Beep!
The sound popped from a scratched-up, interdimensional scooter rolling down a neon-lit street. Sure, rust gnawed at its turn-signal joints—but who cared? Painted bubblegum pink with glitter vibes, it turned the back alley into a runway for one girl to shine.
That girl: Zoe.
Idol. Menace. The kind no force—not even gravity—can bring down.
She twisted the throttle with lazy ease, riding as though the road were just a suggestion. Her HUD flashed red alerts across the windshield.
And yeah, she noticed. She just kept humming, twirling a lock of cotton-candy hair around her finger. Stress? Overrated.
"C'mon, Pinky." She nudged her scooter forward, engine warmth buzzing through her black ankle boots.
Giant holo-ads spilled color from spiraling towers, dancing across the city's dome shield. Above them, fiber-optic threads stitched the night sky into digital art, an open-air gallery for the whole world.
Beep-beep-beep! Louder this time.
"Bruh, what now?" she huffed—pure sulky teenager, phone banned at dinner.
Her sapphire eyes skimmed the too-perfect skyline—and froze. A transparent drone hovered far off, circling.
"Another one? Ugh, can't a girl chill for one sec?" she muttered with a grin that said she didn't mean it.
Zoe let go of the handlebars, letting Pinky glide. She vaulted off, landing in the alley shadows with gymnast grace. One breath, back pressed to the wall.
Beeeeep… Pinky whined again.
"Shhh! I'm concentrating." She snapped, flicking her hair back.
Ears tuned, brain crunching numbers—speed, angle, trajectory. The drone's rotor whine closed in. That was the cue.
Legs coiled. She launched—so fast she left afterimages in the air. Her hand snatched the invisible craft mid-flight.
One sharp tug. It went limp.
THUD. She landed in a superhero crouch. "Done and dusted." She dropped the wreck. One flick. Zero care.
"…Honestly, so dramatic." Zoe brushed dust from her purple jacket, whistling off-key.
Right on cue, Pinky circled back, the more responsible half of the duo.
Zoe hopped on, casual, a pose she'd rehearsed a thousand times. The scooter fishtailed onto a twisting street of steel stink and vapor fog—urban labyrinth deluxe.
But behind her—high-pitched rotors sliced the air.
Her mirror caught it: a massive, transparent-frame drone, dropping low—owned the sky.
"…Wait, that thing?" Zoe asked her scooter.
Pinky beeped once.
"Gee, thanks. Next time maybe warn me yesterday."
She gunned it. Pinky's engine roared, gravel spraying as they zigzagged through alleys.
The drone chased, merciless. Zoe grinned, one hand off the bars to yank a steel rod from a pile of junk.
"Alright, drama queen—watch how the best in three worlds handles this."
The drone swooped low, strobe beams flashing as it cut a sharp arc through the air.
Zoe leaned hard, hair whipping as she vaulted from the seat, air rushing her skin. Blue eyes sparkled with reckless joy.
"Not today—!" She stuck out her tongue mid-flip, boot planting off a wall for extra lift.
Sunlight broke through the dome, catching her skin; her hair shimmered—a comet's blaze.
Her steel rod swung crosswise. CRASH. Blades spun off in every direction. The drone plummeted as if it were a broken bird.
Zoe tucked, flipped, and landed back on Pinky without missing a beat. Tires screeched, sliding sideways until the scooter ground to a stop. She flicked her gaze at the drone wreckage; her smirk could cut glass.
"Keep 'em coming—I'll wreck the whole fleet."
The time-hopping idol tilted her chin, opened the throttle.
"Woohoo! Let's ride!"
Pinky's wheels screamed into the horizon, sparks and laughter trailing behind.
Her mission? Just getting started.
Inside the Room
The Place resembled a bedroom only faintly, but far more resembled the command deck of a starship—high-tech walls lit with holographic panels, shadows of shifting light brushing against his razor-cut blue hair. Fingers flew over a floating keyboard without even glancing.
The screen reacted and, head-over-heels in love with him, obeyed every tap and stroke instantly.
Above his desk, a Vanta Q-21 Quantum Processor—Pro Max edition—hovered gracefully; blue lines circled its titanium surface, veins of pure intelligence. Around him, holographic data rippled, endless whirlpools with no shore in sight.
Dark violet eyes drilled into the screens with the intensity of a man who believed perfection was possible—at the price of forty-eight sleepless hours.
