The final two hours passed in a strange, unnatural stillness.
No one came.
No one checked on me.
At some point I lay down on the bed fully dressed, not to sleep, just to listen to the quiet and count each breath.
01:03:44.
00:48:17.
00:31:02.
Then, just as the clock crept closer to the end, the system spoke again.
[Host, reminder: departure can only be completed when all three targets are present.]
I sat up at once.
Right.
All three had to be there.
That meant I couldn’t vanish alone in this room.
I pushed myself upright, grabbed the edge of the dresser for balance, and forced my protesting body into motion.
The hallway was dark.
I could hear voices downstairs.
A low murmur. Glasses clinking. The soft rise and fall of a normal evening in a house that had destroyed me.
I followed the sound.
Every step sent pain lancing through my legs, but I kept going.
When I reached the stairs, I saw them.
Nathaniel.
Marcus.
Julian.
And Seraphina sitting between them on the sofa, wrapped in a cashmere blanket, one hand over her stomach while a servant set tea on the table.
The perfect family.
For a second, no one noticed me.
Then Seraphina looked up and widened her eyes.
“Ava?”
All three men turned.
There they were.
All present.
Just as the system required.
Nathaniel rose first, irritation flashing across his face. “Why are you out of bed?”
Marcus frowned. “You look awful.”
Julian said nothing, but his gaze locked onto me in a way that made the room feel colder.
I made my way to the center of the room and stopped.
The countdown burned bright in my vision.
00:09:58.
Seraphina stood too, looking uneasy now. “Ava, if you came to apologize, you don’t have to—”
“I didn’t come to apologize.”
My voice was quiet, but it cut through the room anyway.
Nathaniel’s expression darkened. “Then what do you want?”
I looked at each of them, one by one.
I thought I would feel rage.
Hatred.
Triumph.
Instead, I felt only a vast and terrible calm.
“I came to say goodbye.”
Something shifted in Marcus’s face. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Julian took one step forward. “Ava.”
For the first time all night, there was tension in his voice.
Fear, maybe.
Too late.
I smiled faintly.
“In my first life, no one loved me,” I said. “Then I came here, and for a while, I thought I had found a family worth staying for.”
Nathaniel’s brow furrowed. Marcus looked confused. Seraphina simply stared.
“You were the reason I gave up my way back,” I continued. “All of you.”
The system’s voice began its final count.
[Ten.]
I looked at Nathaniel.
“I saved you, and you called it debt.”
[Nine.]
I looked at Marcus.
“You raised me, then abandoned me while I was still begging for your help.”
[Eight.]
I looked at Julian.
“I pulled you out of hell, only for you to send me into one.”
[Seven.]
Their expressions changed, one after another.
Confusion.
Alarm.
Disbelief.
And at last, the first crack of something like panic.