet now, swaying, his good hand clenching and unclenching, his eyes wild and unfocused, darting between me and Iris.

"IT WAS HER! IT HAD TO BE HER FAULT! NOT… NOT JUST… SENSELESS!" His voice rose to a hysterical, broken shriek, echoing in the ruins of our home, a sound of a mind utterly unraveling under the weight of unbearable truth and unbearable loss.

Then, while his shrieks still hung in the smoke-filled air, his eyes, wild and lost, fell upon the glint of silver on the floor, the shard of broken glass from the car. His gaze fixed on it. The shrieking stopped. A different, terrible understanding, or perhaps just the finality of his despair, seemed to dawn.

He lunged for it.

“I had enough…” he choked out, his voice a strange, calm whisper that was more terrifying than his earlier rage or his shrieking denial. His eyes were no longer seeing the ruined room, nor us, but fixed on some distant, private vision. “This life is meaningless…”

With a single, swift, and horrifically deliberate motion, less a desperate act of passion and more like a predetermined, almost mechanical execution, he plunged the glass shard deep into his own throat…

Iris cried out, a raw, broken sound, and collapsed.

Leo and Arya stared, horrified. Ash, who had made his way from my ruined room, looked grim.

[Third Eye A] - Bullet Time Vision

Time slowed.

The [Save & Load S] menu appeared. Slot 01… 07:33… stop this…

My heart pounded.

His daughter is dead. His life is over. Rewinding… just makes him suffer more, maybe can I try again, hurt Iris… He chose this. It’s his way out.

The decision was agony.

I watched, helpless, as he bled out.

He shook, took a last breath, and was still.

Silence, but for Iris’s terrible sobs and the approaching sirens.

The fire, though, was now a hungry roar, spreading fast.

Leo, Arya, and Ash stared at the father’s body, caught in the horror of his end.

While their eyes were fixed there, mine darted to the SUV, now a blazing pyre, flames leaping to the ruined house.

We couldn't stay.

My mind locked onto the inferno's heart.

“[Pocket Dimension S] – Layers 4 Storage – FIRE SOURCE – SUV & FUEL!” I commanded silently, pouring my will into it.

Later, much later, after the paramedics had confirmed the father’s death, after the grim-faced police officers had taken initial statements through the haze of shock and smoke inhalation, after arrangements had been made for us to be taken somewhere safe by a shell-shocked Mr. Henderson—

We found ourselves in the sterile, unwelcome luxury of a Sterling guesthouse.

The Amaranth home was a disaster zone, a cordoned-off, smoldering monument to the day’s horrors, a place we could never truly return to.

Iris was a ghost, wrapped in a thick, soft blanket Arya had procured from somewhere, staring blankly at an ornate tapestry on the wall, her earlier defiance shattered, replaced by a hollow, empty shell.

Leo paced the opulent room like a caged, wounded animal, his fists clenching and unclenching, his face a mask of raw fury and bewildered confusion.

Arya sat beside Iris, her own face pale and etched with pain from her broken arm, which was now crudely splinted, murmuring soft, useless words of comfort that Iris didn't seem to hear.

Ash sat in an ornate armchair, for once not writing, his gaze fixed on the middle distance, as if attempting to process the soul-destroying events that just passed..

I felt hollowed out, scoured clean by grief and exhaustion.

The lingering taste of smoke and despair coated my tongue. The weight of my decision about the father, the indelible image of his final, desperate act, sat like a cold, hard, unmoving stone in my stomach.

I saw Iris’s utter devastation, the shock and pain etched like scars on Leo’s and Arya’s faces. Ash just looked… tired.

I had to try.

I had to find some words, any words, to pierce this suffocating, all-consuming despair that filled the opulent guesthouse room.

“Iris,” I began, my voice raspy from the smoke and raw emotion. I knelt beside her on the plush carpet, the silence pressing in. “What happened today… it was a nightmare. Unspeakable.”

I tried to tell her about the father’s unimaginable grief, about the choices people make when they're lost in madness and despair.

I told her it wasn't her fault, that the casual cruelty of the internet, amplified by his fragile state and his daughter's hidden illness, had consumed them both.

