“A World That Shouldn't Exist”
The sharp sting of cold air jolted her awake. Her body, once battered and broken, now lay perfectly unharmed.
Her lungs ached as she sucked in a breath, her fingers twitching as if expecting to still hold a weapon. But when she opened her eyes—
She was in a classroom.
The hum of students chatting, the dull scraping of chairs against the floor, the faint scent of chalk and ink. It was all so normal—so terribly, horribly normal.
Her fingers curled into the fabric of her uniform. This uniform should have been drenched in blood.
Then, she turned.
Sitting just two rows ahead of her, casually flipping through his notebook, was him.
The boy who had died for her.
Her breath hitched. The world blurred around her as her heartbeat thundered in her ears.
"Are you okay?"
The memory slammed into her. His voice—weak, pained, but still steady—as he had looked at her before taking the final blow meant for her.
She felt phantom warmth on her hands—his blood, his life slipping away as she held him.
Her chest clenched, her stomach twisted. No, this isn't right.
He had died, protecting her from the last wave of monsters in the final trial. His body had collapsed in front of her, his blood pooling on the cracked stone floor. And yet… here he was.
Alive. Breathing. Oblivious.
Her hands trembled under the desk. She forced herself to breathe.
She needed to confirm something.
Slowly, she glanced toward the whiteboard. Her heart nearly stopped.
The date written at the top was exactly one day before the survival game began.
This had to be a hallucination. Maybe she had lost her mind.
She turned to the girl sitting next to her—her old seatmate.
"Hey, wasn't today supposed to be a holiday?" she asked casually, her voice surprisingly steady.
The girl raised an eyebrow. "Huh? No? Where did you hear that?"
Her stomach dropped. The answer was exactly as she remembered.
No, not remembered. As it had happened before.
This wasn't a dream. It wasn't a hallucination.
She had come back.
Her body tensed with the urge to scream at everyone to run.
To warn them about the coming bloodshed.
To tell him not to sacrifice himself.
She clenched her fists. No. They wouldn't believe her.
How could they?
If someone had told her yesterday that their world would turn into a brutal survival game where their own classmates would become enemies, she would have laughed.
The same would happen now.
No one would believe her.
And worse—if she said too much and they thought she was crazy, she could lose all her credibility before the game even started.
No. If no one would believe her, then she would handle this alone.
As she was deep in thought, a flicker of light passed through her vision.
She blinked. A holographic message flashed for just a second.
> [Error: Scenario Upload Incomplete.]
[System Synchronization in Progress…]
And then it was gone.
Her blood ran cold.
The game was already loading.
The past swallowed her whole.
The screams came first. The horrible sound of flesh tearing.
Then, the first announcement.
> [Welcome, Players.]
[Your world has been selected for the Great Trial.]
The classroom was gone. Instead, she stood in the middle of a burning street.
Desks, school bags, and corpses littered the ground. Blood pooled under her shoes.
And then, in the chaos, she saw him.
Her classmate. The boy who had saved her.
His back was to her, his stance firm as he stood between her and the incoming monsters.
> "Stay behind me."
She wanted to scream at him not to do it.
To run.
But she could only watch, frozen, as the memory played out exactly as it had before.
The monsters lunged.
He took the hit for her.
His body jerked as claws tore through him.
And as he fell to his knees, his gaze met hers.
> "Are you okay?"
And just like that, she snapped awake, gasping for air.
She pressed a shaking hand to her chest. Her heartbeat was a rapid, uneven rhythm.
It hadn't been just a dream.
It was a warning.
This time, she wouldn't just stand by and watch him die.
If no one would believe her…
Then she would be the one to change everything.