Chapter 1: The Missing Girl Returns

In the seventeenth year since I was ripped out of my world and thrown into ancient times, I finally met another person like me—a second time traveler.

She held out a battered missing person flyer, the edges curled and the ink faded with time. My breath caught as I traced the faint lines with my finger, my heart hammering when I recognized my mom’s handwriting in the margin: “Emmy, we’ll never stop looking.” Only my family would know that nickname. They’d been searching for me all this time.

She told me my parents had sent her to bring me home.

"You’ve been through so much."

Tears hit my cheeks before I even realized I was crying.

I couldn’t find words for the storm inside me. Seventeen years of buried feelings—relief, disbelief, hope, and a homesickness so sharp it hurt—just burst out. My body shook, the tears unstoppable, like every bit of pain and longing I’d ever felt was finally breaking free.

The woman who’d crossed time and space to find me was a space-time officer from the Special Bureau.

She looked awkward, like this wasn’t something she’d trained for, and her words came out stiff, almost apologetic:

"Uh, hi. I’m... Number 075. That’s what they call me at the Bureau. I’m supposed to bring you home, Emily Harrison."

I flinched. The sound of my real name struck me like a slap. I mouthed it silently—Emily Harrison—my hand rising to my throat in disbelief, as if saying it out loud would make it vanish. After all these years, someone finally spoke to me like I mattered. Not as "demon woman" or "worthless slave."

Those names—one spat with fear, the other with contempt—had stripped me down to nothing.

I pulled myself together as best I could, wiping at my eyes, and asked the question that burned in my chest. My voice came out raw, barely more than a whisper:

"Are my parents... are they okay?"

My journey here had happened without warning.

It was just after study hall, seventh grade. The October air was crisp, and all I could think about was the leftover pizza Mom promised to save me. Then, out of nowhere, something calling itself a "romance system" latched onto me.

It demanded I redeem the male protagonist of this world. Only after completing the mission, it said, could I go home.

But it didn’t give me an identity, or any kind of protection. No papers, no story to hide behind.

From the moment I landed here, I was undocumented.

People like that had no rights. I was nothing. Not even a stray dog. Just a body people kicked around when they were bored.

Survive. Get home. See my mother again. Those were the only things that kept me going.

I did things I never imagined. My hands were stained with blood—things that would have horrified the girl who used to stress about overdue library books.

The first person I killed was the girl who once saved me. Her name was Luna. She’d been nothing but kind.

...

Number 075 didn’t answer my question right away. Her face was calm, but I caught a flicker of pity in her eyes.

"You’ll know when you get back."

She tried to reassure me: "Emily Harrison, you don’t need to worry. We can go home in three days."

"There won’t be any problems. We’ve already rescued one hundred and thirty-one people like you."

"Please don’t worry."

Somehow, her words settled something inside me. Maybe she’d said them to others before. Maybe she just knew what it meant to be gone too long.

For the first time in seventeen years, the panic inside me eased. I was really going home. After everything I’d done, after all the years lost—I could still go home.