The sunlight hit differently now.
It wasn't warmer. It wasn't brighter. But there was a kind of weight to it. A density. As if the photons themselves had seen too much.
Kael leaned against the doorframe, eyes on the chipped corner of the counter.
Still there.
Exactly like before.
Liora was humming. Senna was doodling on the napkin again. The kettle hissed once, like an exhale from a dream he hadn't finished having.
This was the third morning since rollback.
The third morning he'd watched them wake up without knowing they'd already died once.
"Tea?" Liora asked, not looking up.
Kael blinked.
He nodded. "Please."
She poured with steady hands — quiet, precise. Liora had always been a person who moved like a well-coded sequence. No waste. No hesitation. But now, everything she did felt like a miracle performed in disguise.
He took the cup from her without a word.
Their fingers touched.
It hit like a glitch.
He jerked slightly — a jolt through his hand, like static, but colder.
A flash: blood on her cheek, breath gone, voice fading.
Wrong timeline.
He blinked hard. Swallowed.
"Kael?" Liora asked.
He smiled. "Just hot."
She gave him a look — the half-smile she used when she didn't quite believe him but let it go anyway.
Senna was humming again.
The same tune she used to sing during guild fireworks season.
He remembered watching her do it in the old timeline — just days before the Reaper breach.
He sat down across from her.
The table was cluttered with crayon stubs and corner-torn papers. Senna held one up, her cheeks puffed in exaggerated pride.
"Look, Papa! I made the tea swirl!"
Kael looked at the scribble. It was a steaming cup with a spiral line drawn above it.
It almost resembled a status glyph. A calming rune.
"Very accurate," he said softly.
Senna beamed. "I know. I saw it in the glass when Mama poured yours."
Kael's head snapped toward the kettle.
Still warm.
Steam curled along the metal.
Nothing strange.
Not yet.
He turned back.
"Sen," he said carefully. "What kind of glass did you see it in?"
She tilted her head.
"The one that watches."
He tried to keep his voice even. "The one in the cupboard?"
"No," she said. "The one in the tea."
Kael stared at her.
She pointed to the steam.
"Sometimes it moves like someone's drawing with their finger."
Liora looked over.
"She's been saying that for two days. I thought it was just imagination. Like when she used to see stories in clouds."
Kael forced a nod. "She's good at seeing things."
Liora smiled. "She gets that from you."
But Kael knew better.
Senna wasn't imagining anything.
She was seeing bleed.
The rollback didn't just affect him.
It had touched her.
Kael stood alone in the kitchen.
The air was thick with the last remnants of breakfast — cinnamon, butter, steam, Liora's jasmine tea.
Senna had gone to her room, already humming a new tune to herself. Something scribbled in the margins of her mind.
Liora was humming too. Different melody, but just as fragile.
Kael heard her hum disappear down the hallway, lost in folding clothes or brushing hair or checking her tablet for work messages.
Normal sounds.
All of it unbearably normal.
He turned back to the kettle.
It still sat on the stovetop, half-full. Cooling.
He stepped closer, watching the way the metal curved his reflection.
Distorted it.
He leaned in until his breath fogged the side.
No Reaper.
No glyph.
Just him.
And even that was enough to make his stomach twist.
Because that reflection — hunched, tense, small — that was the man who failed.
The one who died.
The one who watched them die.
He touched the glyph under his sleeve.
It throbbed faintly in reply.
Then pulsed once. Stronger.
[DEBT TRACE: LOW]
[SYNC STABLE: 91.3%]
[CAPACITY: LIMITED]
He closed his eyes.
In the silence, he thought of the first time.
The first gate.
The first glitch.
The first death scream.
His.
Hers.
Theirs.
He whispered:
"I was too weak to stop it."
"I was too slow."
"Too passive."
"Too small."
The reflection in the kettle shimmered faintly, caught between his voice and the steam.
Then, louder:
"But I'm not him anymore."
He opened his eyes.
The glyph on his hand flared — just for a second — like it believed him.
Kael straightened.
Shoulders back.
Breath drawn in deep.
"This is my second chance," he said. "And I'll become strong enough to make it count."
"Stronger than I was."
"Stronger than I should be."
