Alex was scared at first.

  He had that feeling at the back of his mind that he was going to wake up any second now, and all of this was an elaborate dream he made up out of desperation.

  But eventually, he came to acknowledge that it was real and he was home.

  So he made an effort to embrace it.

  And through that effort, the first seed of doubt sprung.

  It didn't take him that long to get into his familiar rhythm.

  That's what set him off — the way it was so easy to let the past go.

  For Alex, that was impossible in such a short time.

  He felt more and more like a fraud. His every action felt like a lie to himself.

  He wasn't that person anymore, and no amount of fake words or playful banter was going to change that.

  So he tried to be the person he had now become.

  Only to find his memories of that life to be blurry.

  It was like someone had forcibly separated those experiences from him.

  And the only thing left was the desperate memories of home he held on to.

  Alex searched the Internet for a plausible explanation.

  Some said that his trauma was so severe that he forcibly burned it from his memory.

  Alex admits that what he went through was torture a human should not endure.

  Yet he was also not someone who would want to forget everything.

  That is because not everyone was evil, and some people who were ordinary felt like an important part of his growth.

  Most importantly, the reflexes and adrenaline rush were something his body would definitely not forget.

  There's a saying that the brain might forget, but the body would not.

  Alex felt he was an example of this exact saying.

  Yet his sister dropped a mug while they were playing, and he did not react to it.

  There was the normal flinching reflex that a normal person would have to a broken cup.

  But Alex should have felt more.

  In that instant, such a loud sound would have sent him running for his life as zombies appeared from random places.

  Or at least, it would keep him wide awake, muscles taut while listening intently for any extra sound.

  Sometimes, such a loud sound could get someone killed, as people's nerves aren't exactly in a relaxed state.

  That day, he stared at the broken pieces of the cup for a long time.

  Up until his mother sent the both of them away from the kitchen.

  That was the water drop that fell into the seed of doubt.

  Then he decided to look at the problem from another perspective.

  His family.

  They were as he remembered.

  Exactly as he remembered.

  His mother was the loving glue that held them all together.

  His father was the stern yet devoted husband.

  His sister was annoying and mischievous, yet she never made sure to leave him out of it.

  There was nothing wrong with them, but there was something wrong with me.

  I wanted to ask my loving mother, who had constantly been worried about me after graduation, a simple question:

  Can you see it?

  Does she notice anything different about me?

  Do I really look like the same person that stepped out of that door that day?

  Am I really still your son?

  But I did not dare to, because those words would make her worry.

  So I casually asked if I had changed in any way.

  I said it with a playful demeanor, yet my gaze was intense.

  She laughed and said that I might have grown a bit rounder from being lazy at home.

  My sister appeared at the doorway and agreed.

  Both of them joined together to tease me.

  I rolled my eyes at them.

  While secretly, my heart was beating out of control with sudden anxiety.

  He went to talk to his stern yet observant father.

  The old man casually remarked that he looked like an unemployed youth.

  That earned him a glare from his mother.

  And an increase in my anxiety.

  I went to my sister, my last hope.

  We might argue about everything, but what sibling doesn't?

  Despite how much we might mock or fight with each other, she was always the first person to know when something had happened to me.

  And she would stand up for me whenever I argued with my parents.

  They had each other's back.

  It was as simple as that.

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  Alex's sister merely called him a pig and wanted to walk away.

  Alex held her back and asked her to look closer with a sense of urgency.

  She just slapped his hand away and flicked her hair as she walked off.

  Every action performed was in line with their normal behavior.

  Nothing out of the ordinary.

  Except the major fact that I had changed.

  And my family should have noticed.

  It was so glaringly obvious every time I looked in the mirror that I was afraid they were too embarrassed to ask.

  It turns out that they never noticed.

  Alex felt like he should be relieved that he doesn't have to worry them.

  Yet all he felt was an aching sense of dread.

