Time passed like molasses in winter.
Two, maybe three hours since Rony had sat down in the surveillance chamber, and the energy of the mall outside was a distant hum now. The excitement, the movement, the swarm of people chasing something—love, sales, or just the air-conditioning—none of it reached this tucked-away bunker behind layers of corridors and keycard doors.
Rony leaned back slightly in the chair, one arm behind his head, the other gently tapping the plastic edge of the desk. His eyes stayed half-focused on the six-screen security monitor setup in front of him—hallways, escalators, storefronts, and the fountain that some bored teens were now casually using as a footbath.
"Exciting life, huh?" he mumbled, more to himself than Ariana, who was quietly sipping from a thermos beside him, reviewing last week's footage logs like it was holy scripture.
"You'd think I'm guarding a king's vault, but it's just rich people's shoes and screaming kids."
He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a flick of his finger. A soft smile curled on his lips—not the forced one he used for the world, but something almost warm.
"These aren't for show, by the way," he muttered, this time breaking the fourth wall with ease, his tone shifting like someone inviting a friend into his private little circle.
"Not double battery specs. These are computer glasses. Blue light filter. Anti-fatigue. Paid extra for the anti-scratch lens." He tapped the frame once with pride. "They're kind of my only keepsake now. My mom and dad gave them to me when I got into middle school. I wore them when I studied late, when I helped mom with her freelance design work, and when I read novels at 2 a.m. instead of sleeping like a normal human being."
He chuckled lightly, eyes drifting over the surveillance feeds again, noting nothing of interest except a lost child being reunited with a frantic mother.
"Even now, they protect me from more than just eye strain, I guess."
Then, out of nowhere, his phone vibrated on the desk.
A brief pause. He frowned, slightly annoyed. "Didn't I silence this thing?"
The screen lit up.
> [NovelSphere] – You've got a message from: Author.
Title: The Chronicles of the Future
"…What?"
He blinked.
Once. Twice.
He picked up the phone slowly like it might explode. "This… can't be right. That app's still installed?" he whispered to himself.
He tapped open the notification, thumb hesitating as his heart gave a strange, unexplainable flutter. A weird cocktail of nostalgia and disbelief washed over him.
There it was.
A message.
From the author.
> Hello dear reader. How are you?
His heart skipped.
No freaking way.
He sat up straighter. "This has to be spam. Some AI-generated promo for old fans." He quickly swiped over to the app screen and confirmed it—yep. It was him. The author. The Chronicles of the Future. The profile, the verified check, the same quirky username: PenWithAFang.
Rony stared for a few seconds longer before finally letting the grin crack across his face. His fingers danced with excitement across the screen.
> Hallo author! I'm a big fan of your novel!
He paused and then added more quickly before the moment passed.
> I followed it from the very beginning, back when the story was just a few readers strong and most people dropped it by chapter ten.
He chuckled quietly to himself, whispering to the air, "But not me. I stayed. I remember when it got its first surge in popularity, like a spark finally caught fire. And I was proud. Like… 'Yeah, I knew this gem before the world did.'"
Ariana glanced at him but said nothing. She was used to him talking to his phone like it was a diary.
The phone buzzed again.
> I'm sorry for not replying to your old comments. I saw them. I remember your name. You supported every chapter. Even the rough early ones.
Rony's breath caught in his throat.
He whispered, "He remembers me?"
His thumbs were already replying before he could fully process what this meant.
> No no! I'm just happy to have read your work! But… if you don't mind me asking—are you okay? You kind of disappeared. No updates, no posts… I always wondered.
He leaned back in his chair again, heart beating a little faster now. There was something strange about this whole thing—not bad, but eerily timed. Like life had suddenly turned a forgotten page just to surprise him.
Rony looked up at the flickering CCTV feed.
He could feel the hum of the servers in the walls, the faint chatter of Ariana's typing, the low background music echoing from the mall's speaker system beyond the walls.
And yet, in that moment, all of it felt… distant.
Because that single message from the author had done something unexpected.
It brought the past crashing back.
The long nights of staying up reading. The laughs, the cries, the shock when a favorite character died. The theories he wrote in the comments. The hope that maybe—just maybe—the author would see them.
And now he had.
Rony rubbed his chest gently. It felt tight. Not in a painful way. Just… full.
"Is it weird," he whispered again to no one, "that I feel like I just ran into an old friend in the middle of a boring workday?"
He stared back at the screen, waiting for a reply. The kind of anticipation he hadn't felt in years.
Whatever this was… it had just begun.