"Strong enough to break the rules if I have to."
His eyes flicked to the corner of the kitchen — to the spot where the shimmer once pulsed in his peripheral vision.
He said it clearly now:
"I'm not here to repeat the timeline."
"I'm here to rewrite it."
The glyph pulsed again.
[VOW RECOGNIZED]
[GROWTH SYNC ENABLED]
[DEBT SYNC: +0.00020]
A low hum passed through the room. Just once.
Then silence.
Kael stepped back.
The reflection in the kettle was still distorted — but different now.
It didn't slouch.
It didn't blink.
It looked ready.
Gate:
[GRASSRUN TEST VAULT – CODE 11-3B]
STATUS: GREEN.
MOB LIMIT: 5.
DIFFICULTY: TRAINING.
Kael stepped into the field and was hit by the fake sunlight.
Too bright. Too warm.
A simulation pretending to be nature, like a bad memory of something that never really existed.
But it was quiet. That was the important part.
Just a few scattered mobs — low-level runners. Classless. Half-coded. Not even aggro unless you touched them.
Perfect.
Kael pulled his jacket tighter. No armor today. No guild colors. Just a long shirt, boots, gloves. His focus wasn't on the fight.
It was on the code beneath the skin of the world.
The first mob appeared at the far ridge. Small. Rabbitlike. Too many legs.
Kael waited.
The system announced it with a soft chime.
[SPAWN: GRAZING CLASS – NODE 3]
[RESPAWN INTERVAL: 90s]
There it was. The counter. Just like he remembered.
Respawn interval.
Not usually editable. Not by players. Not unless the system asked for a correction.
But Kael remembered the moment — in the first timeline — when he'd done it by accident.
It had been desperation then.
This time, it would be deliberate.
He let the mob get close. Didn't kill it — just stunned it with a weak pulse from his gloves.
It twitched, scrambled, retreated.
Kael ignored the rest.
Instead, he crouched over the exact spot where it had appeared.
Where the ground still shimmered faintly with the spawn marker.
He touched it.
Just for a second.
And the glyph appeared in his HUD. Faint. Slippery. As if the system didn't want to show it to him.
[NODE 3: GRAZING MOB – RESP.90.000]
He focused.
Breathed slowly.
Reached out — not physically, but with the part of his mind the glyphs always tugged on.
The part that had started to burn when he made the vow.
And then—
The numbers shimmered.
Glitched.
Opened.
[EDITABLE FIELD DETECTED]
[WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS]
Kael ignored it.
He didn't want to do anything dramatic. Not yet.
Just a test.
He reduced the respawn timer from 90 seconds to 87.
That's all.
Then he stood.
And waited.
A few mobs danced in the distance. The grass flickered. An old visual bug — he remembered filing a report about it in a long-dead forum.
He kept his eyes on the patch.
The seconds passed.
And then—
The mob spawned three seconds early.
Right on cue.
Kael didn't move.
Didn't celebrate.
But deep inside, something clicked.
Not joy. Not fear.
Control.
The glyph on his hand pulsed.
Then something new happened.
A flicker in the sky.
Not thunder. Not wind.
A single shard of HUD static — like a dropped frame in reality.
Kael looked up sharply.
System saw that.
His HUD blinked once.
[DEBT SYNC: +0.00036]
[UNAUTHORIZED PATCH LOGGED]
[TRACE SIGNAL IN MOTION]
And there it was again — just at the edge of the training gate field.
A shimmer in the air.
A reflection where no glass should be.
For a split second, it looked like someone was watching from the sky itself.
And then it was gone.
Kael left the training gate in silence.
No fanfare.
No scoreboard.
No confirmation ping.
He didn't need one.
He'd patched something.
He had changed it.
And the world had noticed.
His fingers wouldn't stop tingling.
Not in pain.
Just… wrong.
Like the nerves had been slightly rerouted.
He pulled his glove off as soon as he got to street level. Stepped into the shadow of a service alley between two gear shops.
Held his arm up.
Waited.
Nothing.
At first.
Then — when he tilted his wrist toward the gutter light —
He saw it.
A thin fracture running just beneath the surface of his skin.
Not a wound.
