Even with my eyes closed, there was no darkness in this place. White stretched endlessly in every direction. But eventually, even nothingness seemed to take shape. At least, I could see myself again, standing in the endless white.

  I looked down at my hands, surprised to actually see them. Ten fingers. None of them broken. I clenched my fists, moved my arms in circles, rolled my shoulders. Nothing. No pain, no wounds.

  I must be dead.

  It made sense, considering the last thing I saw on Earth was a big-ass sword jutting out of my chest. Right where my heart had been.

  Yeah, that was the most logical conclusion.

  I’m dead.

  But even if that was true, I had to be somewhere. Without a point of reference, there was no sense of space... just the crushing emptiness of a place that might be one dimension, or many.

  I felt trapped. Like a prisoner.

  I stared into the distance for what seemed like an eternity. And then, something appeared. As if it hadn’t been there a moment ago. As if my thoughts alone had conjured it into existence. I walked a thousand, ten thousand steps, until the blurry shape took form… shelves? Yeah, bookshelves. And someone was sitting there.

  A person.

  A man.

  At least, that’s what he looked like. He sat at an overflowing oak desk, flipping through the pages of an open book. Behind him, a semi-circle of these towering bookshelves, their dark, polished wood adding an eerie elegance to the scene. All of it stood in the middle of nowhere, suspended in the endless white, and nothing in this strange place cast a shadow.

  What was he doing here? Other than reading, I mean.

  Maybe days passed before I reached him. Hard to tell... time loses meaning when there’s no sense of space. Yet, however long it took, the strange bookworm never once looked up. His movements were mechanical. A perfect rhythm. An endless loop. Turn a page. Exhale smoke. Turn another. The scene reminded me of the Lofi Girl, forever hunched over her notes, writing to endless chill beats. Except here, there was no music. Just the quiet rustle of turning pages.

  And then… he stopped.

  The cigarette rested between his fingers. His head lifted. And slowly (far too slowly) his eyes turned toward me.

  I stood before his desk like a nervous patient at a doctor’s office. Except way more anxious. And definitely without an appointment.

  He slid a simple yet elegant bookmark into place and closed the book. I tried to see the cover, but his perfectly manicured hand rested over the title.

  "When does a story begin to be interesting?" he asked.

  I gave no answer.

  Even if I had one, no sound would have left my throat. I could only stare at his face. So perfectly symmetrical. Aged, yet untouched by flaw, as if he had only ever grown but never decayed. And then, there were his eyes.

  Those impossible, cybernetic eyes.

  I had never seen anything like them. They pulled me in, a whirlpool of thoughts where I was already drowning. The irises... they weren’t just artificial. They were... alive? A mechanism in constant motion. A puzzle that never stopped shifting. Like an infinite Tetris game, but with glowing gold tiles that slotted into place, only to shift into a new pattern the next moment.

  A system without rest. Without errors. Without escape.

  "A story becomes interesting," he continued, "the moment it confronts us with a mystery. When we don’t understand something, we begin to wonder."

  I remained silent. Trapped in his gaze.

  His dark hair neatly combed to the side. If I had to guess his age, I’d say mid-thirties. Young and strong, yet with the weariness of experience. A certain cynicism lingered in his expression. He wore a tailored black suit, a crisp white shirt, a black silk tie.

  "Where am I?" I asked. Though, honestly, I was even more interested in who he was. Somehow, I had the feeling both questions were connected.

  "Conversely, let me ask you this," he said. "When does a story begin to bore us?"

  I frowned.

  "It’s when we ask questions... and receive answers. Because then, there is nothing left to wonder about. And mystery is what keeps us alive."

  "Yeah, sure. And do you know when a mystery stops being interesting?" I countered, clearing my throat. "When it becomes unsolvable. Because that’s when people give up."

  The mysterious bookworm stared at me motionlessly for a while.

  "Believe me," I continued, "I’ve had enough riddles in the last twenty-four hours to last a lifetime. I’d be grateful for a single straight answer. Where am I?"

  He nodded. "Alright, I can work with that. See, I’m not the kind of guy who insists on keeping things vague. And I don’t particularly enjoy secrecy. Not at all. But let’s just say… I have my own rules to follow. That said, I can tell you this: you didn’t end up here by accident. My superiors have a problem. A problem that involves you… and your kind: the Abysses."

