Chapter 206: Pastry?
The little girl walked slowly through the park, holding the straps of her school bag with both hands.
She was only eleven years old.
The afternoon sun passed through the leaves above her, leaving patches of light across the walking path. Children were playing farther away, parents were talking near the benches, and somewhere nearby, a street vendor was calling out to customers.
Toma walked quietly through the middle of it all. She wasn’t thinking about anything important. At least, she thought she wasn’t.
Then something moved. A strange shadow suddenly crossed the path in front of her. It was fast. Too fast for her eyes to properly follow.
Toma stopped walking. She looked toward the bushes. There was nothing. She turned toward the other side of the path. Still nothing.
For a brief moment, she thought she had imagined it. But then she noticed something strange.
The shadow had looked like a bunny. Not a normal bunny. It was tall, distorted, almost human-shaped, with long ears stretching upward.
Toma stared at the empty path. For some reason, her chest felt warm. She didn’t know why. She didn’t know what that shadow was.
Yet somehow...It felt familiar. "Have I seen that before?" She couldn’t remember.
The scene suddenly changed.
The park disappeared. The trees vanished. The sound of children playing was gone. Toma was standing inside a pastry shop. Except there was no one there.
The tables were empty. The chairs were perfectly arranged. The display counter was filled with cakes and pastries, but there wasn’t a single employee behind it.
Toma looked around. "Hello?"
No answer.
She walked toward the counter. The shop felt strangely peaceful. Then she heard a voice.
A man’s voice.
"I love pastry."
Toma froze. She looked around. No one was there.
Again, the voice came.
"I love pastry."
There was something strangely casual about the voice. Almost childish. Almost familiar.
Toma’s eyes widened. "Who are you?"
Silence.
Then the voice answered from somewhere behind her. "I just really like pastry."
Toma turned around. Still nothing.
The entire shop remained empty.
She suddenly felt like she was supposed to know that person. Like she had forgotten something incredibly important. She tried to speak.
But before she could say anything...The entire dream shattered.
Toma’s eyes suddenly opened. She sat upright in bed. Her breathing was slightly faster than normal.
For several seconds, she simply stared at the ceiling.
Then she rubbed her eyes. "What type of dream was that?"
She looked toward the window. Morning sunlight was already entering her room. Toma glanced at the clock.
She immediately jumped out of bed. "Oh no!"
From downstairs, her mother’s voice echoed through the house. "Toma!"
Toma hurriedly grabbed her clothes.
"Get ready for school!"
"Okay, Mommy!" She quickly changed, brushed her hair, grabbed her school bag, and ran downstairs.
Her mother was waiting near the dining room. "You’ll miss the bus if you keep moving this slowly."
"I know, Mommy!"
"You said that yesterday too."
Toma puffed her cheeks. "I wasn’t slow yesterday."
Her mother smiled. "Of course you weren’t."
Toma grabbed her breakfast and quickly ate before putting on her shoes.
A few minutes later, she walked outside with her father. Her father carried a small bag while Toma walked beside him.
The neighborhood was quiet that morning. Cars passed along the road. People were heading to work. Other children were walking toward the school bus stop. Everything looked completely ordinary.
But as Toma walked, she suddenly stopped.
Her father looked back. "What happened?"
Toma didn’t answer immediately. She slowly looked around. Someone was watching her. She could feel it. Not in a scary way. It was more like...Someone was standing somewhere nearby and quietly observing her.
Toma looked across the street. She looked behind her. No one was there. She looked toward the trees. Still nothing.
Her father called her. "Toma?"
She turned back. "Nothing, Daddy."
But she couldn’t shake the feeling.
Someone was there. Someone she couldn’t see. Someone who, for some strange reason, felt familiar.
She continued walking toward the school bus.
Behind a distant wall, Nobody stood completely still. He had followed the area from far away, careful not to get close enough for Toma to notice him. He watched the young girl walk beside her father.
Eleven years old. Still just a child.
Nobody lowered his head. "This is getting more complicated by the minute." He waited until Toma disappeared into the school bus.
Only then did he turn away. He didn’t follow her. He didn’t approach her. He simply stood there for another few seconds.
Then he sighed. "Okay. I need answers."
Nobody walked down the street, hands inside his pockets.
The strange timeline had already changed too many things.
Toma was younger.
Nathan Industries was different.