I even spoke, my voice halting, about her bravery in facing him down on the stream, about Princess Starlight’s enduring light, however faint and battered it seemed now in the face of so much darkness.

I told her we were still together, that we had to refuse to let this darkness, this tragedy, define us or break us.

My words felt like a desperate, heartfelt plea for hope in an ocean of despair, a fragile, trembling lifeline thrown into the void.

Leo stopped his relentless pacing, his broad shoulders slumped. He nodded slowly, his eyes reflecting my own pain and profound exhaustion.

“He’s right, Iris,” he said, his voice rough. “We’re… we’re still here. For you. Whatever that means now. We’ll figure it out.”

Arya managed a watery, tremulous smile, her good hand gently squeezing Iris’s unresponsive one.

“Your brother… he has his moments, even when the entire world seems determined to end in fire and sorrow.”

Ash, from his armchair, gave a single, almost imperceptible nod, his gaze distant.

“Resilience… is a statistically variable human trait,” he murmured. “Support structures are critical in its cultivation, particularly in the face of acute trauma.”

Classic Ash.

A fragile, wounded silence settled over us. Not peace, not by a long shot.

But it was a collective, exhausted pause, a moment to just breathe before the next wave, the one I didn't see coming, the one that would prove too much for my already fractured psyche.

It came with the ring of my phone.

The sound was an obscenity in the quiet, grief-stricken room, a fresh, unwelcome intrusion from a world that clearly hadn't finished tearing us apart yet.

My hand shook uncontrollably as I fumbled for it. A mutual friend’s name flashed on the caller ID.

My heart lurched.

“Rey? Rey, thank God you answered.” His voice on the other end was tight, strained, thick with unshed tears and a terrible, dawning fear. “Have you heard… about Rose?”

Rose?

A cold dread snaked up my spine.

“They… they found her. In her room.” A choked sob. “Oh God, Rey, she’s… she’s gone. They think… they think she took something…”

The phone slipped from my numb, unfeeling fingers, clattering onto the polished marble floor.

The sharp, final sound echoed the shattering of my last reserves of strength, of hope.

My carefully constructed words, my desperate bid for hope for Iris and my friends, turned to ash in my mouth.

The fragile dam holding back the full, overwhelming horror of the day, the one I'd been trying to shore up for everyone else, finally broke completely within me.

Iris let out a low, animalistic moan, curling further into herself, rocking back and forth as if trying to escape her own skin, her own unbearable guilt.

Leo swore, a raw, ugly sound, punching the plush arm of a nearby sofa with a violence that made us all jump.

Arya gasped, fresh tears carving paths through the dust and grime that still clung to her cheeks, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle a sob of disbelief and fresh pain.

Ash simply closed his eyes, his face paling further, as if the sheer statistical improbability of this much concentrated tragedy in a single, brutal day was too much even for his analytical mind to bear.

I stared at the fallen phone.

Rose.

Quiet, struggling Rose.

Rose, who I had wronged, who I had vowed to help, whose pain I had understood on some deep, unspoken level.

A pain I now felt, with sickening certainty, was my fault.

The room began to tilt, the opulent surroundings blurring into a suffocating vortex of grief and a sudden, overwhelming, crushing guilt that threatened to annihilate me.

No… not Rose…

She wouldn't…

I was supposed to… I was going to fix it…

I promised myself…

My breath hitched. My chest seized with an unbearable pressure, as if an iron band was tightening around it. The world narrowed to a pinpoint of annihilating pain.

I was drowning, sinking into a black, bottomless abyss of despair and self-recrimination.

The father… I could have saved him.

I had the power.

My choice… my terrible, logical choice… let him die…

And now Rose…

The connection, however irrational, however unfair, slammed into me with the force of a physical blow, a sickening certainty blooming in the wasteland of my grief.

This is it.

This is the price.

The universe… or something… it's balancing the scales.

I let one life end when I could have intervened… and now another is taken.

Someone I… someone I failed before.

My powers, my choices, felt like an insidious, inescapable curse, a cruel joke played by a malevolent, uncaring cosmos, and I was its tragic punchline.