A rotating blueprint spun in the air: skyscrapers sleek enough to slice the sky. His design? Tall enough to write WELCOME across the stratosphere for any aliens dropping by. And of course—he nailed it.
Nano-metal thinner than hair, fibers stronger than diamond, perpetual-energy engines—things that sounded like the fantasies of rookie sci-fi writers… except here, they were real.
"Just a tweak here…" he muttered, dragging grids, adjusting wind resistance. Everything had to be flawless. This was Kieran. The kind of guy who'd build a LEGO tower earthquake-proof up to Richter 9.
Sweat slicked through his shirt even with the AC blasting. It didn't matter. This wasn't just the tallest building in history. It was proof. Proof for someone he didn't even know.
"There's nothing I can't do." His pep talk was for himself, fueling fingers that jittered faster than an octopus on a live wire.
A crystal spire formed at the tower's peak, glittering as blinding as his own ambition.
And then—
WHUMP!
Darkness slammed down. Every screen, every spark—gone.
"Son of a—!" The curse burst out on reflex. He spun toward the window on the seventy-fourth floor. Nothing. The entire skyline drowned in black.
"Power outage? Seriously? We killed energy shortages centuries ago!" Both hands clasped his head, trying to crush the disaster right out of his skull.
"Hurry up… don't make me start chanting prayers."
As if the threat worked, the city blazed back to life. Lights snapped on. Systems rebooted. His screens pulsed awake with a message:
[System Rebooting… Alpha Core Activated.]
A chill stabbed his spine. That primal alarm meant: big trouble incoming.
Alpha Core?
The word meant nothing to him. No memory, no reference. His eyes narrowed at the screen—except tonight, the screen had eyes of its own.
"…Don't tell me I've been hacked!?" His pulse spiked as he slammed toward his custom defense systems.
Too late.
A whisper crackled through his headset.
"Kieran…"
He froze, snatching the headset up. Nothing but the hammering of his own heart.
"Hallucinating? Great. Two days without sleep and now I'm making imaginary friends." His sarcasm bounced off the sterile walls.
Still, he activated his top-tier security suite, scanning every byte. Progress bars were turtles crawling under gravity ten-times normal.
"…Staring won't speed it up." He shook his head, restless. He trusted his firewall—but the unease gnawed anyway.
So he did what any overcaffeinated, sleep-starved genius would do: distraction.
Booted up VR.
The world's most rage-inducing shooter of 2126 loaded.
Kieran slid the matte-black visor down—masking his gaze, every inch the cyber-knight. Thin cables tethered him to the rig. In both hands: gun-shaped controllers. Plastic, maybe. But here, they were the deadliest weapons of another universe.
"Game on." The line cut sharp through the comms. Behind the visor, his focus was lethal. Nobody could see where he was looking—but that didn't matter.
He was already locked in.
Entering the Virtual World
He drew a long breath. The next second, he was standing in a ruined city, zombies staggering from every direction.
Stabilize senses. Focus. Then—start shooting.
Drop low. Pivot. Aim. Fire.
In reality, Kieran probably looked like a lunatic shadowboxing the walls of his room. But in VR? He was a professional killer—every trigger pull surgical, bullets drilling straight through undead skulls in fountains of gore.
"Left, twelve o'clock." He inhaled mid-beat. "Behind me." Gun swung over his shoulder without even looking—click.
Another zombie's head detonated.
Numbers exploded above the corpses—neon scoreboards blazing:
[HEADSHOT +150]
[CRITICAL HIT +200]
[COMBO x10]
His hand flicked a reload flourish way more dramatic than necessary—because sure, a button press would've worked, but where's the style in that? Sweat trickled down his forehead, but he didn't wipe it. No time.
Anyone watching would've seen the pattern: 3D spatial awareness off the charts, reflexes wired tighter than a sniper's, decision-making under pressure as if he were a machine. The same brilliance that made him an architectural prodigy—here, it turned him into a god of carnage.
"Reset the level! I'm breaking my record tonight!" He snapped, louder than he meant.
Concentration etched into his face. To outsiders it was stress. To Kieran, it was bliss. In this world, he wasn't uncertain, wasn't guessing. He was in control. Absolute.
"YES!" His fist clenched as he cleared the stage—top of the server leaderboard. A meaningless little victory to everyone else, but to him, it was oxygen.
And then—
The screen flared white. Golden energy rippled across his vision. A message appeared.
[New Skill Acquired.]
[Undo]
Kieran froze. Eyes locked.
Undo?
His brow arched so high it practically hit his hairline.
