The only light in Shou Kaito's room bled from the trio of monitors stacked precariously on his desk, casting an erratic, phosphorescent glow across a landscape of empty energy drink cans, crumpled snack wrappers, and a bewildering spaghetti of wires. A half-eaten instant ramen cup sat precariously close to a high-end graphics card, steam long since evaporated. The air hung thick with the metallic tang of stale caffeine and the faint, electrical hum of overloaded processors. It was 2:17 AM.
Shou's fingers danced across his keyboard, a blur of motion only possible after countless hours spent in the digital underworld. His headphones, battered but beloved, pumped out a frantic synth-wave track, a fitting soundtrack to the intricate dance of ones and zeros unfolding on his screens. Tonight's quarry: not a school server, not a local bank, but something far more tantalizing. He'd been port scanning a long-forgotten corner of the web, chasing a rumour about an old, unsecured IP range that supposedly belonged to some defunct government initiative.
He grinned, a flicker of pure, unadulterated mischief in his eyes. "Bingo," he muttered, as a vulnerability flared on his third monitor – a gaping, unpatched SQL injection point. Sloppy, even for a relic. He bypassed the rudimentary firewalls with a simple, elegant brute-force script he'd coded during a particularly boring history class, then cascaded through a series of proxy chains, burying his tracks deeper than a buried treasure. Moments later, the congratulatory thunk-thunk of his keyboard keys hitting their limit signified root access.
He was in. Deep within an abandoned government database, brimming with classified schematics and encrypted data that would make any self-respecting black hat weep with joy. But then, among the endless directories, he saw it. A single, oddly named file: Project_E.R.I.S_Alpha.apk. No conventional extension, no obvious purpose. Just an archaic icon that looked like a stylized, pixelated hourglass.
Curiosity, his guiding principle in life (and pretty much the reason he was failing math), seized him. He downloaded the minuscule file to a sandboxed partition on his PC, observing its unusual signature. No immediate red flags, just an inexplicable, almost ancient power simmering beneath its surface. Weird.
He transferred it to his mobile phone – a burner, of course – and installed it. It popped up as "E.R.I.S" on his home screen, looking less like a government secret and more like a poorly designed stop watch from 2005. The interface was stark: a simple slider, currently set to '5 Minutes', and a large, ominously red button labelled 'CONFIRM'.
"Huh. What a funny app," Shou chuckled, tapping the button. The screen flashed, a barely perceptible ripple. Nothing happened. No earthquake, no sudden shift in his messy room. The synth-wave track played on. He shrugged, already dismissing it as a dud, another dead end in his digital spelunking.
He stretched, a yawn cracking his jaw. Too late for another ramen, probably. He glanced at his phone, intending to just check if Tanaka had texted back about that new online game, his thumb hovering over the messaging app. But his eyes snagged on the glowing time in the top corner of his screen.
2:12 AM.
Shou froze. His yawn died on his lips. His heart, which moments ago had been thrumming with the adrenaline of a successful hack, now did a confused stutter-step. He blinked. No. He had just checked it, what, seconds ago? It was 2:17 AM. He was certain. He glanced at the system clock on his PC monitor.
02:12.
His breath hitched. He spun in his chair, eyes darting to the cheap digital alarm clock on his bedside table.
2:12.
A cold dread, sharp and sudden, pierced through the exhaustion. His blood ran cold. This wasn't a glitch. This wasn't a typo. He hadn't just lost five minutes. He'd gone backwards. His mind, usually so quick to rationalise, struggled. This was impossible. This was…
He fumbled for his phone, adrenaline now pumping, heart hammering against his ribs. He had to confirm. He slammed his thumb onto the 'CONFIRM' button again. A small pop-up message appeared: 'COOLDOWN: 00:59'.
"No! No, no, no!" he hissed, his voice a frantic whisper in the quiet room. Sixty seconds. Sixty agonizing seconds ticked by, each one stretching into an eternity. His eyes were glued to the countdown, his body rigid with a mixture of terror and desperate, unshakeable curiosity. When it hit zero, he didn't hesitate. His finger mashed the button.
The same subtle shimmer. The same non-event. He snatched up his phone, eyes instantly snapping to the top corner.
2:07 AM.
Ten minutes. Not five. Ten. Five plus five. It wasn't a jump to a fixed point, it was a duration. Each press wound him back by the set amount. A gasp escaped him, a strangled, disbelieving sound. This wasn't a funny app. This was it. The ultimate life hack. The universe's undo button.
The horror, once potent, began to recede, replaced by a surge of pure, unadulterated, chaotic glee. He looked at his cluttered room, his messy life. Then he looked at the app. He started to laugh, a low, rumbling sound that quickly bubbled into an uncontrollable cackle. He was a god. A dumb, genius god with messy hair and an affinity for instant noodles.
Throwing on a hoodie, Shou burst out of his apartment building. The streetlights cast long, lonely shadows, the city a sleeping behemoth around him. It was a perfect playground.
He ran to the nearest convenience store, past the night-shift cashier dozing behind the counter, grabbed a handful of premium chocolate bars, then pressed the button. Flash. He was outside the door again. He walked in, grabbed the chocolate, pressed the button. Flash. He repeated it three more times, walking out with pockets bulging, a mischievous grin plastered on his face. Free chocolate!
He found a sleeping delivery driver in his van, headlights on. Shou snuck over, opened the driver's door, and turned the wheel sharply to the left, then reversed time. Flash. Driver still asleep, wheel straight. Shou repeated, but this time turning it right. Flash. He spent a full minute, resetting the van's steering wheel back and forth, imagining the driver's utter confusion when he woke up.
He stood under a faulty streetlight, waiting for it to flicker. As it did, he tapped 'CONFIRM'. The light flickered back on, steady. He tried again. The light flickered off. He timed it, turning the streetlight into a personal rave, on and off, on and off, until he almost snorted with laughter.
This was it. Infinite do-overs. The ultimate cheat code for existence. Every mistake, every awkward moment, every failed attempt, erased. He could be anyone, do anything, say anything. The world was his personal sandbox, and he had the admin password.
He stopped, chest heaving with laughter, looking up at the indifferent night sky. The clouds, however, seemed to ripple, just for a second, like a faint, almost invisible crack in the fabric of the night. A shiver, not of cold, but of something else, ran down his spine. He dismissed it. Just his imagination. Nothing could stop him now. Absolutely nothing.