Chapter 18

Horne’s eyes sharpened. He had just relaxed when he immediately entered a state of alert. He quickly ducked into the wardrobe and pulled the door shut, hiding himself in the narrow, dark space.

Something was very wrong with this place. In the previous timeline, the dinner plate had fallen in the same sudden way.

The “creak” sounded intermittently, each time drawing closer by a step. Horne hid in the wardrobe, his heart beating rapidly and powerfully. Besides his heartbeat, he could clearly hear the sound of someone—step by step—climbing the stairs, getting ever closer.

In the darkness, everything turned eerie and sinister.

The wardrobe door had a tiny gap. With the desk lamp extinguished, it was pitch black, and he couldn’t see a thing. All his attention focused on his hearing.

“Creak, creak.”

It sounded like it had reached the middle of the stairs.

Whether it was a person or something else, it wasn’t well-intentioned. It seemed to know exactly how to torment people with endless waiting and pressure, devouring their fear.

As Horne concentrated on the sounds from the stairs, the desk lamp suddenly lit up. A sliver of light shone through the wardrobe gap. Less than a second later, it went out again, then flickered back on.

The lamp began to flash rhythmically, accompanied by the footsteps haunting the stairs behind the wall. Sweat beaded densely on Horne’s palms, and his heart lodged in his throat.

He suddenly felt a bit glad that he had left the others together. And based on his experience, the same thing was surely happening on the first street.

“Creak, creak.”

It was getting closer. The footsteps had reached the top of the stairs, onto the upper floor. Just one left turn and a step forward, and it would enter this bedroom. The wardrobe where he hid was on the left side of the bedroom.

“Creak, creak.”

Horne rapidly thought of countermeasures. With every inch the footsteps drew nearer, his heart grew heavier.

“Creak, creak.”

The footsteps paused at the bedroom door, turning in place.

Right at the one-meter mark to his right. Horne held his breath, poised to strike.

But the wooden floorboards’ creaking stopped at the bedroom door, with no further movement.

In the darkness, Horne waited quietly.

Five minutes, ten minutes—no sounds. Even after the lamp’s final flicker, it stayed off, plunging the entire house into unprecedented silence.

Horne didn’t move, nor did whatever was outside. It neither entered nor left; they were locked in a standoff.

He couldn’t waste time waiting passively. Horne’s hand rested on the wardrobe door. Just as he prepared to push it open and launch a preemptive attack—

“Crack!” A massive snapping sound rang out, so loud it left Horne’s ears ringing. He reflexively pulled his hand back to cover them.

“Crack!”

“Crack!”

“Bang!”

A series of enormous noises echoed from the stairs, reverberating down the entire street. Horne’s heart, which had only just calmed, pounded wildly again.

Amid the continuous explosions and chaotic splintering, Horne swiftly tumbled out of the wardrobe. He quickly turned on the bedroom’s overhead light, dashed out, flicked on the hallway light, and looked down.

The sight shocked him in place.

Every wooden step on the entire staircase had shattered, exposing the concrete beneath. Debris still hung in the air; those “crack” sounds had been the floorboards snapping one by one from the middle, as if someone had torn them apart by hand, each break at a different point.

Horne gripped his small knife, standing at the top of the stairs, silently staring at the scene.

He recalled another system prompt.

“Be careful of them.”

Their mission was to recover memories and piece together the sequence of events, while also being wary of these unknowns.

In the few seconds Horne pondered, the “creak creak” returned—this time very close.

Horne jerked his head up. The rocking chair right in front of him began swaying on its own. But unlike before, with each sway, it inched forward a step, as if someone were pushing it along, drawing closer to Horne step by step.

Horne sucked in a breath and immediately retreated a step into the bedroom. “Bang”—he slammed the door shut and locked it.

His piercing gaze swept the bedroom, then fixed on the tightly shut window.

“Thud!” A smashing sound hit the door. Horne’s breathing quickened as he vaulted over the bed to unlock the window—but it wouldn’t budge.

“Thud thud!” A harder smash.

Several blows in succession—at least three objects were ramming the door.

The wooden door wouldn’t hold much longer; they would break in.

The door lock groaned in protest, and cracks appeared in the wooden panel.

The instant the door burst open, Horne slammed his elbow into the locked window with all his might. “Crack”—the glass shattered.

A human figure tumbled from the second floor of the house. The moment he hit the street, he rolled forward a few times, stopped, and immediately sprang back to his feet.

Just as Horne landed back on the street, all sounds vanished.

The starry sky shimmered; the universe endured eternally.

Horne looked up at his building, straightened his clothes a bit, then turned and ran toward the city gate he’d come from.

His mission was to protect Ains; he couldn’t linger here too long. Something similar might be happening there.

The thick fog at the south city gate remained unchanged. The instant Horne approached, he strode right in. Familiar grief immediately enveloped him. Gritting his teeth, he pushed through the endless sorrow at a brisk pace.

