CHAPTER 0

How to Read 🎧

This novel is designed as a musical reading experience.

In certain chapters, you'll find the track name along with the phrase "Recommended track:" and timestamps like [00:14].

It's best to play the music before continuing—to fully immerse yourself in the atmosphere. The timestamps sync the events with the melody.

Sometimes the track ends on its own.

If no timestamp is given but you're asked to play the piece, feel free to listen at your own pace. You can read and listen without constantly restarting.

Occasionally a timestamp is just there to gently realign the flow, since reading speed varies from person to person.

Some tracks are available on YouTube, others on SoundCloud.

The track for this chapter can be found on SoundCloud.

🎧 Recommended track: ambush - slime (throwaway)

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[00:00] The rain poured without mercy, mingling with the roar of thunder.

You could hear the stadium nearby— the ongoing match, the crowd's clamor, the chaos packed into a single space. Sounds that refused to separate.

And yet...

Within that chaos, there was silence. A silence you couldn't hear, but one that was drawing closer.

Outside the stadium, beneath the weeping sky...

He approached slowly, suspended between past and future, with no present to hold him.

His body motionless. His features blurred. A black raincoat clung to him—you could almost hear it swaying in the wind.

And in his hand... the Cs4 mark glowed.

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[00:30] His hand rose toward the sky, palm wide open. His eyes blended with the rain's tears.

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[00:41] The ground lifted. Stones scattered. The stadium began slipping backward into the past— its ruins floating into the sky beneath the downpour, lightning shadows searching for someone to pity.

The seats... the stands... the screams... all of it became part of a black symphony.

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[00:50] His hands spun in slow circles, as though he were rewriting the world itself. The debris around him accelerated, forming a raging cyclone. Reality flickered— until your vision nearly drowned in the sight.

The wreckage orbited him, like he was the heart of some dark solar system. He pressed everything inward with both hands, as if trying to cradle something fragile.

Then...

The debris exploded outward across the city, crushing everything in its path.

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[01:10] The track ended.

Silence swallowed everything. Even the rain... lost its sound. As though it had been devoured along with the music.

Nothing moved. Time seemed to freeze among the rubble.

Amid the ruins, one of the survivors gazed upward, bleeding and broken. He saw him.

The man in the coat... standing at the center of it all.

"You...!"

He reached out both hands, as though trying to wake something.

But...

Consciousness slipped away from him almost instantly.