The scent of wet stone filled his lungs as consciousness returned. His body ached as if time had chewed through his bones and spit him out. Lee Rang blinked rapidly, his vision adjusting to the harsh grayness around him.
He wasn't in the room anymore.No chair.No flickering lights.No whispers.
Just silence… and a rock beneath his hand.
He pushed himself up, only to notice something etched onto the surface of the stone next to him—"404".
His breath hitched. This wasn't over.
A gust of wind blew through the alley, carrying with it an old crumpled paper that fluttered to his feet. Rang picked it up. The texture was stiff, edges torn, yellowed with time. But what shocked him wasn't the age—it was the familiar handwriting.
His own.
The page had a rough diagram—an interior sketch of the bar, arrows pointing toward exits, ventilation routes, CCTV blind spots. And at the center, a red-inked name: "She must survive." No name. No photo. Just a silhouette of a woman with long hair drawn in black charcoal strokes.
Rang's eyes raced across the lines beneath it:
**"You chose this timeline. Among five paths, you picked her.To save her, you must follow these steps:
Reach before 10:47 PM.
Intercept the man in the gray coat.
Replace the drink on Table 7.
Burn this paper once read.This cannot be done twice."**
The paper shook in his hand — not from the wind, but from something inside him… fear?No. Recognition.
How did he choose this? When?
He turned the page around, hoping to find more. That's when he saw it. Words smeared at the bottom—dark red, sticky, fresh.
He leaned in, a chill crawling up his neck.
"You chose this before, too."
Written in blood.
Real blood.
And it wasn't dry.