The woods felt different now. Not quieter, but heavier—as if something had followed him out of the replay and into the waking world.
Asher sat alone beneath the same overpass where he'd first used the system's Replay Log. His hands were still, but his thoughts weren't. He hadn't replayed the Rake fight again. He didn't need to.
Slender Man. The Redacted Observer.
He hadn't said a word. Hadn't moved.
Just watched.
Like he was evaluating something.
Evaluating him.
Asher leaned his head back against the cold concrete, exhaling slowly. The chill helped him focus. The questions clawing at the edges of his mind weren't going away, though.
> [System Update – New Objective Assigned]
[Objective: Reach Entropy 15%]
[Reward: Memory Recovery – Past Life (Pre-Ritual)]
He blinked at the floating message. For a long moment, he just stared.
"…First task?" he muttered.
Parasight had never given him objectives before. No quests. No missions. Just information. Growth. Silent evolution. Now it wanted something. Now it had demands.
Why now?
"Why show me that thing in the replay?" he murmured. "Why push me toward remembering a life I don't even feel connected to?"
The system didn't answer.
But something stirred behind his eyes.
A flicker.
He caught a vision—brief, half-formed. A bedroom. A computer screen glowing blue in the dark. A younger version of himself, scrolling through forums filled with names like "Slender Nation," "Unfiction," and "Candle Cove Theory Boards."
He staggered, breath caught in his throat. The image dissolved before he could grab it.
His fingers curled into fists.
"That wasn't this life," he whispered.
It felt real. Too real. Like a memory. Like it had been buried.
He opened the system again. Eyes locked onto the objective:
> [Entropy: 7.5% / 15%]
[Progress: 50%]
[Memory Unlocked: Fragment #1 – Interest in Urban Legends (Past Life)]
Just a fragment. But enough to confirm the truth: he had lived before the ritual.
A normal life. A different one.
And if the system was now pushing him to remember, it meant those memories mattered.
Why?
Because someone—or something—wanted me to forget.
Asher rose, pulling the helmet over his head. The cracked visor filtered the light into jagged lines.
He didn't know what he'd find at 15%. But for the first time, his goal wasn't just survival or evolution.
It was clarity.
And he was willing to carve through anything to get it.