The wind whispered through the scorched remnants of Aeravelle's outer wall, ash still hanging in the air like a second sky. We'd only been here a day, maybe two, but the kingdom had already started to feel like a fragile refuge. Now? It was just another place Jerry had shattered.
I stood among the others, boots pressing into cracked cobblestone, heart beating in uneven intervals. Everything felt off — not in that "weird new world" way, but in that "something terrible is about to happen and no one knows it" way.
N and Uzi lingered near the ruins, quietly conversing about drone repairs or something I couldn't follow. V was perched like a vulture on a nearby ledge, scoping the horizon with eerie calm. Even they seemed cautious.
Jack had tried to lighten the mood earlier with a joke, but nobody laughed. Not even Olivia. That was when I knew things had changed.
"Anyone seen Jerry?" I asked aloud.
That silence — that damned silence — was all I needed to hear.
And then, like a ripple through the air, it happened.
A crack. A tear. A pulse of wrongness.
And Jerry stepped out of it.
His smile was different this time. Not smug. Not amused. It was something colder. Emptier.
"What… what do you want now?" Ivy snapped, stepping in front of me.
Jerry tilted his head. "That's a funny question."
He didn't move. Didn't blink. Just stared at us — like we were things. Pieces on a board he'd already won.
"I warned you," he said softly. "This world isn't a safe zone. There are no party saves. No checkpoints. Just choices."
Daniel stepped forward. "This doesn't have to end in blood—"
But it already had.
Before I could breathe, before I could scream, Jerry raised a hand — and Daniel was gone.
No explosion. No sound.
He just… crumpled.
His body hit the ground like a rag doll, glasses askew, eyes wide in silent disbelief.
"No!" I yelled, rushing to his side. But I knew it. That eerie stillness. That absence. He was gone.
Gone.
There was no wound. No mark. Just… emptiness where his life used to be.
"What did you do?" Sofia whispered, backing away, her hands shaking.
"I erased a variable," Jerry said. "He was asking too many questions."
"You monster!" Ayaka cried out, trying to summon her glass — but it shattered in her hands before it even formed.
Jerry didn't flinch. He just looked at us, bored. "I'm tired of pretending this story needs all of you."
And that was the moment the fear hit us all at once. The realization.
We weren't safe.
Not even close.