[ While panting heavily, you lay unmoving on the floor for a long time. Only the same exact question continued to swirl around in your head – the question of “But, why?”

⸢Why, for someone like me?⸥

You remain collapsed for a while. You thought you cried, too. However, no matter how you thrashed and screamed and sobbed, the already-written sentences couldn’t be changed. Han Sooyoung had to spend 13 years of life just for you, and helped you live by crafting sentences literally carved out of her. And then, she was extinguished.

⸢Kim Dokja⸥

( The 4th Wall ) was calling out to you. You quietly listened to the next words.

⸢Y o u sho uld r e a d⸥

You gingerly stood back up. Your reflection on the windows was a complete mess. It’d be hard to call your body an adult’s anymore. Your height had decreased a lot, and your face had gotten younger, too. The coat you wore no longer fit you. You stared at that face for a long time, before taking the coat off for good. ]

...How many years has it been?

⸢Ear th’s ti me h a s no mea ning he re⸥

[ You understood what that meant. This subway was the location where the ‘Most Ancient Dream’ had his dreams. So, the time of other world-lines couldn’t measure the ‘time’ flowing within this train. In all honesty, you had completely lost all sense of time after entering this train, anyway. ]

Even then, there should still be this thing called perceived time, right?

⸢Ar ound 21763 y e a r s⸥

It’s not as long as I thought. I’m still way younger than the ‘Secretive Plotter’, right?

⸢St ill a li ttle r un t⸥

[ You heard ( The 4th Wall ) cackle away. If it wasn’t for this guy’s presence here, you’d have gone insane a long time ago. Along with the ‘Pah-sususu’ noise, the tip of you pinky decreased a little. Since when did this start from, you wondered. You didn’t do anything, yet your body continued to grow smaller. Well, if you were to be more specific, it wasn’t really ‘I didn’t do anything’, though. ]

...Will I keep getting smaller? [ You stared at the crumbs of Fables drifting away outside the windows and asked. ] Where are those Fables going off to, anyway?

⸢To uni ver se’s sub con scious ness⸥

And where is that?

⸢In a wor ld-li ne y o u ar en’t con sci ous of⸥

[ The role of the ‘Most Ancient Dream’ was to imagine all of the world-lines. Even if you weren’t conscious of it, your subconsciousness was still continuously watching the world-lines. ]

⸢Tho se Fables wi ll be reb orn as ano ther Kim Dok Ja⸥

As another Kim Dokja?

⸢Me ta phor ica lly spea king its li ke th at⸥

[ You thought you could understand what [The 4th Wall] was saying. Fables were streaming beyond the galaxies to head towards another world-line. Those Fables were, in essence, ‘you’. Just like the 49% version of you living along with your companions somewhere in the 1864th regression turn, your fragments could very well be reborn as ‘Kim Dokja’ in a world-line somewhere out there. ]

If it’s only that little, I think it’ll be a bit of a push to call that guy ‘Kim Dokja’. I mean, he won’t be the same as me with such a small fragment.

⸢Y o u mi ght be ri ght⸥

[ An existence that might have a different name and face to you. Even then, that existence would come to life and start imagining the universe. He’d be moved after reading the story, and then, stare at the world-line. And just like that, he’d maintain this universe. ]

...I see.

[ Somehow, you thought you could understand the principle of this universe just a little. You pressed your crumbling fingers against the window. When you did, the rate of crumbling began accelerating. ]

⸢If y o u do th at⸥

This is my way of atoning for this story.

[ Not just from your fingers, but the Fables began scattering away little by little from the shoulders as well as your legs, too. The scattered Fables would fly around in the universe and become sentences that go on to support this universe from somewhere.

⸢To say that, though you have grown up while reading this story, there’s no need for you to become it.⸥

That’s what the author of the ‘Ways of Survival’, Han Sooyoung said. You had clearly heard her. Even then, you couldn’t heed her words. How could you make any other choice when looking at such a story? When you closed your eyes, the overview of the entire universe would get drawn inside your head.

Han Sooyoung wrote the story. Yoo Joonghyuk lived that story. And, you read that very story. And that’s how this world barely managed to reach its completion.

⸢”Dokja-ssi.”⸥

Because this tragedy existed, you got to meet certain people. Someone was able to get saved, too.

⸢Kim Dokja stared into the universe with no visible end.⸥

And now, you knew what your future was like. Every time you read something, you’d crumble away. Your crumbling Fables would scatter to countless world-lines out there and become the ‘gaze’ that maintained this universe.

You would lose all of your memories, and lose everything that you hold dear. And in the end, only the desire to see the ‘next story’ would remain in you. But, without that desire, this universe couldn’t continue.

This universe could only continue telling its story as long as someone was looking at it.