He returned to the street and the North City Gate where he’d started.

The moment he emerged from the fog, he retracted his stepping foot. Horne’s heart thudded, and his mind buzzed.

It was still Central Avenue, but this street floated alone in the cosmos, utterly empty. The buildings on both sides had collapsed into ruins, dust swirling amid lingering smoke—like Loch City after the apocalypse.

The desolation and haze within the city after battling the Aliens.

Horne realized that ever since entering this game, he kept unintentionally recalling the past.

At the same time, he understood the hidden meaning behind the game rules’ warning: Do not pass through the city gates, because even retracing your steps wouldn’t bring you back to where you started.

Not far away on the ground lay a white sheet of paper.

What was that? Horne narrowed his eyes slightly. Just as he lifted his foot to step forward, the ground beneath him shook violently.

An earthquake? That was his first thought, but he quickly realized it wasn’t.

The city gate behind him shuddered violently, crumbling visibly to the naked eye. Horne ducked his head; he saw cracks racing forward from behind across the ground under his feet.

This was… The realization hit him, and his breath caught. The next second, he bolted in the opposite direction.

The street was collapsing!

With every step he ran, the street behind disintegrated further, accompanied by violent crumbling and deafening roars. The pavement shattered into chunks, plummeting into the cosmic abyss.

Horne gritted his teeth, nearly cursing aloud. He ran past the paper, bent down, and snatched it up.

His heart and breaths exploded in intensity, like the cracks nipping at his heels.

The falling stones accelerated; each one dropped the instant his foot left it.

At the last ten meters, Horne dashed across the fracturing stones, sprinted at full speed, and leaped headlong into the fog.

“Boom—”

The survivor plunged into the depths of fate, screams assailing him alongside.

Safe within the fog, Horne half-crouched, hands on his knees, gasping rapidly. After a few seconds’ rest, he straightened and walked out without pause.

The fourth time seeing the same street.

39 hours.

He had previously thought it was a four-dimensional Möbius loop, with the gates connecting in sequence. Now it seemed not. Here, time wasn’t linear—it was random. Even if you passed through a gate and immediately returned, what lay behind was no longer the origin.

As Horne walked toward the familiar house, he pulled out the paper he’d just picked up.

[2050.12.1] The experiment failed. It’s over.

Horne’s steps halted.

Two streets, two timelines—both in December. One success, one failure.

That meant their story’s timeline was indeed November 30th, or earlier on December 1st.

The future held countless possibilities, coexisting until observed.

Because of the recent sprint, Horne walked a bit slowly now. When he felt a flicker of air movement beside him, he pocketed the paper and whipped around.

“Ding—”

It reminded him of the church bells from childhood, tolling on the hour as a flock of black crows flew over the crumbling fence—he recalled the past again.

A translucent jelly-like mass held a heavy clock. It walked while rhythmically striking the bell, slowly morphing from transparent to a puddle of gray sludge. Right now, it was materializing before Horne’s eyes.

How many of these things were on this street?

Horne stepped back. Just as the sludge was about to touch him, a shout exploded in his ear: “Horne! Don’t touch it!”

In that instant, urgent footsteps closed in. A strong hand grabbed his arm and yanked hard. Horne hadn’t expected anyone here; he stumbled but quickly steadied himself. The two ducked into the adjacent house.

The door slammed shut forcefully, plunging the house into dim gloom.

Horne leaned against the wall, panting heavily, hair disheveled. Beneath the strands, his eyes warily scanned the surroundings: the familiar sofa, the familiar wooden floor.

It was his own building.

Further up, the face of the youth in pure white came into view.

Moroz was also slightly out of breath, his white casual clothes dusted gray from the game’s exertions.

Seeing this person, Horne felt displeased. His brows furrowed then quickly relaxed. He straightened and asked, “Where’s Ains?”

Moroz blinked, not expecting that after finally meeting. He chuckled playfully. “How should I know?”

“Weren’t you supposed to stay put?” Old military habits made Horne dislike defiance. As anger flared, he suppressed it.

After all, this wasn’t the military anymore; he needed to rein in his temper.

Moroz shrugged indifferently. “I refused.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than a massive force spun him around. “Bang”—his back slammed into the wall. Caught off guard, Moroz coughed twice.

The knife tip pressed against Moroz’s throat. Horne’s voice was low and icy: “I don’t care if your mission is to get close to me or whatever—don’t play mind games in front of me, got it?”

The timelines reached via gates were random; Horne didn’t buy that he and Moroz just happened to meet alone.

Though it wasn’t coincidence, either. Moroz stared blankly into Horne’s emotionless eyes, wanting to say something but holding back. Moments later, he raised his hands in surrender, though his words weren’t: “Brother, you’re bullying a kid.”