  The second drop of water fell upon the seed, and the thirst for clarification grew stronger.

  Alex decided he had to leave that house before it suffocated him.

  That was the real reason he offered to take his parents out to a movie.

  As his doubts were watered, he began to carry out some tests.

  The first test was the idea to go to another cinema.

  One that he had never gone to before — something that existed outside the memory of his usual routine.

  His family refused, stating that the prices of things were too expensive.

  And how he probably wouldn't have that much money for someone without a job, and his father would end up paying.

  On the surface, he listened to their suggestions.

  But underneath, his suspicion of this world grew.

  They went to the cinema and had a wonderful time.

  Yet he could not enjoy it, because the second problem arose.

  His phone password.

  It wasn't that he did not know it.

  But that he did.

  Alex could have used a fingerprint scan to open it.

  But he would still need his pin to transfer the money.

  At first, he was feeling awkward because he was sure that he did not know it.

  But once it was time to pay, his fingers tapped a string of numbers so casually that he thought his hands were possessed.

  How come his hands could perform, yet his brain was blank?

  While they were watching the movie, he tried it again.

  He closed his eyes and tried as hard as possible to remember his phone password.

  But it was vague.

  Which was supposed to be normal, seeing as no one used phones much in the apocalypse.

  There was no service, and neither was the Wi-Fi working.

  Although the last instance had an amazing technological background, the important thing was that there was no one to call.

  Everyone you had known was probably dead.

  Or holding on to the hope of calling them felt too sad.

  So phones were obsolete once again.

  Except for those who were obsessed with them even before the apocalypse.

  Or those who clung to normal life in hopes of a rescue.

  Alex was part of those who stopped using phones.

  Even if he did use them, he would certainly make sure to disable the password settings.

  In conclusion, he felt it was impossible for him to remember the password of a phone — whether in the apocalypse or in real life.

  After that experience, he decided to lay low.

  His mother offered him advice to go out and meet his friends, and so he did.

  But not to relax or reminisce about college days.

  No, he was looking for something that could put his doubts to rest.

  His friends were exactly the same — free spirited and vibrant with youth.

  They also did not notice anything wrong with the increasingly quiet Alex.

  When someone asked him and offered a tiny bit of hope, that same friend immediately dashed it with a teasing remark about how he must be pretending to be good to get his parents to agree.

  Everyone laughed.

  And Alex smiled slightly.

  But he was not amused.

  He took walks around the neighborhood, but found that he could never stray too far from the places he was familiar with.

  There would always be some coincidence blocking his way or some urgent call from his mother.

  Yet everything seemed reasonable, as if it was all just a normal coincidence.

  Alex felt like he was going crazy.

  So he offered to pick his sister up.

  He did it out of impulse once he noticed that his sister never had a school badge on her uniform.

  It was the standard uniform that could be associated with quite a number of schools.

  Once again, he was stopped at every attempt by a string of coincidences.

  But he wasn't doing this because he actually wanted to go there.

  He was doing this to test his memory.

  Only to realize that he had never once gone to his sister's school.

  Neither had he been bothered to remember the name.

  Sure, he had heard about it a lot of times.

  But he never bothered to keep the information in his memory.

  So his impression of it was vague.

  Added with the fact that he was stopped at every turn just because he wanted to go there, Alex developed a theory.

  This world was built upon his memories.

  The seed cracked under careful nurturing and began to sprout.

  As if the world sensed that he was beginning to wake up, his parents delivered pleasant news the next day.

  They had agreed to his passion about being a restaurant owner.

  Alex felt a burst of joy after hearing those words, and the doubts were temporarily suppressed.

  The strongest memory he had was about arguing with his parents on his dream.

  So under such a dream come true, admittedly he lost himself once again in the world.

  He even idly began to wonder why they were so against it if it was so easy.

  He thought about it and finally remembered the reason.

  That's when their next words happened to violently tear away at his delusions.

