Bun still couldn't believe what he had just seen. The scene replayed over and over in his mind, unreal, almost too perfect in its mixture of horror and beauty. He had the strange feeling that he had been watching a movie projected before his eyes, except that this time there was no screen, no distance, no possibility of looking away. Everything was happening right there, in real time, and he was just a spectator, frozen between fascination and unease.
His body remained tense, on high alert, as if he expected something else to happen. Then, without warning, the familiar electronic sound rang in his ears. A sharp, artificial vibration, cutting brutally through the heavy silence that followed the ordeal.
The notification window had just opened.
Bun blinked, convinced for a moment that his mind was playing tricks on him again. The characters scrolling before him seemed unstable, distorted, as if the message itself was struggling to exist. Some letters were distorted, others replaced by incomprehensible symbols.
In the midst of this tangle of bugs and pixels, however, he managed to read the gist of it.
[ You have just unlocked your Spotlight:
"YOUr LoneLy paraDIsE" ]
His breath caught in his throat.
The description appeared immediately after, clearer, almost cruelly precise.
[ You have just unlocked your Spotlight:
"YOUr LoneLy paraDIsE"
Description:
This skill allows you to perceive your own life as a movie, a succession of scenes that you can observe with detachment, like a real spectator.
Activation condition:
The power can only manifest itself when the subject feels detached from reality.]
Bun stood motionless, staring at the notification. A shiver ran down his spine. He then understood, with disturbing clarity, that he was currently in his spotlight.
He took the time to think about the activation conditions.
"Feeling detached from reality..."
The words slowly spun around in his mind. Perhaps fatigue could fall into this category. That deep weariness that numbed his thoughts, that moment when the world seemed distant, almost blurred. Or perhaps detachment went far beyond simple physical exhaustion. Either way, this uncertainty didn't matter for now.
Bun let out a long, sincere sigh. A sigh of relief. Despite the fear, despite the absurdity of what he had just experienced, one certainty stood out to him: none of it had been in vain. He hadn't gone through the horror for nothing.
Before he could even prolong this thought, a new notification popped up before his eyes.
[Choose your Resonance Lexeme.]
He frowned slightly, then a voice echoed in his head. The Resonance Lexeme is a clever method used to activate a special power. Instead of saying the full name of the power or concentrating on thinking about it, they use specially chosen words or phrases. It was like a mental key, an intimate formula, capable of triggering an ability effortlessly, without hesitation. A resonance between language and the soul.
Bun let out a slight laugh, more surprised than amused. He could clearly see the intention behind this idea. To allow users to utter a striking phrase, to give weight, style, and charisma to the moment their power manifested itself. A deliberate staging. Almost a wink.
He knew this process by heart. He had encountered it dozens, hundreds of times, in novels, manga, stories where the protagonists made an impression with a simple phrase that became their signature. At the time, he admired these characters. Their confidence, their power, the way they made the fantastic seem natural.
And yet, he remembered it very well.
Just a few days ago, he would never have imagined finding himself on the other side. Fantasy belonged to fiction, and fiction had to stay there. It had no place in reality. He, Bun, was just a reader, a spectator, condemned to dream of worlds he would never touch.
But today, everything had changed.
What had once been impossible now stood before him, tangible, almost intimate. And for the first time, he understood that the charisma he envied so much was no longer reserved for the pages of books.
This time, he could embody it.
A question then arose in Bun's mind, slowly but persistently. That voice. The one that had echoed in his mind to explain what he had just been through, to put words to the incomprehensible. He was now certain: this wasn't the first time he had heard it. It had already appeared during the second puzzle, when he had survived alongside Sae and Edano.
He closed his eyes briefly, trying to remember that feeling. It was neither a mechanical voice nor a thought that truly belonged to him. It seemed external, detached, yet strangely close. As if it were not only addressing him, but something greater. The moment itself.
The more he thought about it, the more a disturbing idea took shape. This voice did not merely explain. It described. It contextualized. It gave meaning to events, as if everything that happened already followed a written, orderly logic.
A troubling impression then came over him.
It was as if he could hear the narrator of the story.
Not a divine entity or an impersonal system, but a presence that observed, that recounted, that already knew. As if his life, all their lives, were no longer just being lived... but told.
In any case, with this new power, I had become someone else. A different character. Now able to see the movie unfold in real time, I could take a step back, analyze every scene, every glance, every detail that would have previously escaped me. Where I used to endure events, I could now anticipate them. Understand their rhythm. Their silences. Their pretences.
It wasn't just an ability. It was a change of perspective. As if, for the first time, I was no longer just a prisoner of the screen, but also a spectator of my own existence.
I knew that this power would not make me stronger or invincible. But it would give me something just as precious: lucidity. And in this world, understanding before others did might mean surviving a little longer.
There was one last thing to choose. A word. A phrase. The trigger for all of this.
I let a slight smile appear on my face.
My resonant lexeme would be...
« Ready, Set, Fiction! »
[Secret puzzle: -The Embellished Labyrinth-
☒ Unsolved puzzle ☒
Time elapsed: 17 minutes]
[As a failure for not solving the secret riddle, you will continue towards the lie.]
No sooner had the message appeared than murmurs ran through the group, heavy with incomprehension and anxiety.
"What does that mean..." muttered a man, his voice tight, as if he already feared the answer.
