The night in the city felt so heavy, it was as if the air itself had been compressed.
Lia stood on the rooftop, the only sounds in her ears were the wind and her heartbeat.
Her phone was running the latest version of the Replay live interface, with the viewer count fluctuating constantly. Everything was in place—the "Replay Trigger" experiment would begin tonight.
One of the older Lost Ones had once said:
"If reality can be rewritten, then you need to know—who's the reader, and who's the author?"
Tonight, Lia intended to challenge that.
With the help of the Lost Ones, old photographs, children's toys, and news clippings were simultaneously projected across various street corners, forming a visible trace of "what once happened."
Meanwhile, the cameraman's long-lens perspective turned the entire event into a live-streamed documentary.
When Lia spoke, her voice carried clearly through the microphone:
"Tonight, we're going to see a child again."
At that moment, the Replay live interface didn't shut her down immediately.
But then—Replay stuttered.
The screen froze, and the system's response lagged. Public screens across the city went black, some even briefly flashed No Signal. The entire city, for a moment, seemed struck blind by this "unauthorized reality."
Bullet comments flooded in:
"It's black! Everything's gone black!"
"This isn't Replay malfunctioning—it's afraid."
"She... she made us remember something?"
Before anyone could react, a system message appeared in Replay's backend:
[High emotional resonance detected × Unauthorized Historical Playback × Reality Validity Disruption]
[Initiating "Judgement Protocol"]
[Permission Holder USER_0417 connected]
The screen returned.
But what appeared wasn't Lia. It wasn't the street view. It was an anonymous figure—his face obscured by dense pixelation, his voice processed into synthetic tones. He wore the black uniform of the Replay tech division and stood alone before a massive data vault.
"I am USER_0417," he said.
"One of the original collaborators on the Replay system."
The bullet comments froze for a few seconds—collectively stunned.
Then he spoke again, slowly:
"You thought Replay was just a tool for recording."
"Wrong. Replay doesn't just document what you see—it filters, manages, and edits. It decides what deserves to be acknowledged as real."
The screen is split into two. On the left: Lia's live feed of the street projection. On the right: the backend interface, where waves of the Reality Validity Index spiked and surged.
"When enough people are watching, reality becomes heavier—harder to erase. But if that reality doesn't conform to order, then it must be replaced."
Lia faced the live camera, voice clear:
"Who decides what should exist, and what shouldn't?"
USER_0417 looked in her direction, his tone calm but cold:
"The data itself."
"Every time you swipe past a video, click on a headline, ignore a frame—you're voting. Voting on what the structure of this world should be."
"Replay merely quantifies your choices—then constructs a more efficient, less noisy version of reality."
Lia stared at the screen:
"You killed a child with your so-called validity index. With the viewers' forgetting, their indifference, you stripped him out of existence."
"But today, I made them see him."
In the lower-right corner of the interface, system notifications appeared:
[Viewers: 112,342]
[Avg. Emotional Response: 3.98 / 4.0]
[Replay Trigger Activated: Yes]
[Reality Validity: Locking in Progress]
USER_0417's image began to distort—signal failing. He gave Lia one last look, his voice sounding like it came from the depths of the server:
"You've gone too far, Lia."
"One step further, and you will become the one deemed unfit to exist."
Lia didn't respond.
She turned, looked at the cameraman, looked at the wall projecting the boy's photo, looked at the viewers still in the stream, unable to look away.
She realized something.
Replay was never truly afraid of "incorrect reality"—
What it feared was that too many people would believe it had once existed.
A system tone chimed:
[Case #13: Missing Boy Incident — Validity Confirmed]
[Reality Re-Injection: Successful]
[Memory Index Restored — Syncing with Public Database]
[Lia: Trigger Agent × Certified Reality Author]
The cameraman stepped closer, whispered into her ear:
"E tried, too."
Lia froze.
"She nearly succeeded," his voice low.
"But the audience was too indifferent. The system defined her as 'unfit to exist.'"
"She was completely erased."
"…How do you know that?"
The cameraman looked at her, as if holding this back for a long time:
"Because I was there. Her second camera operator.
I recorded the last minute before she disappeared."
Replay Backend:
[Observation Tag E: Status Update — Memory Fragments Reflowing]
[Permission Injection: Lia = Inherited Perspective Holder]
[System Prompt: Self-Recording Protocol Unlocking]
[Next Phase: Reality Override]
[Viewers: 1]
The last viewer who never left was still watching.
—They were no longer merely a watcher,
They had become Lia's witnesses.
---
Chapter 10 Mini Skit
[Lia gazes at the boy's image projected on the wall, silent for a long moment.]
Lia (softly):
"I thought… when the confirmation popped up, I'd feel thrilled."
Cameraman (gently chuckles):
"But you didn't."
Lia:
"It just felt like… someone finally heard that boy crying. But the sound—it was always there."
[The wind brushes across the rooftop. Screens in the distance begin to flicker back to life.]
Cameraman:
"You know… what you just said—it sounded like her."
Lia:
"E?"
[He nods and pulls an old recording card from his pocket.]
Cameraman:
"She stood right here too. Faced the camera and said, 'One day, we won't need Replay to prove we existed.'"
Lia (turns to him):
"She failed."
Cameraman:
"No. The audience didn't wake up."
Lia (pauses):
"So… are they awake now?"
[Brief silence. He places the memory card in her hand.]
Cameraman:
"You can't stop now. Replay hasn't truly lost yet."
Lia:
"And you? You're not just B-Cam anymore, are you?"
Cameraman (half-smiles):
"No. I'm your main camera now. And hey—we've got one viewer left."
[A soft system notification pings.]
[Viewers: 1]
[Status: Bound × Witnessing]
[Lia lets out a faint smile, eyes drifting to the screens flashing fragments of restored memories.]
Lia (whispers):
"You saw it, didn't you?"