Chshhhhh—

  The air conditioning system hissed to life, gradually filtering out the sedative gas that had filled the room.

  As the hazy mist cleared, the blinking red emergency lights died out, replaced by a cold, dry, surgical blue light. It was not a light of rest. It was the clinical light of a freezer, designed only to inspect the state of raw materials before processing.

  Nar, who had been collapsed on the floor, opened her eyes with a shallow groan. Her fingertips trembled minutely, as if her nervous system remained paralyzed by the gas.

  Just as her unfocused eyes began to regain clarity, her gaze froze on a massive transparent capsule in the corner of the room.

  "Ah......"

  Inside was another Nar.

  Smooth synthetic skin without a single wrinkle, perfectly symmetrical features, and a permanent polymer skeleton that would never age or gain weight. It was a 'Bio-Android' shell—a meticulously restored 3D replica of Nar in her prime, waiting for a soul to be injected.

  Just then, the door to Room 302 opened smoothly.

  Tap, tap.

  Measured, clinical footsteps broke the silence. Dressed in a perfectly tailored navy double-breasted suit with cold blue eyes that betrayed no emotion—it was Chairman Gene.

  Rea and I instinctively held our breath, shrinking back into the shadows behind the mirrors.

  Chairman Gene didn't even glance at Nar on the floor. Instead, he caressed the cold cheek of the humanoid inside the capsule with a look of profound affection.

  "Beautiful. Rot-resistant skin, a skeleton that never collapses... This is truly the art of eternal immortality."

  "Chair... Chairman..."

  Nar managed to push herself up, calling out to him. Only then did Chairman Gene slowly turn to look at the aged, exhausted Nar. His gaze held no contempt; only the bittersweet pity one might feel for a broken object.

  "Nar. The board of directors at the entertainment group has reached a final decision. I came to deliver this glorious news personally."

  "Glorious...? That machine... is going to take out my brain..."

  "Shhh. Call it 'Extraction.' It is a sacred ritual."

  Chairman Gene knelt on one knee before Nar, taking her wrinkled hand in his.

  "Every woman in the world admires you. Not just for your beauty, but for your intellect, your high elegance, and your status as a timeless Muse. To them, you must remain a 'hope' that never ages."

  "Hope...?"

  "But look at yourself now."

  He traced her sagging jawline and the wrinkles around her eyes with a terrifying gentleness.

  "A withered flower, a moldy fruit... Do you think the public will feel hope seeing this? No. They will feel betrayed. They will resent you for shattering their fantasies."

  "So... you're telling me to die?"

  "No! I'm telling you that you will live forever."

  Chairman Gene gestured toward the humanoid capsule.

  "We will extract only the essence of your soul—that brilliant sensibility, the charm that captivated the masses—and place it into that perfect vessel. To be free from the pain of physical decay and remain an eternally praised icon. Is this not the most meaningful sacrifice and service you can offer the world?"

  It was a death sentence disguised as persuasion. Before the logic of capital, human dignity was being treated as a 'defective part.' Chairman Gene stood up and straightened his suit.

  "The surgical team will arrive within thirty minutes. Accept it with joy. You are becoming a part of immortal history."

  A suffocating silence hung in the room until the door closed and the sound of his footsteps faded.

  "......"

  There was no scream, no outcry. Nar sat slumped on the floor, cradling her cheeks with trembling hands. Every place her fingertips touched, she felt the indelible curves of time.

  "Rea... do you remember? The day he first found me."

  Nar's voice was hollow. It was less a conversation and more the monologue of someone standing at the edge of a cliff.

  "In a corner of the slums, where the stench of rotting fruit filled the air... I was wiping an apple with my dirt-covered hands. I didn't even have water to wash my face, let alone makeup; I used to wipe my face with rainwater."

  Her eyes stared into space as if tracing the distant past.

  "The Chairman told me then. That even covered in filth, my face shone. Like a raw gemstone that glowed on its own. People said the same. They didn't love my fancy dresses; they loved that raw vitality I radiated without trying."

  Tears flowed silently, soaking the floor.

  "But... that love killed me. They devoured my light too greedily. They squeezed me, telling me to shine brighter, hotter. I was withering away, yet they painted my withered petals and blasted me with spotlights, packaging it as 'eternal beauty.'"

  Nar looked up, glaring at the massive humanoid capsule.

  "And now... they say the real me has withered, so they'll pluck out my core and lock it in that cold plastic container. The light I spent my life radiating—they're going to use it as power for a machine."

  "Ms. Nar..."

  "It's unfair, Rea. It's so unfair I feel like I'm going insane. I've never once shone by my own will... and now I'm not even allowed to fade out."

