Ryan couldn't stop staring at Skye's timer.
12 days.
Just a few minutes ago, it was 18 days.
Just because she tried to kill herself… the timer dropped by 6 days.
That meant one thing.
Fixed deaths could not be escaped.
Trying to escape them made the timer worse.
They were now sitting on a bench near Noctis Bridge. The crowd had disappeared, and the night felt cold and quiet.
"So we learned something new," Shaan said after Ryan called him and explained everything. "Skye is a fixed death. Interfering directly with her death reduces the time."
Skye looked down at her hands. "So the more you try to save me… the faster I disappear."
Ryan didn't say anything.
Because he knew it was true.
Demo arrived a few minutes later, slightly out of breath. "I came as fast as I could. What happened?"
Ryan explained everything again — the bridge, Skye jumping, the timer dropping from 18 days to 12 days.
Demo closed her eyes for a few seconds.
"…It's getting worse faster than the last timeline," she said.
Shaan looked at her. "You keep saying that. What's different in this timeline?"
Demo looked at Ryan.
"In the last timeline," she said, "no one saved as many people as you did."
Ryan felt a strange guilt in his chest.
"So saving people is making the world more unstable?" he asked.
Demo nodded. "Yes. Because you are changing too many 'events.' The timeline is trying to correct itself faster."
Shaan took out his notebook again. "Okay, let's organize everything we know so far."
He wrote:
TIMER RULES (UPDATED)
Timers count down to disappearance, not normal death.
There are two types:
Changeable deaths
Fixed deaths
Changeable deaths can be stopped if you interfere at the exact moment.
Fixed deaths cannot be stopped. Interfering reduces the timer.
If you save someone, the timeline changes and the world reset comes faster.
Some people remember past timelines.
Some people have no timer (Demo).
When everyone gets a timer → Day 0 is near.
Day 0 = World Reset.
Shaan looked up. "Now the big question: Why does the world reset?"
No one answered immediately.
Then Ryan spoke slowly.
"I think Skye was right," he said. "The world is trying to fix a mistake."
Demo looked at him. "You mean me."
Ryan didn't want to say it like that, but he nodded.
Demo didn't look angry.
She just looked… sad.
"In the last timeline," Demo said, "we thought the same thing. That if I disappear, the world will stop resetting."
Shaan asked, "Did you test it?"
Demo nodded slowly.
"Yes," she said.
Ryan leaned forward. "And what happened?"
Demo's voice was very quiet when she answered.
"I disappeared," she said. "My timer reached zero… even though I never had a timer before. It suddenly appeared on the last day."
Ryan felt a chill.
"And then?" he asked.
Demo looked at him.
"The world still reset," she said.
Silence.
"So Demo disappearing doesn't stop the reset," Shaan said. "So she's not the cause."
Ryan frowned. "Then what is the cause?"
Demo looked at Ryan for a long time.
Then she said:
"In the last timeline… before the world reset… we discovered a pattern."
Ryan's heart started beating faster.
"What pattern?" he asked.
Demo took Shaan's notebook and drew three names.
Skye
Shaan
???
Ryan looked at the page. "What is this?"
Demo spoke slowly.
"In every timeline," she said, "Skye disappears on Day 0."
She pointed to the second name.
"In every timeline, Shaan disappears on Day 0."
Then she pointed to the third blank space.
"And in every timeline… there is a third person who disappears on Day 0."
Ryan felt a chill.
"…Who?" he asked.
Demo looked at him.
"In the last timeline," she said, "the third person…"
"…was the boy who could see the timers."
Ryan stopped breathing for a moment.
"The boy… gets erased too?" he whispered.
Demo nodded.
"Yes," she said. "The one who can see the timers always disappears on Day 0."
Ryan felt like the world had gone completely silent.
"So no matter what I do…" Ryan said slowly, "I disappear anyway."
Demo didn't reply.
Because it was true.
Shaan broke the silence.
"Wait," he said. "If three specific people always disappear on Day 0… then maybe the world reset is connected to those three disappearances."
Ryan looked at him.
"You mean," Ryan said, "the world resets because the three of us disappear?"
Shaan nodded. "Or the world resets to make sure the three of you disappear. Either way, those three deaths are the key."
Skye spoke quietly.
"So if we want to stop the world reset…"
She looked at Ryan and Shaan.
"…We need to break one of those fixed deaths."
Demo nodded slowly.
"Yes," she said.
Ryan asked the most important question.
"…Has anyone ever broken a fixed death?"
Demo looked at him.
Her answer came in a whisper.
"…No."
Ryan looked at the three names written on the paper.
Skye
Shaan
Ryan
Three fixed deaths.
Three people who always disappear.
Three people connected to the end of the world.
Ryan slowly closed the notebook.
Then he said:
"…Then we do the impossible."
Shaan looked at him. "Break a fixed death?"
Ryan nodded.
"Yes," he said.
"Because if we don't…"
He looked at Skye's timer in his mind.
12 days.
"…This world ends again."