I almost laughed.
Then the system did something it had never done before.
The text flickered. Rearranged itself. And a single line appeared beneath all the numbers, in a font I'd never seen the system use, plainer somehow, more direct.
You were never supposed to save them.
The original story didn't have this chapter.
I read it three times.
The original story. The one I'd skimmed half-asleep before I died in a parking lot and woke up wearing this face. The one where the pure-hearted protagonist got his cheek kiss ending and the villain rival named Rome D'Angelo faded into the background like the disposable obstacle he was written to be.
That story didn't have Liam in it. Didn't have four strangers in medical scrubs standing in my living room. Didn't have my father's laboratory or my dead mother or a professor burning her neutrality on a California highway to save four women who'd chosen me over safety.
I'd gone so far off script the system couldn't find the road anymore.