This game had no such skill. Ever. Was this… a secret update? Hidden DLC?
A choice blinked open: Yes / No.
His finger hovered longer than usual. He didn't know why.
"…Screw it. Maybe it's rare loot from the new patch."
A crooked grin. He pressed Yes.
The screen tore open in a flood of light—a dimensional gate ripping wide.
[Skill Activated: Undo]
The Past…
Holographic screens bathed Ethan's face in pale luminescence, data flooding across every surface—numbers, symbols, streams of code. For most, it reads as alien scripture. But for him—and his team—this was the future, ripped raw out of chipsets and signal towers.
Lillian stood at his side, scanning the algorithms with cool detachment. She spoke calm—whiskey-over-ice calm—but something moved beneath. "We're playing with forces bigger than us. Are you sure you can control it?"
Ethan didn't glance away.
"If not us—then who?"
Three steps off, Claire monitored the power output of Alpha Core. Her focus could catch an error in a single line of code. And today—she found one.
A sequence with no tag. No timestamp. No source.
It had wormed itself into the Core's security net, invisible but undeniable. Her hand tightened around the mouse as she opened a diagnostics window—then her heart stuttered.
She didn't need to guess whose work it was.
Darius.
The man was born less than ninety seconds before her.
She'd seen that same glint before too many times—when he cheated kids bigger than him, when he sabotaged classmates' projects, when he stole her research and called it "shared inspiration."
"Damn it," she hissed under her breath.
"Claire? Something wrong?" Ethan asked.
She snapped her look blank. "…Nothing. Just a slow data load. I'll rerun it."
He nodded, buying the lie.
Claire slammed the window shut, fingers moving fast enough to mask the tension. She tied her brown hair back in a ponytail, posture steady, but inside—her mind was plotting five exit strategies, each ending with yanking the power to freeze the system without erasing core data.
Because she knew—if she spoke now, Darius would flip the board before the first half was over. And everything would collapse.
Her gaze flicked back to him.
The man in the black suit stood firm, muscles flexing under fabric with the steady rhythm of a predator's pulse. His heavy hand rested on the console, claiming it as his own. Black eyes gleamed with cunning. His smile—too sharp, too rehearsed—betrayed exactly what he was.
Claire read him the way you read a book worn thin from a hundred re-reads.
Behind that grin: pure greed.
He knew Alpha Core was priceless. If it could create a new world—
Who else should own it, if not me?
Another trap. Another game rigged by blood ties. Claire swallowed hard, the sound sharp in her own skull.
She had to choose.
Kieran stepped out of his room for the first time in a week.
Morning sunlight slapped him full in the face. It woke him up—for all of two seconds. The breeze whispered across his skin "Happy Monday." nosy aunt–style.
He inhaled deep. Somewhere nearby, flowers scented the air. Sweet. It didn't help the exhaustion.
"Eh—!" His fingers twitched, jolting as though from a bug zapper. He shook them off with a frown. "When this is over, I'm disappearing to Phuket. Beach. Hammock. Zero responsibilities."
He cut through the future-city streets. Designer holograms shifted artfully on glass towers, while pedestrians shuffled with NPC stiffness—swinging arms, looping steps, all blank.
"…What is this, an NPC convention?" he muttered, catching his reflection in a café window.
White tee, black jacket rippling in the wind. Simple. Invisible. The perfect anti-spotlight uniform. He checked the bags under his eyes—yep, still raccoon mode.
Then he froze.
His shadow moved half a beat slower than he did.
"…Lag? In real life?" He slapped his cheeks lightly. "I definitely need more coffee."
The café ahead didn't seem to belong to any era. Renaissance paintings sprawled across the walls—some now pulsed with neon, cars slicing past airships, islands hovering over skyscrapers. Da Vinci tripping through the future.
Golden radiance glazed polished tables. Curved chrome chairs gleamed. Jazz trickled soft through the speakers, trying to convince the world it was chill. Spoiler: it wasn't.
"Welcome. Please select a menu." The barista-bot—silver chassis, screen-face flickering neon—spoke in a practiced friendly tone.
Kieran tapped the sleek white armband on his wrist, his own design. Nano-titanium alloy. Circuits pulsed blue as a holographic menu shimmered up. Order placed.
Coffee. Automatic.
He slid into the farthest corner seat, gaze drifting to the giant holo-screen outside.
A smiling family posed in a floating garden, their clothes flawless, their expressions lifeless. So polished it rang hollow.
