Nothingness is usually depicted as black and void of everything—but not in this room. Here, it was white, maddeningly so. There were no walls, no roof, not even a floor beneath her. It was not emptiness, not truly—more like an endless blank canvas, the world’s most oppressive sheet of paper, stretching in every direction until the horizon curled in on itself. It was white so absolute that even looking into it made her eyes ache.

  A lone figure sat in this endless landscape, dwarfed by its sheer uniformity, staring at a screen floating in front of her.

  She knelt in place on… nothing. There was no surface, yet her knees rested as if something invisible supported her. She was dressed in worn female office attire: a short skirt, a white blouse, and a black suit jacket. Her black hair was disheveled and messy. Her clothes had clearly seen better days—torn, loose, and stained with ash and smoke that had followed her even here.

  For a long moment, she simply stared, unblinking, at the glowing panel before her. The emptiness around her made her feel as though she had been swallowed whole by silence itself. Even her breathing sounded muted, as if the space itself absorbed any noise she produced.

  Then she began trembling.

  It started small—just a faint vibration in her shoulders—before crawling up her spine and into her throat. A soft sound escaped her lips. At first, one might think she was crying, her shoulders hunched and shaking. But the sound twisted, warped, and rose into something else entirely: a shrill, eerie laugh that echoed in the emptiness. It wasn’t joyful. It wasn’t even sane. It was the laugh of someone who had long since been pushed past her breaking point.

  The red-and-black screen floating before her displayed a single message:

  “You have died.”

  It resembled the taunting messages she used to receive in brutal, unforgiving games—the kind designed to punish players, to make them try again and again until they broke. Games she used to enjoy in the small scraps of free time she once had, before work and life crushed every bit of spirit she possessed. But this message… this was absurd.

  Her laughter finally died out, leaving her panting quietly. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, smearing tears and soot across her already ruined blouse.

  She stared at the words again.

  You have died.

  A mockery. A simple, cold declaration of her entire existence.

  And so memories rose, unbidden:

  She had been abandoned by her parents at the age of four at an orphanage. She barely remembered their faces—only the cold touch of a hand releasing hers and the echo of footsteps walking away. Because of her neat and beautiful appearance, the Director had groomed her with meticulous care, not out of kindness but profit. She was an investment, nothing more.

  She was adopted at six by a powerful business family that couldn’t have children—until the wife conceived two years later. Their warmth vanished overnight. Fearful she might covet their blood child’s future, they crafted a scandal and discarded her like a broken toy.

  The orphanage Director vanished shortly afterward, but the fabricated rumors he left behind clung to her like a curse. No one adopted her again. Whispered judgments followed her everywhere. Students avoided her. Teachers looked at her with suspicion. Even the caretakers at the orphanage treated her like she carried a disease.

  Yet she worked hard.

  She achieved top marks. Took part-time jobs as soon as she was allowed to. Earned a scholarship to a respected university. She had done everything right—everything society demanded from someone who wanted to change their life.

  But her reputation followed her like a shadow with claws.

  When she secured a position in a large corporation, she had believed—foolishly—that she could finally begin a new chapter. That maybe, if she worked hard enough, she could carve a place for herself. But her boss passed her over for every promotion due to “morality concerns” and the company’s “public image.”

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  Coworkers whispered every time she walked past. Every problem in the company mysteriously found its way onto her desk. Every mistake somehow became her fault. The harassment was constant—snide comments, sabotage, rumors, men who felt entitled to her silence and obedience. It wore her down day after day until exhaustion settled into her bones like a permanent resident.

  She grew tired. Deeply, profoundly tired.

  What was the point?

  Since childhood, not a single person had cared for her. No one ever gave her attention unless they wanted something from her. She had walked through life like a ghost in plain sight—seen but not acknowledged, tolerated but never embraced.

  So one night, she broke.

  She slipped into the empty office building, doused it in gasoline, and set it ablaze. The flames roared like a wild animal freed from its cage. Heat licked at her skin as she climbed the stairs to the roof. She watched the fire consume the building—the same place that had consumed her for years. For the first time in ages, she felt something. Satisfaction. Liberation.

  They had insisted she was immoral, dangerous, unstable.

  So she became exactly what they said she was.

  And that brought her the first genuine smile she had felt in years.

  Then she jumped.

  She thought she had finally found peace.

  Only she hadn’t.

  She woke instead in this empty white void, staring at a floating screen that calmly summarized the end of her suffering with the casual cruelty of a game notification.

  Her laughter returned—not because it was funny, but because the sheer absurdity of it all left her no other choice. Tears streaked her face. Her shoulders shook.

  And for the first time in her life—no, her death—something inside her snapped.

  A rage long buried clawed its way to the surface. She glared at the screen with such intensity that, if hatred had weight, it might have crushed the panel.

  The same reckless impulse that drove her to burn the company overtook her again. She surged forward, swinging her fist at the floating image, willing—demanding—it to shatter. But her hand passed through it as if it were made of smoke.

  Her breath hitched.

  Then she roared.

  She unleashed a flurry of blows—left, right, left, right—striking with every ounce of strength she had. Her hair whipped wildly around her face. She shouted wordless curses, her voice raw. She struck until her knuckles burned, until her arms felt like iron weights, until her lungs screamed for air.

  But the screen remained. Unshaken. Unmoved. Unbothered.

  Eventually, she collapsed to the ground, gasping desperately. She pressed her forehead against the invisible floor, eyes squeezed shut, forcing her breathing to steady.

  Minutes passed. Or maybe seconds. Time felt strange here.

  When she finally opened her eyes again, something had changed.

  The screen was no longer red and black.

  It was bright blue—soft, calm, almost welcoming.

  Two new options glowed on its surface.

  “System Options. Choose Carefully:

  Start New / Restart.”

  She stared in stunned silence.

  It took her a few minutes to process what she was seeing. Her lips twitched. A grim smile formed.

  “This bastard… what is it planning?” she muttered. “Does it want me to restart in that hellhole again? To relive a life where I was treated like discarded trash?”

  The thought made her stomach twist.

  Restart?

  Return to that same world?

  That same misery?

  Absolutely not.

  Without hesitation, she slammed her hand onto Start New.

  The panel shattered like glass, fragments scattering in every direction before dissolving into motes of light. The white void around her rippled—waves of distortion spreading outward as if reality itself was being rewritten.

  Colors burst into existence around her. Blues, purples, golds—an entire spectrum blooming like fireworks across the horizon. Shapes formed, warped, then dissolved again, as though a world was trying to take shape but hadn’t decided what it wanted to become.

  Awestruck, she pushed herself to her feet. Her hair floated slightly, caught in a breeze that didn’t exist moments ago. Panels—hundreds, then thousands—materialized around her in a dizzying storm. They spun in slow arcs, each displaying streams of text, symbols, diagrams, and information. Too much to follow. Too much to understand.

  But for once, she didn’t feel overwhelmed.

  She felt… something else.

  A faint smile touched her lips. Her cold voice echoed through the shifting space, soft but certain.

  “Let me begin.”

  For the first time in her existence—life or death—she felt something warm flicker inside her chest.

  Hope.