The first thing that returned was the smell—not the dust of her cramped apartment, but the sharp, sterile sting of antiseptic. Then came the light, a clinical white that burned through her eyelids until she was forced to face a world that wasn't hers.
"Host, welcome to your mission."
The voice didn't come from the room. It echoed from the hollows of her own skull, cold and synthesized.
Hours ago, Emii had been a girl in a cluttered room, tossing a web novel aside in a fit of rage. She had cursed the heroine for her weakness, for letting "fake love" dismantle her life. She had demanded a better ending. In the world of stories, words are invitations; the universe had simply answered.
She stood now in a majestic mansion of glass and gold, where chandeliers dripped like frozen diamonds and the silence was heavy enough to bruise. The System was her new god. It gave her rules. It gave her countdowns. It demanded she heal broken souls and unmask killers before the tenth night fell.
But the System was a cruel architect. It had neglected to mention the Tether.
Every twelve hours, the clock would strike a silent chord, and the silk sheets would begin to dissolve. The grand ballroom would blur into the stained blades of her ceiling fan; the smell of expensive lilies would rot into the scent of old cotton and stale air.
Emii was a dying candle flickering between two rooms.
The missions were a nightmare of timing. How could she secure a confession when she vanished mid-sentence? How could she shield a family from an assassin's blade when she was forced to leave them vulnerable for half the day? Back in her "real" world, she lived in a state of agonizing paralysis. She would lie on her worn mattress, eyes locked on her watch, counting the seconds while the novel's enemies moved against those she loved in the other life.
But the disjointed reality wasn't the hardest part. It was the ache.
It was the quiet, steady loyalty in Dravin's gaze and the warmth of a brother's hand on her shoulder—ghostly comforts that felt more real than the floor beneath her feet in the city. In one world, she was Emii, the invisible girl in a messy room. In this one, she was a protector. A daughter. A target.
She was a temporary guest, a thief of time meant to finish the job and disappear. But as the days bled into one another, she realized she wasn't just fighting for survival. She was fighting for the girl who had owned this life before her—the one who never got the chance to be free.
As the dawn of the final day broke across the horizon, painting the mansion in hues of bruised purple and gold, Emii understood the cost of her mission.
Even borrowed lives can rewrite the stars. Even a ghost can leave a permanent scar on the world. You don't have to belong to a world to save it.
Sometimes, it is enough to love it—even if you only have twelve hours left
to stay.
#Evin