Surviving Among the Letters

“Beep! Beep! Beep!”

The control panel suddenly went berserk.

At the same time, the front glass of the ship began to shatter.

Would you believe me if I told you all of this started from a simple joke?

After barely crawling back from the brink of death, I half-jokingly said,
“Wow, do I have a protagonist buff or something? How did I even survive that?”

The butterfly effect of that tiny joke turned out to be catastrophic.

Crackle! Crackle!

“Shit, it’s actually self-destructing──”

The ship split in half and exploded.

And at that moment, my body was thrown into the dark, pitch-black void.

THUD!

“Guhh!”

A piece of the ship’s debris, propelled by the explosion, struck me in the head.

I clutched my aching skull, but my vision was already blurring.

There was no one here.

Not a single sound could be heard.

I had become a drifter, lost in the dimensional void—a place beyond time and space.

No, I wasn’t just a lost astronaut. I was a lost existence.

◆◇◆◇◆

“This is fucking ridiculous.”

I had been floating in zero gravity for five hours now.

At least, that’s what my watch said.

In reality, it felt like an eternity.

“Come on… this is too much.”

The self-destruct mechanism I installed in my ship was designed to trigger at a 0.001% chance every minute.

It wasn’t supposed to explode.

But it did.

And not after thousands of failed attempts—not even a hundred times.

It blew up almost immediately.

How the hell was I supposed to explain this?

This was blatant railroading.

Even a 1% chance triggering would be a stretch, but 0.001%?

There must have been a shitload of complaints about this.

“Alright, let’s see who wins this game.”

My assumption was correct—some kind of higher power was blocking me.

So now, the next question was:

Who am I to them?

Was I just some expendable pawn?

Or was I something too important to lose?

The answer was obvious.

I had to be the latter.

And if I was that important, they wouldn’t let me die so easily.

“Hey, you bastards, you do realize that if I stay here, I’m going to starve to death, right? You know humans can’t survive without water for more than three days, yeah? Just reminding you in case you forgot because you’re not human.”

I could probably use my powers to grab onto some ship debris and make my way back…

But what would that accomplish?

No. I won’t go back.

If they don’t like it, they can try being the protagonist instead.

◆◇◆◇◆

I’m sorry.

I was wrong.

I don’t want to die.

“Ughhh…”

Two days had passed.

I was about to lose it.

The real problem wasn’t even hunger or thirst.

It was the insane mental strain of floating through absolute darkness.

If this were space, at least I’d see stars.

But here?

There wasn’t a single speck of light.

“…”

I started thinking.

About my situation.

I wasn’t thinking just because I wanted answers.

I was thinking because… I had nothing else to do.

So I let my mind wander.

It was a movie about a man named Truman, whose entire life was a 24/7 reality show.

From birth to childhood, to school, to marriage—everything was broadcasted live.

But he didn’t know that.

Every single person in his life—his **childhood friend, his neighbors, his parents, even his wife—**was an actor.

Truman lived in a massive set, a frog trapped in a well.

Eventually, he started to notice strange things.

And in the end, he escaped.

It was a masterpiece.

A movie so impactful that some viewers believed they were in the same situation and even attempted their own escapes.

“…Isn’t this exactly what’s happening to me?”

The movie even showed it clearly.

Every time Truman tried to escape, the producers pulled absurd stunts to stop him.

Why?

Because they needed to keep the show running.

Doesn’t that perfectly match my situation?

That one-in-a-million chance of my ship self-destructing—wasn’t that the same as the producer scrambling to block Truman?

“Hahahaha!”

A strange sense of peace washed over me.

I was me.

And I had free will.

If they could control me completely, they wouldn’t have let it come to this.

They would have just subtly influenced my thoughts, keeping the story going forever.

Maybe saving Remy was Act 1.

Maybe traveling dimensions was Act 2.

And maybe they could have dragged this story out endlessly.

But they couldn’t.

They failed to stop me.

Now, they were desperately scrambling to put up barriers at the last second.

“Alright, let’s break it down.”

What if this world was just a massive set?

And I had been dropped in the middle of it without knowing a damn thing?

Unaware that this was all part of a story.

One chapter at a time…

Until finally, I reached the last one.

All that was left was the ending.

And in a normal story, the ending would be something like:

“And he lived happily ever after.”

But they never gave me an ending.

No “Hello, I am God, and I’m sending you back home.”

No resolution.

Why?

There could be many reasons.

Maybe the ratings were too high.

Maybe it made too much money.

Or maybe…

There was a reason beyond anything I could comprehend.

After all, this was a society of transcendent beings.

Of course, they would have decided to keep the story going.

They were probably desperate to send me to another dimension, forcing me into some ridiculous sci-fi drift.

One episode per dimension.

An endless omnibust-style saga that could be dragged out forever.

“But what if I say I want to go back? Who the hell are they to stop me? Too bad, losers! Bleh~!”

At this point, they were at a crossroads.

Would they let the protagonist die?

Or would they force me to survive, no matter what?

If my theory was correct, they would never just leave me to die.

No one likes a movie where the protagonist dies for no reason.

“…Help me.”

I was wrong.

I was so wrong.

I was starving.

I was dying of thirst.

I had learned a valuable lesson—never gamble your life.

I was nothing.

And they held all the power.

“Oh great and merciful beings, please bestow your grace upon this lowly wretch.”

BOOM!

“…Huh?”

I stopped moving.

No—something was holding me back.

And at that moment, I felt it.

Gravity.

A powerful force pulling me downward.

“Ugh!”

I braced myself and forced my legs to stand.

When I looked down, the void still stretched endlessly…

But something was different.

There was light.

A beautiful, glowing radiance, like starlight shimmering beneath me.

“…Water?”

It was a river.

A shallow stream flowed over a glass-like surface, reaching just above my ankles.

And beneath the crystal-clear floor, dazzling lights shimmered, giving the entire space an ethereal, dreamlike atmosphere.

“…Did they seriously give me water just because I said I was thirsty?”

This was bullshit.

Absolute bullshit.

No—thank you.

But uh… this is safe to drink, right?

“…Slurp.”

I hesitated, then removed my helmet and brought the water to my lips.

It was cool, crisp, and refreshing.

I gulped it down, soothing my parched throat.

And then, I followed the river downstream.

Why?

Simple.

I was too exhausted to walk upstream.

“Ah.”

Not even five minutes had passed.

Suddenly, the floor disappeared beneath me.

And once again, I was falling into the abyss.

It’s said that when you’re in an elevator, you can’t tell if you’re moving up, down, or sideways.

This was the same.

I could no longer tell if I was actually falling or just floating aimlessly again.

Then—

WHOOOOSH!

A gate opened before me.

And in that instant, I knew.

They were sending me a message.

“This is where it ends.”

“No matter what you do, you can’t escape.”

“Give up.”

“Accept it.”

“This is your fate.”

“…Just this once.”

I reached out.

And just like that—

I was back on Earth.

◆◇◆◇◆

[72nd Experiment.]

Defied a 0.001% probability—

……

──Could never uncover the truth.

May you all be damned.

Fuck you all.

I closed the experiment log.

The moment I saw Remy crying, I realized—

What the hell was I doing?

Truman had no one to protect.

His love interest was outside the set, cheering for him, waiting for him.

All he had to do was escape.

But I had Remy.

And taking Remy with me on my dangerous journey back to reality was not an option.

Comfortable lies or uncomfortable truth.

It was time to choose.

The answer was obvious.

“I can’t take Remy with me on this dangerous path back to reality.”

“There’s no choice.”

“I have to give up.”