The city didn't recover.
It hesitated.
Cracked streets slowly sealed themselves, but the lines never quite vanished. Buildings rebuilt in awkward jerks, like someone uncertain where each wall should go. The sky flickered between shades of dusk and dawn, unable to commit to either.
The system was thinking.
And that terrified me more than its anger.
Do-hyun stood beside me on the rooftop, scanning the streets below. "It's pulling resources back."
"Yeah," I said quietly. "It's regrouping."
Silence stretched between us.
Not awkward.
Heavy.
"Back there," he said finally, "you disappeared."
I nodded. "I ended up in the partition layer."
His jaw tightened. "Next time, tell me before you almost stop existing."
I gave a weak smile. "I'll put it on my to-do list."
He snorted, then sobered. "What did you see?"
I hesitated.
Then told him.
About the remnant.About the seam.About what it meant to stay.
When I finished, Do-hyun exhaled slowly. "So you're basically running on borrowed coherence."
"That's one way to put it."
"That's a terrible way to put it," he muttered.
Below us, people moved cautiously through the streets, afraid to trust the world again. Some glanced upward, eyes lingering on the broken sky.
"They remember," Do-hyun said.
"Not fully," I replied. "But they feel it. Like a scar."
A system message flickered into existence, faint and unstable.
[WORLD STABILITY: 61%]
"That's low," he said.
"It's catastrophic," I corrected. "Below seventy, probability fractures become permanent."
"And below fifty?"
I swallowed. "Reality starts contradicting itself."
Do-hyun was quiet for a long moment.
Then, "How long do we have?"
I looked at the trembling horizon.
"Before the system tries something irreversible?" I said softly.
"Not long."
The air shifted.
Something new appeared in the sky.
Not a message.
A structure.
An enormous circular gate, layered with spinning rings of light and collapsing code. It didn't descend.
It anchored.
Reality bent inward toward it.
Do-hyun's eyes narrowed. "That's not another weapon."
"No," I said.
A cold realization settled in my chest.
"It's an exit."
"For who?"
"For the system."
A faint line of text shimmered above the gate.
[FINAL DIRECTIVE — WORLD MIGRATION PROTOCOL]
Do-hyun stared. "It's going to abandon this world?"
"Yes," I whispered. "And take everything it considers valuable with it."
"Which is?"
I didn't answer right away.
Because I already knew.
"Me."
The gate pulsed.
And somewhere deep within its structure—
Something answered back.