He couldn’t just sit here and rot; he had to try something.

　　Clawing back some shred of composure, Jason scanned the horizon, desperate for even the smallest hint of a way out.

　　The land rolled away into the distance, swallowed by a gray, all-consuming haze that felt just as bottomless as the water at his back. There were no landmarks. Nothing. Staring at that endless horizon for too long started to mess with his head—it looked like the ground was actually rippling.

　　He searched and searched. Nothing.

　　By now, the dread had completely pulled him under. A heavy, suffocating weight had settled in, finally numbing the edge of his panic.

　　Wait...

　　The sky was turning a hazy, milky white. Could it really be dawn? But the last time he’d checked his phone on the road, it was only 2:20 AM.

　　That’s it!!

　　My phone!!

　　How the hell could he have forgotten?

　　Hope was ready to explode the second he got a signal—but then he pulled the thing out.

　　The screen was black. The damn thing was dead.

　　No matter how much he messed with it, the black screen refused to flicker to life. He’d just fully charged the thing before heading out last night!

　　Before he could even start cursing, Jason noticed the watch on his left wrist had stopped too. The hands were frozen at 2:27...

　　He didn't dare let his mind wander any further. The only thing left for him to do was to keep pedaling along the riverbank; he had to keep his body moving. He kept his eyes locked in "search mode," forcing his brain into a mechanical routine of scanning the horizon—anything to stop it from questioning the things he was too terrified to imagine.

　　But the scenery never changed.

　　It started to trigger a soul-chilling hallucination: If this hellscape can be real, then why couldn't reality just be a hallucination?

　　Where was the line between the two?

　　Jason drifted into a trance-like state. Fragments of memory began to crash the party, drifting through his mind like ghosts, yet they felt inexplicably foreign to him...

　　No, that’s impossible. That’s me, isn't it?

　　I’m the lead in all those memories, right?

　　But where are all the other people?

　　Where are the places where those memories actually happened?

　　Everything around him remained hollow and empty. There were no landmarks to guide him, and no proof that any of it had ever existed.

　　Suddenly, Jason realized that everything that once served as proof of his existence felt jarring and out of place here—absurd, even. There was nothing left to validate those "proofs." Carrying them around made him feel like a madman, but if he let them go...

　　He’d already be insane.

　　Right then, a memory of his mother waking him up one morning flashed into his mind. It froze, then began to loop—over and over and over again...

　　A black speck in the distance had grown into a dark silhouette before Jason, lost in his daze, even noticed it. It looked like someone trudging along...

　　A person?!

　　The realization hit him like an electric shock. Jason slammed his feet onto the pedals, racing toward the figure.

　　But just as he was about to catch up, his consciousness—restarting now that hope had reappeared—stumbled upon a thought that instantly drained the life out of him. He didn't dare move another inch forward.

　　But by the time the bike came to a halt, he was already right in front of the figure.

　　Was there even a choice in a place like this?

　　Deathly afraid, he suppressed the rising sense of foreboding, steeled his nerves, and turned toward the person.

　　In the dim, pale light, the old man’s face looked even more withered and haggard. His eyes were closed, showing only a sliver of white; it was no wonder he moved so slowly—the man was blind.

　　He was leaning on a wooden staff. The gnarled, knotted wood of the cane and the old man’s wrinkled, overlapping hands looked as if they were branches grown from the very same ancient tree.

　　The look on the old man’s face was… strange. How could he even describe it?

　　Jason struggled to find the right comparison. He finally landed on one: the man looked like a child lost in a daydream—innocent, pure, and a little bit spacey.

　　It was a combination that shouldn't have worked, yet on this old man, it felt perfectly natural.

　　Caught up in the quiet pull of that expression, Jason found himself almost mesmerized by the sight. His heart rate, which hadn’t dropped below 120 since he set foot on this wasteland, finally started to steady.

　　Glancing down at the base of the old man’s staff, Jason noticed for the first time that the ground was covered in a layer of lush, ankle-high grass. If the sun were out, it probably would have been beautiful…

　　His mind hadn't wandered far before he snapped himself back to reality. Are you planning on moving into this godforsaken place? Ask the damn question! he cursed at himself.

　　“Ex... excuse me, sir... what is this place? How do I get back to the other side of the river?”

　　The moment the words left his mouth, Jason realized that after spending so little time in this silent void, his tongue was already starting to fail him. If he stayed trapped here for a few days, he’d probably forget how to speak entirely. He had to get back—and fast.

　　“What place? Yeah... where is this?”

　　Jason’s sudden question, seemingly dropped from the heavens, didn't shatter the old man's daydream. It just shifted the dream's direction, letting it drift on.

　　The old man’s response didn't sound like he was talking to another person; it sounded more like he was talking to himself.

　　The question seemed to strike a chord. The old man knit his brows and nodded slightly, lost in thought.

　　For some reason, the man’s detached, half-whispered mumbling made Jason feel an uncontrollable wave of guilt. He realized that in the old man's presence, his question suddenly took on a different meaning—one he had never considered and still couldn’t quite grasp. It was a meaning so deep it felt bottomless. A simple question, reflected back by the old man, had suddenly become vast and infinite. In an instant, Jason felt as if he were right back to the moment he first stepped onto this wasteland, only now even the direction back was gone—or rather, the very idea of "going back" no longer carried the same obvious weight it once had.

　　"Who... who are you? How did you get here?"

　　Jason asked out of a subconscious need to defend himself. He didn't know what he was defending against or how to even do it; he was simply throwing out a question based on old habits and memories, better than nothing at all.

　　This actually amused the old man, bringing him back from his wandering thoughts.

　　"How could I possibly know who I am?" he said, as if the question were too idiotic to even bother answering.

　　Jason’s reflexes kicked in, and he was about to snap back, but the words died in his throat. A thought he had never had before suddenly stood in his way—he dimly understood why the old man could say something so nonsensical with such absolute conviction.

　　He was stunned. Things that felt so natural and right back in his old life, surrounded by other people, suddenly revealed their true, absurd nature now that there were no outside distractions to cloud his vision.

　　Jason wanted to recoil from the thought as if from a hot flame, but he realized there was nowhere left to run.

　　The premonition he’d had right before finding the old man was now coming true in a completely unexpected way. To Jason, this white-haired man with the face of a child suddenly seemed as terrifying as a ghost. With just a few light, teasing words, he had completely shattered a foundation Jason hadn't even known existed—the very bedrock upon which his entire mental world was built.

　　Deep inside, an unspeakable, unstoppable shock seemed to shake his entire world. Jason felt a wave of dizziness wash over him.