The coffee shop he remembered wasn’t there. Aiden wasn’t the person he remembered. And even his own face had been changed. He had somehow been thrown into a previous version of the world without actually traveling through time himself.
Nobody rubbed his forehead. "Hmm..."
He looked up at the sky. "I wonder how the hell I’m supposed to solve this current past transformation plot."
The System appeared beside him.
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[The System recommends avoiding unnecessary panic.]
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Nobody stared at it. "I’m not panicking."
[User’s current facial expression suggests otherwise.]
"That’s because my face looks like Slenderman again."
[Valid point.]
Nobody sighed. "Anyway, System." He became more serious. "In which date was Toma abducted in that human trafficking scenario?"
The System went silent for a moment.
Then a blue window appeared.
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[Historical event search initiated.]
[Target: Toma]
[Event: Abduction]
[Scenario: Human trafficking incident]
[Date: August 18]
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Nobody nodded. "August 18..." He continued walking. "Okay. That gives me a target date." Then he suddenly stopped. His eyes widened. "Wait."
The System remained beside him.
Nobody slowly turned toward it. "What month is it currently?"
There was a short pause.
[Current date: March 23.]
Nobody stared blankly.
The street continued moving around him.
A car passed. Someone crossed the road. A bicycle rolled past.
Nobody didn’t move. Then his mouth slowly opened. "What the fuc#?!"
A few people nearby turned toward him.
Nobody immediately lowered his voice. "Why the hell is it so early?!"
The System calmly displayed another window.
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[Current timeline: March 23]
[Toma’s age: 11]
[Known abduction event: August 18]
[Time remaining: Approximately five months]
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Nobody stared at the final line. "Five months..." He slowly rubbed his chin. "So I’m not only stuck in the past." He looked toward the direction where Toma’s school bus had disappeared. "I’m five months before the event that completely changes everything."
The System remained silent.
Nobody started walking again. "That means I have time." He stopped. "But..." His expression became more serious. "If this timeline is already unstable, then changing anything could make things worse."
The System finally responded.
[Correct.]
Nobody looked at it. "So you’re saying I shouldn’t interfere?"
[The System is saying that unnecessary interference may produce unpredictable results.]
Nobody nodded slowly. "Meaning I shouldn’t save Toma from something that hasn’t happened yet."
[Correct.]
Nobody looked uncomfortable. "That’s going to be difficult."
He continued walking. He remembered the Toma he knew. The older Toma. The woman who had somehow noticed him despite him being nothing more than an NPC. The woman who instinctively seemed drawn toward him. The woman whose presence always made something inside him feel strangely familiar.
And now he had seen her as a child. She didn’t know him. She couldn’t know him. Not yet.
Nobody looked toward the sky again. "So this world went backward..." He narrowed his eyes. "But why?"
There was no answer.
Then something strange happened. For less than a second, the sunlight above him flickered. Nobody stopped.
A faint distortion appeared between the buildings. Almost like someone had scratched the surface of reality.
Nobody stared. "System?"
The distortion disappeared.
[Yes.]
"Tell me you saw that."
[The System saw it.]
Nobody’s expression became serious. "And?"
A pause.
[Unknown.]
Nobody sighed. "Great! Blindo! You look while not looking." He looked down the street. "Five months until Toma’s abduction." He looked at his strange reflection in a shop window. "An unstable timeline."
Then he looked back toward the sky. "And apparently something else is messing with reality."
Nobody slowly smiled. "Well..." He adjusted his shirt. "I guess I’m going to need a plan."
A blue System window appeared.
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[New objective detected.]
[Understand the current timeline.]
[Do not alter major events unnecessarily.]
[Identify the cause of timeline displacement.]
[Survive.]
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Nobody read the final objective. "Survive?" He stared at the System. "Was that really necessary?"
[Considering the user’s history, yes.]
Nobody paused. "...Fair."
Far away, inside a classroom, Toma sat beside the window.
She looked outside. For some reason, she suddenly remembered the strange bunny-shaped shadow from her dream.
Then she remembered the voice.
"I love pastry."
Toma tilted her head. She didn’t know why. But somewhere deep inside her heart, the voice didn’t feel like a stranger. It felt like someone she had been waiting to meet.
She quietly whispered to herself. "Who were you?"
Outside the classroom window, the wind moved through the trees.
And somewhere beyond the school grounds, unseen by anyone, reality trembled again.