The first star disappeared before light could reach it.Ethan watched the darkness spread across the void, swallowing one point of light after another. The stars weren’t dying. They were being erased from the moment they should have been created.Entire constellations vanished without leaving a trace.Then the sky began to lose its shape.“Ethan!”Cael grabbed his arm as the silver platform beneath them cracked again.The little girl stood on Ethan’s other side, staring at the enormous figure forming in the darkness. Her brother no longer looked like a twelve-year-old boy. His body had become a shifting mass of silver light and black shadows, with countless faces appearing and disappearing beneath his skin.Every face belonged to a child.Some were crying. Some were smiling. Others stared at Ethan with empty eyes, as though they were waiting for him to decide whether they deserved to exist.The boy had absorbed millions of rejected possibilities.Now the void itself seemed to bend aro

“Because the man behind the door isn’t your original self. He’s the reason I died.”For several seconds, nobody moved.Ethan stared at the body inside the glass chamber. Its face was his own, but the voice coming from its mouth belonged to Sophia.Not the Sophia he remembered from the world he had lived in.Not the Sophia who had stood beside him when everything seemed lost.This voice carried something different.Fear.A fear so deep that even after death, it had survived the collapse of the First World.Behind Ethan, the man who called himself Original Ethan took a step backward.“No,” he whispered.The body inside the chamber turned its silver eyes toward him.“You said I would never wake up.”Original Ethan’s expression changed.For the first time since the door had opened, he looked genuinely afraid.Ethan slowly turned toward him.“What did you do to her?”The stranger shook his head.“You don’t understand what you’re looking at.”“Then explain it.”“Ethan, listen to me.”“Don’t

The first city on Earth disappeared without making a sound.One moment, its buildings stood beneath the morning sky. Cars moved along crowded roads, people hurried to work, and children walked beside their parents.The next moment, the entire city was gone.Not destroyed.Not reduced to rubble.Gone.The land remained, but the buildings, roads, vehicles, and people had vanished as if they had never existed.Ethan watched from the collapsing First World, unable to move.“No,” he whispered.Above him, the sky displayed another world. Through the enormous opening, he could see the blue atmosphere of Earth and the continents stretching beneath the clouds.Then a second city disappeared.A third followed.The original Ethan lowered his black blade.“Beautiful, isn’t it?”Ethan turned toward him.“What have you done?”“What was necessary.”“You’re erasing Earth!”“I’m restoring what was lost.”The original Ethan looked toward the sky with an expression of quiet satisfaction.“The First Worl

The sky turned black.Not dark.Not stormy.Black.Every star vanished at once, and the silver light surrounding the doorway collapsed inward. Across the ruined First World, the towers stopped moving. The silver birds hanging above the city froze in midair, their wings spread as if something had stolen the next moment from them.Then the warning appeared again.[THE FIRST ENDING HAS RETURNED.][ALL BEGINNINGS ARE NOW SUBJECT TO TERMINATION.]Ethan stared at the words.He had seen warnings from the Legacy System before. He had watched entire cities disappear, worlds collapse, and forgotten lives return from the edges of existence.But this was different.The warning did not come from the Legacy System.It appeared on everything.On the walls of the First World. Across the black sky. Inside the silver doorway. Even on the skin of the woman standing before them.For the first time since Ethan had entered the chamber, the system had nothing else to say.No instructions.No explanation.No

“You killed me?”Ethan stared at Sophia.She did not look away.Tears ran down her face, but she made no attempt to wipe them. Her fingers remained wrapped around his arm as if she were afraid he would disappear the moment she released him.“I don’t remember doing it,” she whispered. “Not completely. But I remember your face. I remember your voice. And I remember the moment everything ended.”Ethan pulled his arm away.“No.”Sophia flinched.He shook his head, trying to reject what she had said before it could settle inside him.“No. You told me you remembered dying. You said you remembered the chamber, the wires, and the final minute. You said you remembered two lives.”“I do.”“Then how can you remember killing someone who existed before the universe?”“I don’t know!”Her voice broke.The chamber trembled.Above them, the black sky split into thousands of thin silver lines. Through the cracks, Ethan could see worlds stacked upon one another, each one flickering between existence and