  They talked about him tasting his own food and finding it delicious.

  Such a simple compliment was more ruthless than them stabbing him in the heart.

  Alex could only let out an ugly smile and keep silent.

  His doubts became like a firm tree in his heart that could stand against any temptation.

  And the world threw him plenty.

  The process of acquiring his dream was practically thrown into his face.

  There was no struggle or hesitation, as everything was placed swiftly in the palm of his hands.

  And the tree of doubt in his mind shook violently with the winds of temptation.

  That caused him to try to deny his doubts.

  To blame it all on the system and claim that this was his just reward.

  But Alex knew that what he did was not deserving of a reward.

  After all, he didn't save anyone at the end.

  All he did was carry out his revenge.

  At the cost of a lot of lives.

  That night, Alex dreamt of the apocalypse for the first time.

  It was of all the people he watched die staring vacantly at him.

  After that, the veil that held his true self away was broken.

  Alex could finally see the world for what it is.

  A carefully crafted dream come true.

  Frankly, he did not want to step out of the dream.

  He was tired of it all.

  So he let himself sink willingly.

  But the dreams of the dead plagued him continuously.

  His parents' words were like a knife that stabbed into him.

  Especially at the celebration of his opening of the restaurant.

  They all publicly watched him eat food and asked if it was delicious.

  Even though everyone in the room knew that he had lost his sense of taste since he was a child.

  They smiled at him while mercilessly poking his deepest scar.

  At the end of the day, even his own tongue betrayed him.

  It really was delicious.

  After that, Alex couldn't sit still and accept it.

  But he also couldn't find the motivation to move against it.

  How many people are willing to give up all one's dreams coming true only to face what could only be death?

  Like a beacon of hope, Paul arrived at his restaurant.

  What made him angry was not the fact that they dared to add Paul to the dream.

  No.

  It was the fact that they didn't make him complete.

  Paul was a lot of things.

  But he was first and foremost a Christian.

  Admittedly, he got on Alex's nerves with the constant chatter about redemption.

  But that was what drew Alex to him.

  As someone who felt like he deserved only death, to hear about a way to redeem himself was more important than he thought.

  Yet Paul sat in his restaurant without even a mention of redemption.

  Alex knew the reason very clearly.

  Because that wasn't Paul.

  And this isn't real.

  Since it was all a dream, he needs to wake up.

  After all, there was one person still waiting for him outside.

  He had promised Paul not to harm Shae Harris.

  And he was going to see to it that he was safe.

  And the only person who could take him back was the system.

  Yes, Alex figured it out ages ago.

  Specifically when he realized that this world was built on the memories he clung to in the apocalypse.

  And those memories were embellished by his own selfish desires to mask all the bad things and only remember the good things.

  So in response to the system, he was not angry at its betrayal.

  He had gone through enough to know that anger wasn't going to help anyone.

  Plus, staying in the dream had relaxed his brain just enough for him to be brought back from the abyss.

  Alex even had the idea that without the system attached to him, all his anger at the time seemed too blind.

  Like an animal charging at everything that got close without any consideration.

  Or maybe it was the comfort that came with holding the cross in his hand.

  Although he wasn't blinded by rage, he was still furious.

  And so Alex, following both intuition and emotion, raised his hands to use the long end of the cross to stab at that annoying blue screen.

  To his surprise, it actually connected.

  And the screen split in half.

  He felt the world around him shake and distort.

  A hole got torn in the dream's reality, and a slender female arm stretched out.

  A woman with striking blue hair and eyes, wearing a white dress, offered him a hand.

  Alex gladly accepted it, feeling that anywhere was better than here.

  After a dizzying sensation, Alex found himself in a familiar place.

  It was the place where he first met Shae Harris.

  He was seated on the same seats he sat on to watch her play games.

  "You must be more open to conversation at this moment, I believe," the guide said while seated beside him with his legs crossed.