  Nar stumbled to her feet and gripped Rea's hands. Her gaze was no longer that of a star. It was the look of a lost girl pleading for her life.

  "Rea, that place you told me about... Ebony. Send me there."

  "......!"

  "You said the sun never rises there, right? That it's always in the shade, a pitch-black darkness where no one notices me."

  Nar's hands shook uncontrollably. It wasn't fear; it was desperation.

  "I want to be a rotting fruit again. Rather than being taxidermied to be someone's hope, I'd rather end as a 'real human'—rotting naturally in the dark, withering, and returning to the earth. Please... let me escape into that darkness."

  Rea looked at me. I gave a short nod.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  But the problem was the method. Security units were crawling outside, and above all, Chairman Gene was watching this zone. Running out blindly was suicide.

  "Rea, talk to me for a second. Ms. Nar, wait right here."

  After calming the panicked Nar, I led Rea out to a small terrace attached to Room 302 to find a clue for our escape.

  An artificial breeze of Ivory blew past. Rea leaned against the railing, letting out a shaky breath.

  With the mask of the perfect manager stripped away, her profile was merely that of a frightened, fragile girl. Her disheveled hair fluttered in the wind, brushing against her cheek.

  "Adin, what do we do? The Chairman came himself. This entire zone will be sealed. There's no way..."

  She turned her head to look up at me. In that moment, it felt as if a corner of my heart had dropped. It wasn't because of fear. It was because her tear-filled eyes looked as deep and distant as a moonlit sea.

  I instinctively reached out to brush the hair from her cheek, then hesitated. My fingertips trembled minutely.

  What am I thinking right now?

  Despite the urgency, my gaze kept lingering on her white neckline and trembling lips. Solet surged within me. It wasn't a manifestation of power, but a primitive wave of instinct—the desire to protect someone.

  "Rea."

  "Yes...?"

  "Don't worry. I'll protect you... and Ms. Nar."

  My voice came out lower and raspier than usual. Rea's eyes widened.

  A brief silence followed, and between the cold artificial wind, her scent wafted over—faint yet intoxicating. My mind went blank for a dizzying second. I forced my gaze away, trying to calm my pounding heart.

  "We have to find a way. We can't just walk out."

  "We can't break through the security system. The Chairman doesn't trust data. He moves on instinct."

  "Instinct..."

  Then, a thought struck me. Chairman Gene pursues 'perfection.' So when would he be most at ease? Wouldn't it be the moment the system works perfectly and the 'defective product' is disposed of?

  "We're not running."

  I muttered softly.

  "What?"

  "Rea, the system and the Chairman think Ms. Nar is 'going haywire,' so they deployed the gas. But what if... as per your report, she appears perfectly controlled by the gas, and walks herself to the 'Disposal Room'?"

  Rea caught my drift, her eyes sparking. The fear vanished, replaced by her natural sharpness. My heart raced again at that vibrant expression.

  "Right... the units don't suspect an 'obedient resident.' And the path to the disposal room overlaps with the freight elevator. We can escape to the basement from there!"

  "Exactly."

  We nodded to each other. It was a brief moment, but even without holding hands, I felt a heat as if our bodies had touched.

  "Let's go back in. I need to give Ms. Nar her 'final role.'"

  We re-entered the room. Nar was waiting for us with anxious eyes.

  "There's a way."

  I spoke.

  "We aren't escaping. We're relocating."

  The fear cleared from Nar's eyes, and her actress instincts began to surface. She swept back her disheveled hair with trembling hands and smoothed out her crumpled dress.

  "Acting... you say?"

  She stared into the mirror—the only one that remained unbroken.

  "It's what I've done my whole life. Making the fake seem real, making pain look like ecstasy. Tricking a system like this is child's play."

  She took a deep breath. When she looked up again, she was no longer an aged, exhausted woman. She was Nar, the greatest actress of Ivory. Her expression was terrifyingly serene, and her gaze was empty—she looked like a perfectly 'controlled product.'

  "I'm ready. Raise the curtain, Rea."

  Slide—

  The door to Room 302 opened. The hallway was silent. But sensors and surveillance cameras embedded everywhere flashed their red eyes.

  We walked down the hall. Rea and I flanked Nar as if supporting her, but to any observer, it was the perfect image of care managers escorting a resident.

  Step, step.

  In the distance, Unit T was approaching. He was the management unit directly under Chairman Gene. My heart plummeted.

  But Nar didn't even blink. She stared into the void, a languid yet elegant smile playing on her lips as if drugged.

  "Good day, Ms. Nar. Are you relocating?"