  "The Abysses," I repeated blankly. "Of course. They’re gates to other worlds. Whichever world you belong to, those monsters have to be just as much of a nightmare for you as they are for us."

  He smirked. "The monsters? Oh, they’re hardly the issue. But the connection to other worlds? That’s something my superiors aren’t too fond of. It’s not that they value exclusion… No, no, that’s not it. But let’s just say, they’re afraid."

  I narrowed my eyes. "Afraid of what?"

  The enigmatic reader glanced down at the book beneath his hand. For a while, he played with the tip of his tongue against a back molar, as if there was something stuck there, something that wouldn’t let him rest. Then he sucked air sharply through his teeth.

  "I take that back. Maybe they do value exclusion. Let’s just say, in the end, it amounts to the same thing. The Abysses must be closed—before it’s too late. Tell me, have you ever wondered why it’s never fluffy little bunnies coming out of those rifts? Why is it always hideous nightmares crawling through?"

  "Actually, yeah, I have," I admitted. "I figured they’re just portals to hell. And hell doesn’t have cute bunnies. Only horrors."

  "Ah, I see. You’re thinking in the right direction. But I can tell you this much... it’s not hell." His lips curled slightly, as if he found something amusing. "Because hell…hell is a damn playground compared to the horrors lurking in the Void. Oops. Said too much. Anyway, the reason why only monsters emerge from the Abysses? Simple."

  He leaned in slightly, his voice lower now.

  "Someone. Royally. Screwed. Up. And we’re here to fix it. You see, every mistake can be corrected. Every single one. That’s the beauty of our realities: they can be rewritten. Back in the day, people used correction fluid. Just a little swipe over the word, a line through the sentence, and boom... problem solved. Today? You pick the right person, give them immeasurable power, and task them with restoring the world to its intended state. The price? No one cares. Apparently, neither do you, Takuya."

  My eyes widened. My heart pounded (It's beating again!).

  But the shock wasn’t from him knowing my name (I had almost expected that). No, the real surprise was that I had no idea what he was referring to.

  And just like he read his books, he read me.

  "You did say it yourself, didn’t you?" His voice was calm, almost casual. "You’d sell your soul for strength and power."

  Silence.

  Deafening silence.

  Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  Only my heartbeat echoed inside me.

  And then, I remembered.

  The morning of my seventeenth birthday.

  Yumi had made me a wonderful breakfast. I had thrown it up immediately. From nerves. From sheer anxiety over another hellish school day. Because I was a pathetic loser.

  I had sworn I would pay any price to become powerful. To take revenge on the ones who tormented me.

  I would have given my soul for it.

  And then, there had been that strange thunderclap... on a perfectly clear blue day.

  "Writers have never been sane, you know that?"

  I grimaced. "I don’t know anything."

  "Then let me put it plainly. Do you want to die? I mean, really die. Gone forever. No sight, no smell, no taste, no sound. No thoughts, no words. Kind of like this place, except instead of white, everything is just… black."

  I opened my mouth. Closed it again. Didn’t want to say the wrong thing.

  Finally, I asked: "What’s the alternative?"

  "Now that," he said, a smirk playing on his lips, "is the right question. And I was hoping you wouldn’t ask it." He leaned forward slightly. "See, when you interrupted the ritual, you really messed things up. You did something… incredibly dangerous. Even if you had good intentions. Now the only question is: Do you want a chance to fix it?"

  "Fix what?" I asked, my voice raw.

  "All of it."

  "All of it?"

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Can’t tell you more. You’ll have to see for yourself. After all… a picture is worth a thousand words."

  I met his serious gaze, holding my ground against those shifting, cybernetic eyes.

  Where did he come from? What kind of reality did he belong to? Was he even real, or was I just dreaming him into existence?

  There was something incredibly elusive about him, something I still can’t explain. His cybernetic eyes were always in motion, his form too perfect. As if he were constantly rearranging himself. He felt fluid, ever-changing, not just in a physical way but on a deeper, almost metaphysical level. Like an idea that hadn’t yet decided what it wanted to be.

  He existed in a dimensionless realm of pure white, a reality that… didn’t feel real. He could be flesh and blood. Or an illusion. A mirage, ready to vanish like the swirling smoke from his cigarette, fading the moment I blinked.

  A thought took shape in my mind.