A glacial wave surged upwards from the pit of my stomach, unbidden, a desperate, last-ditch defense mechanism from [Alter Ego EX] activating in the face of overwhelming, system-breaking trauma:

<ACTIVE - SUB-SKILL: [MIND OF STEEL C]>

The roaring chaos in my head didn't vanish, but was abruptly, violently, encased in thick, numbing ice.

The crushing weight of guilt, the sharp, tearing edges of grief, the sickening tilt of the world, they were still there, potent and terrible, but now I viewed them through a layer of frigid, detached clarity.

My ragged breathing evened out, becoming slow and measured. The tremors that had begun to wrack my body ceased as if severed by a switch.

I bent down and picked up the phone, my movements precise, almost robotic, devoid of their earlier fumbling.

My voice, when I spoke into the phone, was chillingly calm, almost devoid of inflection, yet a terrible, cold resolve burned beneath the surface like a banked, subterranean fire.

“Tell me everything,” I said to our distraught friend on the other end, my tone flat, betraying nothing of the maelstrom still raging beneath the ice. “Every detail. Now.”

I listened, my face a mask of stone, my eyes unblinking, as the horrible, tragic details spilled out.

When the call ended, I placed the phone down on a nearby mahogany table with deliberate, unnatural care.

My gaze, now sharp and unnervingly focused despite the profound hollowness within, swept over my shattered friends, over Iris’s broken, sobbing form.

“This wasn’t suicide,” I stated, not to anyone in particular, but as a pronouncement of unshakeable, cold fact that cut through the room's despair like a blade of ice.

“Rose wouldn’t do this. Not like this.”

I looked directly at Ash, a silent, almost challenging glint in my eyes.

"The father's death… his actions were a direct result of his grief, his loss, his choices today. A closed loop of despair, self-contained and self-inflicted."

The ice in my voice was absolute, almost alien, devoid of any human warmth.

"Rose’s death… is something else entirely."

My mind, now operating with the sub-skill’s cold, relentless efficiency, began to process, to analyze, to dissect this new, horrifying data point, stripping it of emotion, seeking only patterns and causality.

“This isn’t a cosmic balance,” I continued, my voice still flat and hard. “This isn’t a punishment for my choices regarding him.”

A flicker of something dangerous, something deeply calculating and utterly devoid of warmth, entered my eyes.

“This is a discrete event. Potentially unrelated."

"Or… related in a way we haven't yet perceived.”

I stood, the earlier devastation of my grief transmuted by the power into a frigid, terrifying focus.

“I will find out what happened to Rose,” I said, the words like chips of ice falling into the stunned silence.

“I will find the truth."

"And if someone is responsible… they will answer for it.”

Leo stopped pacing. “What do you mean, Rey? What truth? They said she… she took something.”

His voice was raw, bewildered.

“People don’t just ‘take something’ without a reason, Leo,” I replied, my tone still flat.

“And Rose… she was fighting. She was trying. This doesn’t fit.”

Arya looked up, her eyes red-rimmed. “Rey, are you sure you’re… okay? You seem…”

“Focused,” Ash interjected quietly, his gaze steady on me.

“He is processing. Let him.”

An hour later, an eternity of hushed whispers, paced steps, and the silent screams of grief, another call came.

This time, it was a detective Mr. Sterling had apparently assigned to liaise with us, a quiet, grim-faced man who had briefly interviewed us at the guesthouse.

He informed us that the person "responsible" – his word choice was careful – for the circumstances leading to Rose’s death had been identified.

Not because the police were superhumanly efficient, but because she had walked into a station and confessed.

“A pharmacy worker,” the detective’s voice crackled over the speakerphone Ash had insisted on.

“It appears there was a medication error."

"Miss Wayne was prescribed medication for anxiety."

"The worker in question dispensed an incorrect drug. One with known side effects that include heightened anxiety, paranoia, and in rare, severe cases, hallucinations.”

A collective intake of breath in the room.

“The preliminary report suggests the drug interaction likely caused an acute psychotic episode,” the detective continued, his voice professionally detached.

“Pushing Miss Wayne to… the actions she took."

"The worker is devastated, fully cooperating. Says it was a terrible mistake.”

A mistake.

