Mike looked at the screen, the golden light reflecting in his eyes. Out of all the mysteries, the strange "Route 2," the smiling emoji, or where he was going next, a single, gnawing doubt from his past life rose to the surface. It was the "Senior Dev" in him, the part that couldn't move on until he understood the root cause of the failure.
"How did I die?" he asked, his voice steady for the first time. "Was it just... bad luck? Or was I always meant to run out of time there, in that chair?"
The screen remained still for a heartbeat, then the amber light rippled like water.
[Answer: System Failure was not a matter of destiny, but of cumulative neglect.]
[The physical vessel reached a terminal state due to prolonged stress-induced hypertension and a massive blockage in the coronary artery. Your heart ceased its function at 1:14 PM.]
The screen flickered, and for a brief second, the amber light projected a faint, blurry image. It was a bird's-eye view of the restaurant table. Mike saw himself—a slumped, motionless figure with his forehead resting against the cheap wood.
Then he saw Helena. She was standing, her chair kicked back, her hands pressed tightly over her mouth. Her eyes were wide, brimming with a raw, jagged terror that Mike could no longer feel.
As the image held, the golden text didn't just appear; it felt like it was being etched directly into his mind.
[You died as you lived.]
[Look at Helena. She was kind to you. She opened her life to you, but you remained a fortress. You blocked her out, using her as a shield against your own boredom. You fed her lies of omission and "fake deep" conversations to keep the peace. She viewed you as her only true friend in that sterile office, but were you ever a friend to her?]
The words burned brighter, pulsing with the image of Helena's tears.
[She will mourn for you. She will stand at your funeral and weep for the man she thought you were. Do you believe you deserve those tears?]
The image vanished as if it had never been, leaving Mike in the suffocating dark once more. It wasn't the dramatic, heroic exit he might have imagined in his rare moments of vanity. It was a "predictable outcome" , the logical conclusion to a life spent sitting still, staying safe, and taking everything while giving nothing of himself in return.
Mike didn't answer. The words hung in the void, heavy and irrefutable. He remained silent not out of spite, but because there was no defense left to mount. The screen had stripped away the last of his excuses, leaving him to face the hollow reality of the man he had been. Everything it said was true.
The golden screen began to glow, the amber light shifting into a blinding, fierce intensity that seemed to vibrate through his very soul.
[Inquiry concluded. Initialization of Route 2 beginning now.]
The text pulsed one final time, the letters sharpening into a jagged, final warning.
[Good luck, Mike Harrison. Try to be worth the life you are about to take.]
The light exploded, swallowing the darkness whole. The weightless silence was violently ripped away, replaced by a bone-shaking roar. It felt as if he were being pulled through a needle's eye, his senses screaming as the world rushed back into existence with a physical force that shattered the peace of the void.
Cold, sharp air suddenly filled his lungs. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Mike felt the agonizing, wonderful sensation of a heart beating against his ribs. It was fast, stronger and more frantic than the tired, heavy organ that had failed him in the restaurant.
…
"Get your lazy ass up! You're going to be late!"
The voice was distant but carried a sharp, familiar edge. It wasn't English. It was Burmese, his mother tongue. The sounds felt strange yet perfectly natural, vibrating in his ears with a clarity he hadn't experienced in years. Having lived in Australia so long that he'd become a citizen, the language had become something he only heard over glitchy video calls or during brief, dutiful holiday visits. Hearing it now, live and uncompressed, made his head spin.
Mike remained motionless under the covers, clutching his chest and focusing on the rhythmic thumping of his heart, when a pillow slammed into his face with surprising force.
He bolted upright, eyes snapping wide. Standing by the foot of the bed was the person who had thrown it. Mike froze, his breath hitching in his throat.
It was his older sister.
But it wasn't the woman he'd seen on his phone screen just last week, the one with the subtle wrinkles around her eyes who was always nagging him about why he hadn't married or started a family at thirty-eight. This girl was young, her face smooth and radiating a fiery, impatient energy she hadn't possessed in decades.
Mike looked down at his hands. They weren't the calloused, keyboard-worn hands of a Senior Developer. They were thin, smooth, and lacked the faint scars and stiffness of adulthood.
He scrambled off the bed, his feet instinctively finding the familiar path to the closet mirror. He didn't have to think about where it was; his body remembered this room better than his mind did. He stared at the reflection of a teenager, the boyish jawline and clear eyes a sharp contrast to the tired man who had collapsed in a restaurant in 2032.
The high-tech world, the sterile office, and the silent apartment were gone.
He turned to his sister, Sophie, his voice sounding higher and stranger than he remembered. "Sophie... what's the date today?"
Sophie didn't think much of the question, distracted by her own morning routine. "February 11," she answered casually.
Mike's heart skipped. "What year?"
Sophie paused, looking at him with a mix of confusion and irritation. It was the kind of question a crazy person, or a very lazy brother, would ask. "What are you talking about? It's 2010. Did you hit your head or something?"
The realization hit him like a physical wave. He was sixteen again. Is this Route 2? he wondered. The System hadn't sent him to a new world; it had sent him back to the fork in the road of his own life.
"What are you daydreaming about?" Sophie shouted, snapping him out of his trance. "You need to get ready for school. Now!"
Mike looked at her. To the world, she was the older sister, the one in charge. But mentally, he was twenty years her senior. The dynamic felt absurd, yet strangely grounding.
"Let me take a shower and get ready," Mike said, his voice calmer than it had any right to be. "Can you give me a few minutes?"
Sophie eyed him suspiciously. He was usually the one grumbling and dragging his feet. "Sure. But don't you dare go back to sleep like you usually do."
Mike gave her a small, knowing smile, the kind of smile a man who has seen the end of the line gives when he gets a second chance. "I won't. Trust me."