  A word. A name?

  Chimeric.

  Like a chimera of foreign fragments, impossible to grasp. A being that refused any fixed form.

  The Chimeric Man.

  He looked at me. As if he knew exactly what I had just thought. Then, without breaking eye contact, he flicked the ash from his cigarette.

  "Names are nothing but smoke and sound," he said.

  I swallowed down my unease.

  For a while, neither of us spoke. Then, I noticed something strange. The ashtray was full, yet the cigarette itself hadn’t burned down at all since I arrived. It just… kept burning. Eternal.

  "You won’t live like a mortal, but you won’t be dead either," he continued. "If you accept our offer, you’ll belong, by contract, to my superiors. And then, you’ll have only one mission: find the five Dimensional Keys and seal the Abysses. Once and for all."

  A circle of silence spread between us.

  "What contract?" I finally asked.

  He tilted his head slightly, the corner of his mouth curling into something that wasn’t quite a smile.

  "Oh, it should be arriving soon. Needs to be written first."

  I pursed my lips and nodded. I had no clue what the hell he was talking about. The enigmatic bookworm. The Chimeric Man. He kept studying me. It made me insanely nervous. His eyes smiled, but his expression held only politeness. No real warmth.

  "Ah, what am I saying," he sighed. "The ones upstairs are slow as hell. Bureaucracy and all that. It’ll probably take a while. Make yourself comfortable in the meantime."

  Then, just like that, he was back in his book.

  I watched him for a long while. He didn’t seem to read particularly fast... pretty average, if you asked me. Then again, I had no idea how time even worked here.

  God.

  So many questions burned on my tongue.

  He plucked the cigarette from the ashtray, took two, three slow drags, inhaling deeply before exhaling a thin stream of smoke. He smacked his lips in satisfaction and kept reading.

  "What’s that book about?" I asked.

  "A story," he said.

  "Obviously. Every book contains a story. But what’s this one about?"

  "You’re thinking about it the wrong way," he said, pressing his index finger to the last line he had read. "You can’t ask about one specific story. Stories are everywhere. Without stories, there would be only nothingness. And even that would be a story, if nothingness could exist. Because the moment something exists, it begins to be. And anything that is… tells you something."

  He looked at me, his golden mechanical eyes shifting like a ceaseless puzzle.

  "Everything is a story. Everything is true, and everything is a lie."

  Once again, I saw the Chimeric Man from a different perspective. It was clear to me now that he was a fragment of a greater reality—a reality beyond our reach. He spoke in riddles because he himself was part of one. It was obvious that he knew more about the world than I did… just a 17-year-old nerd, failing at school because I hated it, drowning in video games, binging anime, and old samurai moveis. The world wasn’t just cruel to me. It was boring as fuck. Reality was plain and simple. Or so I had thought. But ever since the Abysses appeared, nothing seemed impossible anymore. The world had cracked open, and with it, the proof (not just the hope, but actual proof!) that reality was far more than what the eye could see.

  That another layer existed.

  And apparently, another one.

  My gaze drifted to the rows of bookshelves behind him. Three things stood out immediately: First, they were all the same height. Second, some were massive tomes, while others were as thin as notebooks. Third, not a single one had a title. No symbols, no numbers.

  "What are those books behind you?" I asked.

  "Other lives. Other stories," he murmured. "Everything that exists must first be imagined. Have you ever thought about that?"

  He exhaled slowly.

  "I wonder… is that a terrifying thought? Or the most beautiful thing of all? You can be forgotten... But you can never be unthought."

  I shook my head, confused. Unsettled.

  "You… live here?"

  "Since aeons."

  "And you… just read?"

  "I keep the worlds running."

  "You mean, you write the stories of this world? Of all worlds?"

  He gave a dry chuckle.

  "I can’t write at all," he said simply. "Give me a pen and paper, and I wouldn’t be able to put a single letter down. Not in any writing system from any universe I know. No. I can only read stories. But that, I must admit, I do quite well. And I remember them. I remember everything. Every. Single. Word."

  I had no idea what to say.

  Was he messing with me?

  What part of this strange being was real, and what was just smoke and mirrors?

  I didn’t know why I remembered it now, but the first time I had stepped into this place, a voice had whispered to me. A soft voice had welcomed me into the Void. But it hadn’t been his voice. No, it had been the soft voice of a… girl. The word angel was the first that came to mind. I longed to hear her again. That voice.

