I realized something was wrong when the notification appeared before the event happened.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE]
Chapter 1 has begun.
There was no app open.
No game running.
My phone screen was dark.
Yet the words burned into my vision, floating calmly in the air—as if reality itself had subtitles.
I blinked once.
Twice.
The message didn't disappear.
"Great," I muttered. "I'm hallucinating."
That was when the second message appeared.
You are not the protagonist.
You are the reader who stayed too long.
My heartbeat skipped.
Outside, the city continued as normal—traffic noise, distant voices, the hum of a world unaware that its rules had just shifted. But I could feel it. A pressure, subtle yet undeniable, like a page being turned somewhere above me.
I had read countless stories like this.
Systems. Apocalypse. Regression. Constellations watching from the dark.
They all started the same way.
But they always chose someone else.
Hidden Condition Met:
Awareness before Inciting Incident
Reward: Unknown
My hands trembled.
If this was a story, then awareness was a curse. Readers weren't meant to interfere. Readers weren't meant to be seen.
"So," I whispered, staring at the empty sky, "are you watching?"
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then—
Several observers have taken interest in you.
Reason:An extra variable has appeared in Chapter 1.
I laughed softly, the sound sharp and nervous.
Every story needs a protagonist.
Every world needs someone to suffer first.
But if I wasn't the hero…
Then I would become something far more dangerous.
The kind of character the story itself couldn't predict.