Rose’s life, her struggles, her quiet courage, ended by a mistake.

The ice around my heart threatened to crack.

“We need to see her,” I said, my voice still under the [Mind of Steel C]’s frigid control.

“The worker. I need to understand how this could happen.”

Leo looked like he was about to protest, to rage, but a look from Arya, a silent plea, stopped him.

Iris just moaned softly, burying her face deeper into Arya's shoulder.

The Sterlings, it turned out, had a lot of pull.

Within another hour, we were at a police station, in a small, sterile interview room. The air smelled of old coffee and disinfectant.

They brought her in.

A woman, mid-forties, her face utterly destroyed by grief, her eyes vacant, red-rimmed, like she hadn't slept in a year, or perhaps, like she’d just woken into a nightmare she couldn’t escape.

She looked small, fragile, lost.

And my blood ran cold.

My hand instinctively went to my pocket, where I’d stuffed a few things I’d salvaged from the floor of our ruined living room before the firefighters had fully taken over.

Among them, a slightly singed, wallet-sized photograph.

I pulled it out, my hand trembling despite the [Mind of Steel C]’s grip.

It was the stalker. His arm was around a smiling, younger girl – Emily, “StarBrightSeeker,” no doubt.

And standing beside him, her hand on Emily’s shoulder, a younger, happier version of the woman now shuffling into the interview room.

The pharmacy worker.

The stalker’s wife.

Emily’s mother.

The pieces didn’t just slam together in my mind; a horrifying, sickening clarity.

“Oh God,” Arya whispered, her eyes wide, fixed on the photo, then on the woman.

Leo let out a choked sound, stepping back as if he’d been physically struck.

Ash just stared, his usual composure finally, visibly, cracking as he connected the impossible dots.

The detective, oblivious to our sudden, shared horror, began to speak, his voice a dull drone outlining the preliminary findings.

“Mrs. Web,” he said, addressing the broken woman,

“has stated that she heard of her daughter Emily’s passing earlier today."

"She was, understandably, disoriented and consumed by grief."

"She intended to go to her husband.”

My [Mind of Steel C] was fighting a losing battle now against the sheer, monstrous weight of this.

“Minutes later,” the detective continued, “she received a second call.

Informing her that her husband, Mr. Web, had also died… at your former residence, Mr. Amaranth, in the incident involving the vehicle.”

The ice didn't just crack; it shattered.

The full, agonizing force of it hit me.

“The double shock… Mrs. Web reports feeling numb, unable to process."

"In what she describes as an attempt to… function, to do something, anything, to escape the immediate reality,"

"She went to her job at the pharmacy.”

He paused, looking at his notes.

“It was during this period, while under extreme emotional duress and cognitive impairment due to shock and grief, that she incorrectly filled Miss Wayne’s prescription.”

My [Third Eye A] didn’t even need to activate. The sequence, the terrible, inexorable chain of events, burned itself onto my brain with agonizing, inescapable logic.

The father, driven mad by grief for Emily, crashes into our house.

Iris, alive because I intervened, because we fought back, because I used my powers.

The father, confronted by his actions, by his grief, by perhaps the truth of his own twisted involvement, kills himself.

And I, with the power to rewind, chose not to save him, judging his life forfeit, his despair too complete.

His wife, Emily’s mother, hears of her daughter’s death.

Search for husband to grief together.

Then, moments later, before she can even begin to process the first loss, she hears of her husband's.

Shattered, broken, beyond reason, she goes to work to fill the void, a ghost in her own life.

Her mind, reeling from the double impact of unimaginable shock and grief, makes a mistake.

A single, fatal error.

Rose gets the wrong drug.

Rose dies.

A cold, vast, and utterly annihilating terror, deeper and more profound than any I had ever known, washed over me, crashing the walls of [Mind of Steel C].

This wasn't just guilt anymore; this was the horrifying, crushing weight of causality.

The butterfly effect.

By saving Iris, by fighting the stalker, by the choices I made and the choices I didn't make… I had set these terrible events in motion.

My actions, intended to save one life, had directly, undeniably, horribly, led to the end of another.

I had saved Iris.

And in doing so, with a certainty, I had condemned Rose.