  Was she… still here?

  Suddenly, an image flickered before my eyes.

  A hologram?

  I flinched and took a step back, but the glowing window followed, keeping the same distance from my face no matter where I moved.

  "Either you're seeing ghosts," the Chimeric Man murmured, "or the contract just arrived."

  "You can see this too?"

  "Only you."

  Yes. I could see it. The window was right in front of me, hovering about half an arm’s length away, the text sharp enough to read perfectly, even without my glasses.

  There could only be one logical explanation.

  Well… logical was relative.

  Nothing made sense anymore, but at least my conclusion felt coherent:

  I had touched the Abyss to interrupt the ritual. To stop Sin-Joo from being sacrificed to that monstrous chaos entity. Touching the Abyss and surviving (which, in my case, was still up for debate) was the only way to become a Paladin.

  Paladins were connected to the mysterious power of the Nexus. They could see things hidden from mortal eyes. They had access to a soul-bound interface.

  Yeah.

  That had to be what I was looking at right now.

  In Warden’s Codex, a Paladin had described how to operate a soul interface.

  By thought alone.

  So I did it.

  I opened the contract…

  …with a single mental click.

  TERMS OF TOLERATION

  Central Council of the Syndicate

  TO: Takuya Nakamura (subject of undefined anomaly)

  Status: Unregistered existential deviation

  We are the Syndicate.

  The architects of the perfect world. The creators of divine order.

  We are the Chosen. The only ones worthy to serve the Elders.

  While ordinary humanity lingers in its endless cycle of death and forgetfulness, we uphold eternity. We prepare for the return of this universe’s true rulers.

  Our task is sacred.

  Our mission is eternal.

  We create.

  We cleanse.

  We annihilate.

  We, THE SYNDICATE, custodians of the cosmic balance, hereby establish the following terms for the continuation of your existence:

  I. VIOLATION OF THE NATRUAL ORDER

  You have disrupted the intended course of events.

  Your actions have created an anomaly of unknown magnitude.

  The consequences of your interference are unpredictable and threaten EVERYTHING.

  II. TERMS FOR THE CONTINUATION OF YOUR EXISTENCE

  The Syndicate grants you continued physical and metaphysical coherence under the following conditions:

  - You shall rectify the instability caused by your deeds.

  - You shall take all necessary measures to contain and seal the Abysses.

  III. THE DIMENSIONAL KEYS

  The Abysses, chaotic wounds in space and time, threaten not only your world but countless universes. Deep within these dungeons, the five Dimensional Keys lie; artifacts of immeasurable power capable of sealing the rifts permanently.

  It is your obligation to retrieve these artifacts and seal the Abysses with them.

  IV. THE BINDING

  Your being. Your will. They now belong to THE SYNDICATE.

  Any breach of this contract will result in correction.

  Correction is hereby defined as the complete and irreversible erasure of your existence.

  Someone must be held accountable.

  Someone must pay.

  The truth is irrelevant.

  Order must be maintained.

  We are THE SYNDICATE.

  And we decide what justice means.

  I swear my soul to THE SYNDICATE and take upon myself the burden of this task.

  I refuse and accept eternal oblivion.

  I closed the window in front of me with a thought and shot the mysterious bookworm a look somewhere between confusion and sheer panic. My heart pounded wildly.

  "Who the hell are you people?"

  "The hell has nothing to do with us. Quite the opposite, actually."

  "So, you're the good guys?"

  "Okay, maybe not quite the opposite of hell. But we're definitely not pure evil either."

  "Oh great," I muttered, lazily giving a thumbs-up.

  "You know," he mused, "unlike you, I have all the time in the world to read. You, on the other hand, should hurry up. From what I understand, the fate of your world depends on you. Quite the responsibility for a… sixteen-year-old."

  "I'm seventeen."

  "I know that. So?"

  "So… I... need time to think!"

  "You need time to think."

  "Yeah. I mean… life’s never exactly been kind to me. Is the thought of not existing really so bad? Maybe it’s… freeing."

  My mind flashed to high school. Every morning spent hunched over a toilet, sick with fear and anxiety.

  "I mean, how does time even pass here? Why can’t I just… think about this for a second? Can I trust you? Who are you people? I mean, does time even exist here?"