  Unit T stopped and asked. His gaze behind the goggles was scanning Nar's vital signs. If her heart rate spiked even once, it was over.

  Nar slowly turned her head to look at Unit T.

  "......It's a lovely day. Perfect for a walk."

  Her voice was dreamlike. Perfect method acting without a microsecond of trembling. Unit T's scanner blinked green. [Status: Stable.]

  "Yes, have a pleasant time."

  Unit T saluted and passed by. Even as he moved away, Nar didn't break her smile. Cold sweat poured down my back, but her spine remained straight.

  "Let's go. We're almost there."

  We moved again, turning into a secluded passage where the freight elevator was located. Just as the elevator doors were about to open, a chilling voice rang from the end of the hallway.

  "The air is foul."

  It was Chairman Gene.

  He was walking toward us—slowly, very slowly. He wasn't fooled by data like the units. He was a predator who could instinctively smell 'lies' and 'fugitives.' Neither Rea's hacking nor Nar's acting would work on him.

  I reached into my pocket. My fingertips brushed against the cool, microscopic particles. In an instant, a heavy weight settled in my heart.

  'Incineration of Time.'

  This was not given without a price. A power that manifests only by burning the past time left by my parents. I gripped the weight of that painful equivalent exchange.

  I can't stop the flow. But... I can sink.

  I opened my hand and scattered the Solet into the air.

  Flash—!

  Brilliant particles of light, like finely crushed stars of the Milky Way, spread through the air. In that moment, a bizarre phenomenon occurred.

  THUMP.

  With a soundless roar, the gravity around us plummeted vertically. It wasn't a physical fall. It was the sensation of our existence sinking beneath the surface of 'Current Time,' which was rushing forward, and into the deep, silent 'Abyss of Time' below.

  A time that doesn't flow, but pools. In that deep reservoir, weighted down by the mass of sorrow and pain, we held our breath.

  Step, step.

  Chairman Gene walked right up to us. He was still walking on the 'Surface of Time.' Just as a sound outside water is heard distorted and muffled beneath it, his footsteps felt distant and surreal.

  His cold blue eyes scanned Nar's trembling shoulders, Rea's pale face, and my eyes directly.

  But he didn't see us. We stood in the same Space, but we existed in an entirely different Time Layer. Just as a water strider on the surface cannot touch a pebble at the bottom of the river, he, walking on the surface, could not perceive us submerged in the depths.

  The Chairman paused. He furrowed his brow, sniffing the air.

  "......?"

  He seemed to feel an inexplicable dissonance. A sudden sense of depth as if the ground had given way, or an unexplainable density of time. But his shallow soul, stained with greed, could never look into this profound abyss created by sacrifice.

  "An illusion? It seems not even a rat is here."

  He lost interest and turned away. Only after the sound of his heels faded did the taut pressure of time begin to release.

  "Get in, quickly!"

  I supported the two women, whose legs had given way, and pushed them into the elevator. Through the closing gap, I saw the shimmering powder dispersing in the air. It was the time of my parents, incinerated to save me.

  We took the freight elevator to the lowest basement level, arriving at an old iron door hidden behind the Sunken area. The very place where I first set foot here.

  Through the cracks, the damp, fishy smell unique to Ebony was leaking out.

  "From here on... there is truly nothing. No lights, no audience, no one to remember you."

  I said, gripping the latch of the iron door. Instead of answering, Nar threw her multi-million dollar diamond necklace and rings onto the floor without a hint of regret. She tore away the cumbersome hem of her dress.

  Under the faint emergency light, the wrinkles and age spots on her skin were laid bare. But she was smiling. It was the most comfortable, liberated smile she had ever shown—one she had never revealed in any movie.

  "To think I can lay down all these heavy burdens... that place is truly paradise. I don't have to be 'Nar' anymore."

  I took a small memo from my pocket and handed it to her.

  "When you pass through the tunnel, find Dr. O. He won't ask who you are; he will help you breathe just as you are."

  Screeech—

  The rusted iron door screamed as it opened. Beyond the door, a pitch-black darkness yawned like an endless abyss. To some, it was a pit of despair, but to Nar, it was her only sanctuary.

  "Thank you, Rea. And Adin."

  Nar walked into that darkness without looking back. With her makeup smeared and her hair disheveled, she didn't look like a fugitive. She looked like a traveler returning home.

  The iron door closed, and we thought of her, left in the darkness.

  Someone risks their life to cross over in search of light, while another flees into the dark for fear of being burned by it. To find her true self, Nar chose not the 'Brilliant Light (Ivory)' but the 'Comfortable Darkness (Ebony).'

  This was the saddest paradox of The Monolith: The Black Paradise.

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