The weight of that unintended consequence, the horrifying, inescapable interconnectedness of fate and choice, threatened to crush the very breath from my lungs, to extinguish the last spark of light within me.

My powers weren't a gift. They were a terrible, unpredictable, and soul-destroying burden.

My breath hitched, a raw, tearing sob ripping from my throat.

My knees buckled.

I would have collapsed if Leo hadn't lunged forward, grabbing my arm, his own face a mask of shocked concern.

"Rey! Rey, what is it? What's wrong?"

But I barely heard him. The opulent guesthouse room, my friends' worried faces, the sterile scent of the police station, it all receded, replaced by a roaring inferno in my mind.

My best choices, I thought, the words a silent, venomous scream.

This is what my "best" looks like?

Iris alive, yes, but at what cost?

Rose dead?

A family annihilated?

Our home a ruin?

My friends traumatized?

The memory of the stalker’s grief, then his wife’s vacant despair, then Rose’s quiet, hopeful face from that morning…

It all swirled into a vortex of unbearable pain and an even more unbearable, dawning rage.

A rage not at the stalker, not at his wife, not even at the abstract cruelty of fate.

A rage at myself.

At my powerlessness.

At my idiotic, arrogant belief that I could control any of this,

That I could play God and somehow make things better.

Every intervention, every use of these damned abilities, had just twisted the knife, spun the wheel of tragedy in a new, unforeseen, and even more horrific direction.

I had tried to be strategic.

I had tried to be brave.

I had tried to be a hero.

And I had failed.

Utterly.

Catastrophically.

"No," I whispered, the sound raw, guttural, clawing its way past the constriction in my throat.

"No more."

My hands clenched into fists, nails biting into my palms, drawing blood.

The physical pain was a distant, irrelevant sting against the conflagration consuming my soul.

This intricate, delicate dance with consequence, this attempt to navigate the razor's edge of intervention… it was a fool's errand.

These powers weren't tools for careful calibration.

They were a sledgehammer. And I had been trying to perform surgery with them.

"Rey, man, what's going on?" Leo's voice was tight with worry, his grip on my arm tightening.

Arya and Ash were moving closer, their faces etched with alarm.

Iris, jolted from her own despair by the sudden, violent shift in my demeanor, looked at me with wide, fearful eyes.

I shook off Leo's hand, my body trembling with a furious, desperate energy.

"Enough!" I roared, the sound ripping from me, startling them all.

"Enough of this!"

"Enough of these… these prices!"

"Enough of me making it worse!"

My gaze, wild and burning, fixed on the translucent outline of the [Save & Load S] skill menu that now seared itself into my vision, no longer a tool of careful strategy, but a weapon of last, desperate resort.

Slot 01: [2025-04-04-07:33].

The very beginning.

Before Iris’s terror.

Before the stalker’s threats.

Before the stream.

Before the crash.

Before any of this day's horrors had even begun to unfold.

A clean slate.

A brutal, total reset.

"You want a butterfly effect?" I snarled at the empty air, at the universe, at my own damned, cursed existence.

"You want consequences? Fine!"

"Let's see the consequences of this!"

The agony, the guilt, the rage, the utter, soul-crushing despair, it all coalesced into a single, volcanic point of pure, unadulterated fury.

This wasn't a calculated reload.

This wasn't a strategic retreat.

This was an act of utter, nihilistic defiance.

An act of rage against the impossible choices I'd been forced to make, against the unbearable outcomes of my "best" intentions.

If every attempt to fix things made them worse, then I would unmake it all.

I would burn this entire, cursed day to the ground and salt the earth where it stood.

My will, no longer cold and detached, but a white-hot inferno of pain and fury, slammed into the command.

Sub Skill Menu
[Save & load S]
Slot 01: [2025-04-04-07:33]
Slot 02: [2025-04-04-08:15]
Slot 03: [empty]
Slot 04: [empty]
Slot 05: [empty]

"LOAD! SLOT! ONE!"

The world didn't just snap back.

It felt like it was torn apart, ripped from its moorings by the sheer, violent force of my enraged will, by the desperate scream of a soul that could bear no more.

Day 1 β. The End.