[Perfection Made Real—Nexacore Corporation]
Kieran snorted. Yeah. Right. Real life's never that clean.
He sipped, letting bitterness dull the emptiness inside.
And then—the café door swung open, every frame dragging slow. Napkins fluttered on tables.
She walked in.
A small frame, bigger-than-Pluto energy. Cream crop top hugging her waist, denim shorts, cyberpunk purple jacket. A choker with an amber crystal that shimmered, patterns arguing in the glow.
Pink waves tied into twin-tails with a polka-dot bow. Long legs, confident stride. The room froze—every gaze locked on her, as if she'd just stepped off a K-pop poster.
She looked straight at him.
And smiled. Wide. The kind of smile only someone who already knows you dares to give. She slid into the seat across without hesitation.
"Hey, Kieran," she chirped—light, playful, teasing.
He blinked, eyebrows knitting into a half-frown, half-smirk. "Uh… do we even know each other?"
She didn't answer. Just leaned forward, hands tucked under her chin, eyes sparkling, sharp enough to strip his secrets layer by layer.
…Yeah. Great. She wins.
Kieran shifted awkwardly, elbow knocking the table—
CRASH!
Coffee spilled, glass shattered loud enough to silence the café.
He froze. Guilt plastered on his face. About to stammer an apology—
The glass was suddenly back in his hand. Whole. Warm. Coffee inside, its surface gently steaming.
The universe hit Ctrl+Z.
"…What the hell?" He whispered. Around him, time kept flowing. Customers chatted, jazz resumed, and the bot ground beans. Normal.
He looked up.
She was remained there. Same smile. One finger tapping her chin. A silent message: The fun's only just begun.
Then she stood, fluid as a cutscene, and headed for the door.
"We'll meet again soon," she tossed back—ambiguous, playful, maybe a promise, maybe a threat.
And she was gone.
Leaving behind nothing but questions.
Wait—seriously? That's it?
Kieran bolted up, chasing after her—something he'd never imagined himself doing. But then, life never asked his permission before throwing him into madness.
The hum hit first—a swarm of a hundred mosquitoes buzzing behind him.
Kieran whipped around.
What the—
A drone. Small. Deadly. Its frame is almost invisible, just a faint green outline and pulsing red eye marking it real.
Instinct barked: Don't breathe.
His fists tightened at his sides. Muscles locked. Every nerve screaming not to twitch, not to trigger the auto-fire.
Stay still…
Each step he edged back was molasses-slow. The drone mirrored him, relentless.
Then—something pulled its attention elsewhere. It pivoted away.
Kieran didn't wait. He threw himself into a shadowed alley, back pressed to concrete, lungs burning.
Not standard issue. No way that's off the shelf.
Dust bit his nose as he sucked in air. The drone drifted past, unpausing, accelerating—a predator catching the scent of another target.
"…Too damn close," he muttered, relief finally punching through his chest. He stepped out—
And the world exploded in light.
Burnt rubber. Tires screaming. Wind knifing his skin.
"Oh, shit—!"
Then—silence.
Everything froze. The car inches from him, driver stiff as a mannequin, sunglasses reflecting Kieran's wide eyes back at him, too sharp, too perfect
The city hung suspended, frames frozen mid-reel.
"…Wh—at—the—hell—" The sound warped, stretching wrong against the unmoving air.
Undo.
The word sliced through his head an electric chill.
Flash.
—World rewound.—
He was back on the curb. A second earlier. The moment before the car hit.
This time he lunged aside. Heart hammering, reminding him: alive. Still alive. The car tore past a ghost on the street. No screech, no crash, no curse.
Sweat dripped. His hands shook, fragile as brittle leaves.
And then—the vision hit.
Not new. Old. Buried.
He was small again. A kid in the back seat. Dad at the wheel. Mom's laugh bubbling, sunlight spilling through. Her perfume is soft in the air. A melody playing, warm as blankets on rainy mornings. A memory he'd sealed on a high shelf inside his chest.
Gone—
Air vacuumed from the car. A crushing cold took its place. Mom is silent. Dad's jaw clenched. Tears swelled, surface trembling, then holding.
"Kieran… I'm sorry."
The words splintered through him.
The calm shattered. The car surged faster, wind howling at the windshield. Mom screamed with the engine's roar.
The boy froze, staring at his father's face in the rearview mirror—etched with fear, guilt, something he couldn't name.
After that—
The world snapped black.
Only emptiness remained.
And the scar that never healed.