Not blood.
A glyph crack.
Like a piece of tempered glass that had barely survived an impact.
Kael stared.
He touched it.
It wasn't physical.
His fingers passed over the skin without resistance. But when he looked at it just right, it pulsed.
[DEBT TRACE: BOUND]
[SYNC: BODY SURFACE DETECTED]
[GLYPH STABILITY: 97.4%]
A slow exhale escaped him.
Already?
He hadn't even tried a full patch.
Just a timer nudge.
He rolled his glove back on.
The fracture disappeared from view.
But not from feeling.
It hummed now.
Quiet. Sub-audible. Like the low whine of an old monitor left on too long.
And he knew what it meant.
The rollback wasn't free.
Never had been.
The system didn't just let him cheat the timeline.
It was watching.
Weighing.
Syncing.
Every unauthorized patch…
Every timeline edit…
It cost him.
Kael looked at the nearest shop window. The reflection showed nothing behind him.
He shifted left.
The reflection glitched.
Only for a frame.
But he caught it.
A shimmer.
Something tall. Shaped wrong. Facing him.
He stepped back. Heart suddenly hammering.
It was gone.
The reflection showed only Kael again.
But he knew.
I didn't imagine it.
He tapped his wristband.
[GLYPH STATUS → OVERRIDE MODE]
The readout flickered.
Then it showed a word he'd hoped not to see for weeks — maybe months:
[REAPER TRACE: ECHO - CLASS I]
[PASSIVE OBSERVATION IN PROGRESS]
[GLASS-BOUND TRACE CONFIRMED]
[DO NOT ENGAGE]
His stomach twisted.
First patch.
First echo.
Just like last time.
Kael stood still, hand over his glyph, watching the windows of the city flicker.
The glass had begun to notice him.
And somewhere behind that glass —
something else was watching too.
The apartment lights were dim.
Not off — just the usual night glow, pulsing gently along the glyph strips embedded in the corners.
Kael closed the door quietly behind him.
His boots hit the floor with the same soft thud they always had, but the sound felt wrong now. Too loud. Too final.
He didn't move for a moment.
Just stood there.
Breathing in.
Everything smelled like them.
Senna's crayons.
Liora's tea.
A bit of laundry detergent that still lingered in the air.
Normal.
Warm.
Impossible.
He walked to the hallway.
Paused at the door to Senna's room.
The light inside was low — a night glyph on the far wall, flickering between soft blues and greens.
Senna was curled under a blanket shaped like a skywhale. One foot hanging out, as always. The notebook was still clutched to her chest like a talisman.
Kael leaned against the doorframe.
Didn't say anything.
Didn't move.
Just watched.
In the old timeline, she'd gone to sleep the same way the night before the Reaper incursion.
He remembered it like stone carved into his lungs.
She'd drawn a spiral. Told him it glowed. Said it whispered.
He hadn't listened.
He'd smiled.
Told her to get some sleep.
The next morning, the sky broke open.
The Reaper stepped through.
And by the time Kael reached her —
She was already gone.
He stepped inside her room now.
Careful. Quiet.
Kneeled beside the bed.
Senna didn't stir.
A small snore escaped her — soft and steady.
He reached out. Touched the tip of her fingers where they curled over the edge of the blanket.
She was warm.
Still here.
Still breathing.
Kael swallowed hard.
The glyph in his palm pulsed once.
Slow. Steady. Not threatening.
Almost… accepting.
He pressed that hand to his chest.
Closed his eyes.
And without a sound, he made the vow.
This time… I'll see it coming.
This time… I'll change it before it starts.
No delays. No waiting for permission. No second guessing.
I will become strong enough to stop it — even if the world thinks it's wrong.
Even if it breaks me.
Even if it kills me.
His fingers curled into a fist.
The glyph responded.
[VOW CONFIRMED]
[SYNC: 93.2%]
[EMOTIONAL ANCHOR: DAUGHTER]
[TRACE: QUIET]
[REAPER RESPONSE: NONE]
For now.
Kael stood.
Backed away from the bed.
Then, before he left the room, he looked at her one more time.
And whispered, so quietly even the system might miss it:
"I won't lose you again, Senna."