I quickly realized that Sae and the other survivors had failed to solve the secret riddle. Failure did not mean immediate death, nor even a visible punishment. Only this sentence. Move forward into the lie. But the more I reread it, the more it chilled me.
Sae, too, seemed troubled. It wasn't the failure itself that concerned her, but the hidden meaning of those words. Move forward... but toward what? And above all, into what lie?
One survivor finally spoke up, in a tone that was meant to be rational, almost detached.
"It's obvious, isn't it?" he said. "It means we won't get the truth. We'll never learn what really happened to our world."
His words fell like a sentence.
Around him, some turned pale. Others looked away, as if the prospect were unbearable. Not dying was one thing. Continuing to live without ever understanding was another. Their fear did not come from what they would face, but from what would now be denied them: the truth.
And for the first time, I wondered if surviving without answers was not a form of deception even more cruel than death itself.
As usual, Ishikawa spoke up before the panic escalated. His voice, firm but measured, rose above the murmurs.
"We are still alive," he said. "Whatever this failure means, it hasn't killed us. And right now, that's more than many can hope for." "
His words were meant to be reassuring, almost pragmatic. For him, survival took precedence over everything else. Yet I immediately sensed that this logic was not enough to calm the spirits.
Some exchanged tense glances. Others clenched their fists. One woman finally shook her head, unable to contain her unease.
Moving forward without understanding. Walking without knowing where you're stepping.
This idea struck something deeply human. Man fears not only death, but also the unknown. He needs reference points, certainties, to know what to expect before taking any step. Committing without answers meant accepting a total loss of control, and few were willing to admit that.
I could see it in their eyes. It wasn't anger that dominated, nor even immediate fear, but a dull frustration. The frustration of having to continue without truth, without explanation, as if the world demanded blind trust from them that they were unable to give.
Ishikawa was right about one thing: we weren't dead.
But for many, moving forward into the unknown without understanding was like moving forward already half lost.
It was then that a young boy, who had remained in the background until then, timidly spoke up.
He walked forward, his gaze lost in his phone screen, sliding his finger as if desperately searching for a signal. As if, by some absurd miracle, a connection would eventually appear despite the total absence of signal. A stray strand of hair fell across his face, almost covering one eye, while headphones rested silently and uselessly on his ears. We didn't really know if he was present with us or locked away somewhere else. His world seemed limited to that cracked screen he refused to take his eyes off.
"Maybe..." he finally whispered, "maybe we have to solve all the puzzles to find out the truth."
A few glances turned toward him, surprised that such a young voice dared to speak up in this heavy atmosphere. One survivor finally asked him, with a hint of annoyance, why he thought such a thing.
The boy shrugged slightly without looking up.
"In video games, it's often like that," he replied simply. "You move forward, you solve puzzles, and only at the end do you understand everything."
He paused briefly, then added in an almost detached tone:
"And I think there must be a hundred puzzles. "
His words hung in the air, strangely heavy. Some people smiled nervously, others looked away. To him, it all still seemed to follow the logic of a game. Rules, levels, an end goal to reach.
The man grabbed the young boy violently by the collar, lifting him up almost as his gesture was so brutal. His detached, almost indifferent attitude had just caused something inside him to snap.
"Wake up," he spat, his face contorted with anger. "You're not in a game anymore. Stop taking this lightly."
Shun's phone almost slipped from his hands, but his gaze remained strangely empty, as if he were observing the scene from the outside, without really participating in it.
"That's enough," Ishikawa intervened, immediately stepping between them. His voice, firm but calm, forced the man to release his grip. "You may be wrong. For some, distancing themselves is the only way to survive in a world they don't yet understand."
The man growled, but finally backed away, letting the boy fall heavily to his feet.
Ishikawa turned to him and crouched down slightly to be at his height.
"What's your name?" he asked calmly.
The young boy finally looked up.
"Shun Kobayashi," he replied in a neutral voice.
It was at that moment that Ishikawa noticed his hands. His slender fingers, clenched around his phone, were covered in tattoos. Numbers, engraved in black ink, stretched across his skin. Numbers, over and over again, like an endless sequence.
Ishikawa froze for a moment, his gaze fixed on these strange marks.
Ishikawa lowered his head slightly to get a better look at the boy's hands.
"Did you get these tattoos yourself?" he asked, his voice more cautious than before.
Shun slowly shook his head.
"No... they appeared when the world changed," he replied simply, as if mentioning an unimportant detail. "Sometimes I can see them, sometimes they disappear. Strangely, it's when we talk about them that I can see them..."
A heavy silence followed his words. So these numbers were neither a choice nor a voluntary memory, but an imposed mark. A trace left by this new world whose rules no one yet understood.
Then the childish voice rang out again, clear and artificial, cutting through the air like a familiar wave.
"Dear Solvers, move on to the next puzzle."
There was no emotion in its tone. No urgency, no compassion. Just a cold invitation to continue.
The group started walking again, almost mechanically. Heavy, dragging steps, guided more by habit than by will. No one spoke. Each person moved forward with their own thoughts, their own fears.
For my part, I took advantage of this moment to concentrate.
I activated my communication skills. It was a strange sensation, as if my thoughts were finding an invisible path out of me.
Edano.
I searched for his presence, then let my message form.
{Bun: I need your help, Edano...}