We Have Four Hours Before This World Ends
Chapter 13: We Have Four Hours Before This World Ends
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⏳ 1 — T-Minus 4:00:00
The clock on Aika's phone began counting down.
Not the actual time—
A new system overlay had appeared, one only she and Ren could see:
> [ REALITY RESTRUCTURE IN: 4:00:00 ]
[ ERASURE ZONE: GLOBAL ]
[ PRIMARY TARGETS: AIKA HIMURA | REN ARAKAWA ]
[ OPTION: ESCAPE NODE 0-1 OR SUBMIT TO WIPE ]
"Four hours," Ren muttered, standing beside her in the abandoned 3-C classroom.
The sky outside was fractured. Clouds pixelated.
Birds looped their flight paths.
The moon flickered in daylight.
"What do we do?" Aika asked.
Ren turned toward her with the look of someone who'd been fighting too long.
> "We run. Or we reset.
Or we rewrite the rules."
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🧭 2 — The Map to Node 0-1
Ren pulled an old paper from his pocket.
Crinkled. Drawn by hand. A map.
Aika leaned in.
It showed the school.
The basement.
And beneath it—something deeper.
> "There's an exit," Ren said. "It's not real. But it's beneath the real. The place where erased memories wait before deletion."
"Node 0-1," Aika whispered.
"It's the dump zone for forgotten timelines. But if we reach it before reset... we might survive. Together."
Aika looked at him.
"Then let's go."
They ran through the halls.
Around them, students froze. Teachers stuttered mid-word. Some vanished into mist.
Reality was running out of tape.
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⛓️ 3 — T-Minus 3:15:00
They reached the basement.
But the stairwell was wrong.
It twisted downward in impossible geometry. A stairway that looped sideways and inward, like a Möbius strip.
Ren stumbled. "It's already begun."
Aika looked down.
Her feet were transparent.
"I'm fading."
Ren grabbed her hand.
"You don't get to go first. I promised I'd disappear before you ever had to."
She smiled.
"I hate that promise."
The basement door opened itself.
Inside—
A white hallway with a red countdown on every wall.
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🔁 4 — Archive of the Unremembered
They ran into the Archive Room.
Shelves of objects greeted them: broken phones, school IDs, yearbooks without faces.
"This is where they store everyone they erased," Ren said.
One by one, they saw them.
A girl in a stained school uniform humming to herself
A boy flipping through a textbook titled How to Disappear
A teacher with no mouth, grading papers that bled ink
A version of Aika—crying in a glass tube
A version of Ren—screaming without sound
"They're all copies of us," Aika whispered.
"Backups," Ren said. "Test runs. Failed saves."
> "The system ran hundreds of simulations before deciding to delete us."
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🕷️ 5 — T-Minus 2:25:00
Suddenly—
The Tall One appeared.
Its face was a swirl of static. Its arms scraped the ceiling. Its voice came from everywhere.
> "YOU WERE WARNED."
Ren stood in front of Aika.
"Stay behind me."
"Still playing hero?" the entity hissed. "You're not even part of the current build."
It stepped forward.
Reality bent beneath its feet.
Ren raised the notebook. The one Aika had found.
A pulse shook the hallway.
> [ GLITCH NOTEBOOK: MEMORY ANCHOR REACTIVATED ]
[ SYSTEM BREACH: 8% ]
[ INTEGRITY COMPROMISED ]
The Tall One screamed as its arm pixelated. Ren charged with the book like a shield.
Aika followed.
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🌀 6 — T-Minus 1:59:00
They reached a door marked:
> "NODE 0-1 — ACCESS FORBIDDEN"
Ren touched the handle.
It was ice cold.
Behind them, the hallway cracked apart. Old versions of their memories spilled out—moments that never happened, alternate lives, laughter from birthdays they never had.
"We can't bring it all with us," Aika whispered. "We'll lose something either way."
Ren looked at her.
"Then we choose what matters most."
She squeezed his hand.
Together, they opened the door.
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🌌 7 — The End of All Things
Node 0-1 was... nothing.
Just a vast black void.
Floating lights drifted—each one a deleted memory, a life unchosen.
They stepped in.
The door behind them vanished.
The countdown was still visible:
> 00:44:11
00:44:10
…
"This is it," Ren said.
"If we stay," Aika whispered, "we live… but the world forgets us forever."
"Or we break back in," he said, "and try to overwrite reality."
A pause.
A single floating orb drifted toward them. Inside—
A memory.
Their first kiss.
The moment that had anchored everything.
Aika took it.
Her eyes glowed.
> "Let's rewrite the ending."
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🔥 8 — T-Minus 0:05:00: Full Rewrite
Aika began glowing.
Her hair lifted.
Her voice layered with static and signal.
> "I REMEMBER YOU."
Ren began fading.
But the light tethered him.
Aika clutched the spiral notebook and whispered:
> "To all who forgot—
here's the story of the boy I loved.
I'll draw him back into the world, stroke by stroke."
The void trembled.
Memory shards flew around them.
Aika began to draw—in the air.
And with every line—
Ren became real again.
First his eyes.
Then his hands.
Then his heart.
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💥 9 — T-Minus 00:00:00
The clock stopped.
But instead of a wipe—
> The system paused.
And then…
> [ USER OVERRIDE ACCEPTED. ]
[ SUBJECT "REN ARAKAWA" RESTORED TO FRAMEWORK. ]
[ MEMORY CLASSIFICATION: LEGACY — IMMUNE TO FUTURE RESETS ]
[ ENTITY: AIKA HIMURA — UPGRADED TO "ANOMALY TYPE-A: REMEMBERER" ]
The world rebooted.
But they stood in it—together.
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🌤️ 10 — Day One (Again)
Ren woke up to sunlight.
Normal air. Normal room.
He reached for his phone.
No countdown. No glitches.
Then he heard a voice:
"Ren! You're late!"
Aika stood in the doorway, bag in hand.
He blinked.
"You remember?"
She smiled.
> "Every version of you."
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🕯️ End of Chapter 13
Next: Chapter 14 — "The World Is Stable, but Something Still Watches"