I will never forget that day. I turned around and saw my upperclasswoman charging at me with a dagger.
“Why?” I asked, clutching my bleeding throat. She only smiled and said, “Because you're the only one who can ‘anchor’ a god.”
When I opened my eyes again, I was tied to an altar. Gray rain fell without stopping, and the screams of strangers around me were mixed with despairing cries of, “We're dead.” I learned later that this world was a prison for a god. Trapped here, he needed to use us, the “people connected to the spatial collapse of 2018,” as “keys.”
When the door to the core zone opened before me, I had a chance to escape alone, while everyone else would be left in the cage to die. I glanced back at Li Ran clutching his sister's work badge, then at Xia who was trembling but still protecting the wounded. I tucked the dagger into my waist. “If we escape, we escape together. I'm done playing along with this god's deception. I'll break into the core zone again!”
