The Epilogue isn't the End [BL]

1. A Rumored Sequel

Taking a deep breath William readies himself for the vertigo he's expecting to happen, or anything that would happen when shifting worlds (and possibly re-winding time, he never really asked too much about the death thing). But nothing happens.

Cracking his eyes open William looks around, maybe he had shifted already, and it was far less painless than he thought. But the scenery that greets him is not his house, but the familiar rolling green hills of Midran. He hadn't moved.

The [1] is still floating in the air in front of him, the System's screen slowly growing dimmer in the morning light.

"System?" he asks softly, trying to fight down the sudden wave of panic, "why am I still here?"

There's a long pause, before a new smaller window blinks to life, the green of its screen a dark evergreen, [Uhm.... System is unsure.]

'Okay, breathe William,' he tells himself, forcing his lungs to work, "did you get the time wrong?"

[No!] the System quickly protests, [System could never! System has an inbuilt world clock; nothing can mess with Systems' time!]

That's what William thought, but... "Then, what happened?"

The angry windows blink away, as a cold wind whistles through the hills, a last clinging touch of the brutal winter.

[System.... System doesn't know.]

"Can you figure it out?" he asks, thoughts racing a mile a minute, this was supposed to be his last day stuck here, he was supposed to be free! "Are you broken or something?"

[Rude! System is not broken, Host is broken!!!] the bolded message reads.

[...But] and a new window appears covering the angry messages, [System will run diagnostics to check.]

'Did we do something wrong?' he can't help but think, 'Did I not really complete the story? Is there a side story we missed somewhere? Why-'He's snapped out of his spiraling thoughts by a flickering green window, [....Host?....]

"Is something wrong?" he quickly asks, reaching up mindlessly to hold onto the fracturing pieces of code, "are you okay?"

[System feels... wrong.] The system says with a font much smaller than normal, the edges of its window fraying and glitching, [but quick scans show nothing wrong with System. System can perform longer verification but it will take many hours. Host should rest while System checks.]

"I'm not just leaving you in this state System!" he scolds, slowly lowering his hands, he couldn't hold the holographic code even if he tried, "I can wait till your checkup is done. We both need to get back right?"

The screen glitches a few times before a new message appears. [System temporarily offline as System check is in process. Sorry for any inconvenience System's inactivity causes Host.]

William sighs, staring blankly at the blinking inactive screen, he had tried his best to act calm for the System, but... what was he to do now? Did the System lie to him? Was there really no way to go back? Had he missed a mission or plot thread somewhere? 'When did it all go wrong?'

Well, he knows the answer to that question. The moment his annoying little sister picked up that damn romance book.

....

William can with some confidence say he's a rather normal person, or he was before he ended up impersonating a god.

Fresh out of high school, working a dead-end retail job, saving up every penny in hopes of going to an art school, that William realistically knows he'll never actually attend. He was good at art, but it wasn't near good enough to get the kind of scholarship money he would need. Stuck living at his mother's house with his annoying little sister, who seemed to have every last detail of her life planned out while he was mostly worrying about how to ask his attractive co-worker out to lunch without sounding weird. It wasn't the easiest life, but it was his, and he was happy.