Moments later, her presence evaporated as if she had never been there.

I stood alone, while the world felt... too quiet.

Mood.

Body temperature.

Emotion.

All of it was merely biological response.

If you know the key — you just open it.

Through chemical compounds,

and information placed

within a framework of space and time.

Maybe... that is why.

This world is too silent.

Too compliant in its stillness.

And I very well know — it definitely is not an accident.

Valeria vanished without a sound.

​There was no burst of light, no fracture in space, not even the dramatic resonance that usually accompanied the departure of an entity of her caliber. One second she was there—saturating the room with a pressure that nearly crushed bone—and the next, the world felt... empty.

​Not empty in a hollow sense, but empty in a way that was disturbingly tidy.

​I stood frozen in the same spot. My breathing was steady, my heart beating with the metronomic rhythm of something too orderly. There was no panic. No relief. Even my fatigue evaporated, as if my body had unilaterally decided that all physiological conditions should return to their factory settings.

​Silence.

​I swept my gaze across the room. Selene was still there, lying on the floor, breathing—that was an objective fact, and for now, it was enough. The world hadn’t collapsed. The sky hadn’t changed color. There was no cosmic alarm.

​And that was precisely what unsettled me.

​Normally, after a confrontation that nearly claimed your life, there is a residue. Echoes of fear. Adrenaline that refuses to subside. Or, at the very least, the dramatic sensation that you have just cheated death.

​Now? Nothing.

​I clenched my hand, then released it. A normal neural response.

​"Ah..." I murmured softly. The sound felt foreign, like a voice dubbed over my own ears.

​I tried to provoke an emotion. Anger? Irritation? Even a flicker of annoyance at being treated like a pawn?

​Nihil.

​Not because I had found peace, but because there was no trigger left to pull. It was as if my body were a machine whose operational temperature had been reset to absolute zero. Not hot. Not cold. Neutral.

​I swallowed and stared at the room, which now felt like a stage set abandoned by its lead actor.

​"So this is what it feels like," I whispered.

​This was not the calm born of meditation. This was the calm born of editing.

​If Valeria were still here, she would likely call this the baseline—the initial condition before variables are introduced. And that spark ignited a cold realization in my mind.

​I looked at Selene again. Her chest rose and fell slowly. Normal. Alive. The world was still running, but its primary engine—the drama—had been shut off.

​I sat beside her, leaning my back against the cold wall. Everything was balanced at a precise threshold—not comfortable enough to lull me to sleep, yet not harsh enough to cause pain.

​Too precise.

​In the old stories, a clue usually appeared at moments like this. An internal monologue would whisper, "This isn’t over yet." Or a sweet promise would manifest, ensuring that everything would turn out fine. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

​But now? Only silence.

​And for the first time, I understood why.

​The figure who had stood before me was not merely Valeria Augusta Christie. She wasn’t just a cold entity who viewed the world as an archive. She was the manifestation of the true Agatha Christie—the Author, long finished with her manuscript.

​I let out a long, heavy breath.

​"So that’s the price," I muttered.

​Rejecting Valeria wasn’t just saying "no" to an offer of power. Rejecting her meant severing the strings that had long held me above the stage.

​Old stories always followed a pattern: When the protagonist is cornered, the world softens. When a choice is impossible, a fortunate coincidence appears. When someone is destined to die, the narrative finds a reason—no matter how absurd—for them to live.

​But I had just rejected that "mercy."

​Not with a sword, nor with magic, but with a single, simple decision: I don’t need your scenario.

​I stared at my hands. No wounds. No light. Yet I knew something vital had been torn away. It wasn’t physical strength I had lost; it was the privilege of being saved by the plot.

​I let out a dry chuckle, a sound devoid of humor.

​"When you think about it," I whispered to the empty air, "a rejected story has no obligation to protect me anymore."

​In this neatly ordered world, narrative was no longer a safety net.

​I shifted my position, crossing my legs. Selene still hadn’t awakened. There was no background music underscoring the moment. No weather symbolism reflecting my inner turmoil. The world wasn’t punishing me; it had simply become... honest.

​Objective. Indifferent.

​I arrived at a bitter yet liberating realization: All this time, I had been living inside a story invested in keeping its protagonist alive. Now, I was standing in a real world that didn’t care whether I breathed or died in the next second.

​Not cruel. Not kind. Just pure cause and effect.

​"Ah..."

​The fear that hadn’t surfaced earlier began to creep in. Not a fear of monsters, but the primal terror of realizing there was no longer a giant hand guiding the path. From now on, if I fall, I will truly hit the ground. There will be no coincidence to catch me.

​I turned toward Selene. She was still here. Bound to me not by written fate, but by choice—and perhaps our own shared foolishness. And strangely enough, that felt more precious than any scenario Agatha had ever offered.

​I stood up slowly. My knees trembled slightly—this time purely from muscle fatigue, not for dramatic effect.

​One awareness settled firmly in my mind: The old story ended because I closed the book myself.

​Whatever happens after this is no longer a continuation Chapter.

​This is life. Without a script.

Without a safety net to tend for.