  He didn’t answer.

  Just watched me with those steady, unreadable eyes.

  "Alright," he said finally. "You get time to think."

  Relief flooded through me.

  "Thank you. Seriously. Thank you."

  The Chimeric Man smiled politely, leaned back in his chair, and then slowly raised three fingers.

  Suddenly, it was only two.

  My eyes widened. "You’ve gotta be shitting me."

  One finger.

  My heart hammered.

  Half a finger.

  Lower.

  Lower.

  "Oh, screw this!"

  I mentally clicked [Accept].

  The enigmatic reader tapped the last remaining finger to his ear, his expression suddenly one of deep concentration. He nodded at irregular intervals, like he was listening to someone on the other end of a call.

  "It just went through. Officially confirmed. You work for us now. Would you like a written copy?"

  I stared at him.

  "How do you even know I accepted the quest?"

  "The contract." His smile was devoid of any real emotion.

  "There’s nothing there," I muttered. "You’re not wearing a headset. No earpiece, no device."

  He shrugged. "Well, I do see that you haven’t disintegrated into atoms. So, naturally, I assumed you went with the smarter option."

  He tilted his head.

  "You know what surprises me?"

  I clenched my jaw.

  "You never asked if there was a catch."

  "A catch," I echoed. "Like selling my soul to you guys?"

  The Chimeric Man gave a slow, deliberate nod, like he’d been waiting for me to say that.

  "You died, you know."

  His words hit like a punch to the gut.

  "You tried to save your friend from the fate that now belongs to you. But unlike him, the consequences of your actions are… unpredictable." He took a slow drag from his cigarette, the ember burning bright in the silence. "See, the thing is," he exhaled a thin stream of smoke, "that thing that was there when you died? That changes everything. It’s the only reason you’re here. We can’t send you back. And now, suddenly, you’re a noble Paladin, following his code of honor, fighting for the so-called greater good, whatever that is."

  I clenched my fists.

  "Okay. Then... just say it. What the fuck am I in for?"

  Again, he nodded, like a gambler holding a winning hand.

  "I don’t know exactly how to put this," he said. "But… you’re bound to death now. In a way that can’t be undone."

  A pause.

  "Your soul belongs to us by contract, but even if we wanted to save it, we probably couldn’t. But maybe you can save yourself. Who knows where your path leads?"

  I shook my head violently. That was not what I wanted to hear.

  "Why can’t you ever give me a straight answer?"

  He exhaled through his nose.

  "This is a straight answer. Clear as crystal. If I were you, I’d do everything in my power to save my soul. That’s as clear as I can make it."

  The Chimeric Man rested both forearms on the desk and leaned forward, just slightly. Smiling. A knowing, unreadable smile. And it took me a moment to realize, he was waiting for me to leave.

  And in that moment...

  ...I began to dissolve.

  My fingers turned to dust, fading into the void. My hands, my arms.

  "Will I see you again?"

  I had no idea why I asked that.

  I hated this guy.

  Well… maybe not entirely.

  But I had so many damn questions, and I was afraid I’d never get another chance to ask them.

  God, I was such a liar.

  I missed him the moment I started disappearing.

  He was my anchor.

  Without him, I was completely alone.

  The Chimeric Man simply made a slow, sweeping gesture, as if scattering sand to the wind.

  "Who knows?" he said lightly. "I don’t control the future. That’s someone else’s job. Like I said, I just keep the stories alive. And if I were you… I’d close my eyes now. Otherwise, you might see things you really don’t want to."

  So I obeyed.

  I shut my eyes.

  The warmth of the blinding light engulfed me.

  I bathed in it.

  Dissolved into it.

  And I longed for that voice again. The soft, angelic whisper that had welcomed me the first time.

  But this time...

  There was nothing.

  No voice.

  No sound.

  Only darkness.

  ...

  ...

  ...

  And then, something soft, something warm pressed against my forehead. A touch. Real. I felt it.

  And suddenly, I could smell again. The faint, familiar scent of pickled beets lingered in the air, grounding me in a world I thought I had lost.

  "Wake up, Yuki-chan."

  Yumi…

  I opened my eyes.

  "Another adventure awaits," she whispered. "Another day of school is about to begin. Are you ready yet?"

  I snapped them shut.

  Oh, hell no.