A System's Cruel Joke

being ground into dust, every nerve set on fire. She gasped, curling into a ball on her bed, her kn

rying to breathe through the

suddenly echoed in her mi

w on a fixed countdown. Terminal illness wil

d woken up in this world. It was the System, the entity that had

sical pain. It was the confirmation of her deepest fear. Her efforts, her

initiated

s. A death

d it. She poured a handful of pills into her palm, far more than the prescribed dose, and swallowed them dry

medication to kick in, her b

t?" she asked the empty room

58 minutes, and 12

. Each second ticking away was

affection of Daniel and Ethan. Each point of

Olivia felt nothing but a profound, hollow despair.

. "It's impossible.

ke a fairy-tale princess and systematically dismantled Olivia' s life. Trying to win back Da

treet. The father was pushing his young daughter on a swing, the mother watching

older brother Daniel' s eyes, the easy, protective way he would ruffle her hair. She remembered the

ission was simple but daunting: survive. To do that, she had to mend the fractured relationships with Daniel

ned. The shared meals, the late-night talks, the casual touches-they all came back. She had earned their affe

lara a

lly found her way back to her family. She was charming, fragile, and masterfully manipulative. Al

a. Olivia tried to hold on, to remind them of their bond, but every attempt was met with misunderstanding and accusations. Clara wa

directly to the mission, began to deteriorate. The pain started

lost. It

She picked up her phone, her fingers hovering over the screen. She needed to contact a lawyer, to settle her affairs, to make a

to make the call, a kn

ivi

, laced with an impati

you doing