chapter 6
In the dream, Ethan was trapped in a sea of fire.
Not my Ethan.
The villain Ethan.
Flames roared around him, swallowing everything, and I ran toward him without thinking.
Only to realize I had no body.
I was there like a ghost.
I could see him.
Hear him.
Cry for him.
But I couldn’t touch him.
He seemed to sense me anyway, because he slowly looked up.
And at last I saw his face clearly.
Tired.
Numb.
Like a flower that had already withered and forgotten what sunlight felt like.
Tears burst from me instantly.
“Ethan,” I cried. “Come on, let’s get out of here first. Please.”
He didn’t move.
He only looked at me.
Then he lifted his hand, trying to wipe my tears away.
His fingers passed through empty air.
He smiled a little, the way people smile when they know something you don’t.
“Avery, don’t cry,” he said softly. “This is just a dream. It’ll be okay when you wake up.”
My tears fell harder.
“Then come with me,” I begged. “Dream or not, come out first. Please.”
He shook his head.
“I can’t.”
Only then did I realize the world around us was collapsing piece by piece.
The fire.
The walls.
The space itself.
And I could only stand there helplessly, watching.
His body began to dissolve into the flames.
Still, he looked at me with that same faint softness and said, “No matter which timeline I come from, I would never hesitate to love you.”
My chest hurt so badly I could barely breathe.
He continued, “Go back to the timeline that belongs to you. There’s someone there waiting for you.”
Then I woke up.
The system’s voice rang in my head, bright with relief.
“Host! I finally fixed it!”
My mind was still hazy from the dream.
My heart hurt in a way I couldn’t explain, but the details of what I had just seen were already slipping away.
“What did you fix?”
“Because you changed the original plot, the original world should have collapsed long ago,” the system explained. “It only kept lingering because of a bug. Now the bug is gone. That world has been deleted.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“And the Ethan from that world?”
The system answered lightly, “He already died there. In the original plot, the villain Ethan Reed died in a fire. After death, he glitched into this world. But now everything has been corrected. There is only one Ethan Reed left—your Ethan. The one who still loves you.”
My throat tightened.
“I understand. Then why does my chest still hurt?”
The system hesitated, then said brightly, almost too brightly, “As compensation for the inconvenience, I also removed your detailed memories of the villain Ethan. Don’t worry. From now on, just live sweetly and happily with your Ethan.”
Then it disappeared.
Leaving me with a strange emptiness I couldn’t quite name.
A knock came from the door.
I got up and opened it.
Ethan was standing outside.
Perfectly dressed.
Ring back on his finger.
Smile gentle as ever.
And yet there was something in his eyes I couldn’t quite read.
Without a word, he went down on one knee.
He took my hand carefully, reverently, like it was something breakable and priceless.
“Avery,” he said, looking up at me, “will you wear this again?”
In his palm lay the matching silver ring.
At that moment, a line drifted through my mind like an echo on the wind.
Go back to the timeline that belongs to you. There’s someone there waiting for you.
Who said that?
I couldn’t remember.
No matter how hard I tried, the figure attached to that feeling stayed blurred.
Only the ache remained.
I looked down at Ethan.
And suddenly remembered the first time he had confessed to me.
He had knelt just like this.
The plain silver ring in his hand had matched the one he’d worn for years—the one I had given him for his eighteenth birthday.
Back then, he had said he wanted a ring, and I hadn’t thought much of it. I just took the time to pick one carefully.
He wore it for years.
Then, when he confessed, he brought me its twin and called them our promise.
I looked at the ring for a long time.
Then finally held out my hand.
He slid it back onto my finger with something close to awe.
Then he bent and kissed the back of my hand.
When he stood, he pulled me into his arms so tightly it felt like he was afraid I might disappear.
“Thank God I met you,” he whispered. “Promise me you won’t leave me.”
Outside the window, flowers were blooming in the morning light.
I wrapped my arms around him and closed my eyes.
“Okay,” I said.
And from then on, through the long years ahead, we kept walking forward together.