The Witness Awakens
Ametrine Ashryn jolted awake, breath sharp and uneven, as if dragged from the depths of a nightmare. Her hands clutched at the sheets — soft, warm, and clean. Too clean.
She sat up fast, heart pounding like war drums in her chest, eyes wide and darting. Her fingers dug into the mattress. Real. Everything was real. The ceiling above her wasn't cracked concrete. The walls weren't scorched or broken. There was no smoke. No blood. No ash.
She was in a room.
Her room.
She blinked, once. Twice. Light poured in through pale curtains. Her bookshelf stood neatly in the corner. Her jacket — the one she wore every day in high school — hung over the back of her chair. A faint scent of laundry detergent lingered in the air.
Her gaze landed on the mirror by the closet.
And she froze.
That face.
Seventeen. Unscarred. Whole.
She reached up, touched her cheek, her lips, her hair.
Alive.
She was seventeen again.
"How is this possible?" She couldn't believe it.
Her pulse thudded against her skin, confused, wild. Her mouth opened but no words came. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, feet touching the cold floor as if needing proof it existed.
Amy sat at the edge of her bed, her fingers hovering over her phone.
Friday, January 6, 2050. 08:45
She stared at the date; the digits still difficult to believe. This was the day. The first step back.
This wasn't a dream.
It wasn't just a nightmare. It was a memory.
And somehow, she had come back.
Then—A chime. Soft, synthetic, unmistakable.
A translucent panel blinked into view in the center of her vision.
[System Notice: Congratulations, you have obtained the Title: "The Silent Witness".]
Amy's heart skipped. She frowned, trying to grasp what was happening. "How… how did I come back?" she whispered.
There was a brief pause. Then, another message unfolded across the interface:
[Key Trigger Identified: Tear of Reverie]
Amy blinked. 'Tear of Reverie…? What's that?'
That's when she realizes.
Her eyes widened. That voice — that interface — it was too early.
"…If I remember correctly, the system shouldn't be active yet," she murmured. "So… how come you're here?"
[Title: The Silent Witness
Grade: Unique
Binding: Soul bound
Description:
You died. You returned. You remember everything you shouldn't — and say nothing. The system cannot classify you. It can only observe.
Effects:
Grant the skills:
Unyielding Recall Mismatch Identification Item Box
Grant the achievement:
First User
]
[Unyielding Recall: Perfect memory of the previous timeline.]
[Mismatch Identification: Others' inspection abilities only reveal what you allow.]
[Item Box: A personal spatial storage for non-living items.]
[First User: Grants early prototype access to the System before global initialization.]
She was stunned, she couldn't believe what she was seeing.
So, she read everything again and again.
Amy read the lines in silence, her breath slowing. So, it was real. She hadn't imagined it.
She was back.
And this time… she wouldn't waste it.
Amy sat cross-legged on her bed, the dim blue light of her phone screen illuminating her sharp features as she stared at the semi-transparent interface, only she could see.
It had taken a few minutes after the shock wore off for her to remember how to pull it up.
Status Screen.
Just like before. Just like after.
───── [STATUS SCREEN] ─────
Name: Ametrine Ashryn
Age: 17
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Level: ─
Class: ─
──────────[Titles]──────────
The Silent Witness
First User
─────────[STATS]─────────
HP: 110 / 110
MP: 210 / 210
Str: 11
Agi: 12
Vit: 11
Int: 21
Dex: 14
──────────[Skills]──────────
Unyielding Recall
Mismatch Identification
Item box
────────────────────────
System Status: Prototype Interface Enabled
System Notes: Class and Level functions currently locked.
System Access: Exclusive (First User)
────────────────────────
Her violet eyes skimmed every line, every digit.
No class. No level. Of course — the system hadn't globally initialized yet. She could see her stats: slightly above average in most, thanks to her grandmother's relentless training. Intelligence was the outlier. Twenty-one. Even now, it felt like a cheat.
'No class, no skills apart from the three granted by the title. No level-ups...'
Her brows knit in thought.
She tapped on the titles section.
[First User: Grants early prototype access to the System before global initialization.]
So, the system acknowledged it — a hidden status from the start. That likely explained why the interface felt so… flexible. Features available ahead of time, controls she hadn't seen before. Like a beta tester in a game no one else had even installed yet.
Then the skills.
Unyielding Recall. She didn't need to open the description — she was the description. The timeline lived behind her eyes like a perfectly preserved nightmare.
Mismatch Identification. She smiled faintly. Useful. She didn't want anyone knowing what she could do.
Item box. She flicked her wrist slightly. The space opened for a breath of a second, then vanished. Empty, for now.
She sighed.
The possibilities were endless — but all on a leash. No class, no XP gain, no combat enhancements yet. Her only edge was knowledge, memory... and time.