Chapter 7: The Girl Who Burned for Us
Selene didn't sleep.
She stood with her back against the studio's warped door, arms crossed tight against her chest, her breath barely fogging in the cold. She hadn't slept in a long time — not really. Not since the old world tore itself apart and buried the pieces in the places no one looked anymore. Not since the field, the fire, the end.
She watched Aria instead.
The girl was curled beneath a threadbare blanket pulled from a forgotten couch, her hair tangled and dark against the crumpled fabric. She twitched occasionally in her sleep — little flinches, like someone remembering how to fall. Her breathing was uneven, lips parted like a question she hadn't had time to ask yet.
She looked the same.
Exactly the same.
Selene's gaze didn't waver. She studied her like one studies a ghost — disbelieving, reverent, afraid to blink.
Even after death, Aria hadn't changed.
Not her voice.
Not her presence.
Not the way the world seemed to lean toward her without realizing it.
Outside, the ash kept falling. Not snow, not soot — something finer. Like the residue of time shedding its skin. The sky was a bruised gray, full of drowned satellites and low-flying drones that blinked red warnings no one listened to anymore. Somewhere a streetlight flickered, humming an old pop song warped by static.
The city was forgetting itself faster now.
And still, Aria breathed.
Still, she dreamed.
Selene let her eyes fall shut.
And the memory came like it always did.
The final night.
Not metaphor.
Not metaphorical.
It was a real night. A last night.
The skyline had cracked open above them, bleeding orange and violet and something redder than blood. Buildings folded in on themselves like origami trying to remember fire. The air had tasted like copper and electricity.
And Aria had stepped into the center of it.
Her dress in tatters. Her hands stained. Her eyes burning.
They'd tried to run. Tried to escape the collapsing lines of reality. But the timelines had caught up with them — splintering at the edges, devouring all the exits. Everything they'd built, everything they'd saved, was unraveling.
Selene had begged her not to do it.
Clutched at her wrist with hands that didn't know how to let go.
But Aria had looked at her — and smiled.
That quiet, tired smile. The one she only wore when she'd already decided to carry something alone.
And she said:
"You were all worth it."
Then she walked into the fire.
No magic words. No grand theatrics.
Just choice.
Selene had screamed.
She'd tried to follow, but the fire wouldn't let her.
The power bloomed from Aria's chest in a ripple that silenced the world. It didn't look like destruction — it looked like memory blooming in reverse. A shockwave of everything that ever mattered, reshaping the air around it. Not raw force.
Love.
Weaponized.
It erased the enemy.
And the past.
And Selene.
When Selene woke up, she was in the alley. Alone. Alive. In a city that wasn't supposed to exist.
Reality had been reset, but not cleanly.
The cracks were still there, running beneath the streets and whispering from the power lines. People didn't remember the war, but they carried the weight of it in their bones — sleepless nights, inexplicable grief, flashes of déjà vu that lingered too long.
Selene remembered everything.
And Aria?
Aria didn't know her.
Not anymore.
But she still had that light. Dimmed, flickering, buried — but there.
And now, curled up and dreaming on the floor of a forgotten studio, she was vulnerable again. Unknowing. The same soul reborn into a quieter apocalypse.
Selene stayed at her post.
Not because she had to.
Because she didn't know how to do anything else.
She was the last page of a burned book. Still here. Still turning.
A soft sound stirred her.
Aria.
The girl shifted under the blanket, blinking blearily into the half - light. Her voice cracked the silence like a dropped phone in an empty room.
"…Are you watching me?"
Selene looked away, jaw tightening.
"No."
A pause.
Aria rolled onto her side. The blanket slipped from her shoulder.
"Do you think we'll survive this?"
Selene didn't answer immediately.
The question wasn't naive. It wasn't even hopeful.
It was just tired.
Selene stared at the cracked window, the way the ash had started to collect in the corners of the panes like forgotten snow.
"I don't think," she said. "I remember."
Aria didn't ask what she meant. She was already slipping back into sleep. But Selene's words lingered in the air, like smoke curling from a match no one struck.
Selene exhaled slowly.
She moved across the room, as quietly as she could, and sat near the far wall. Close enough to hear if something changed. Far enough not to disturb the weight of the moment.
The city outside had stopped pretending to function. Traffic lights blinked without pattern. Drones drifted like lost birds. People moved in quiet, desperate loops, following instincts older than cities.
Somewhere, a billboard collapsed under its own forgotten message. No one looked up.
Selene pressed her palms to the floor, grounding herself in the texture of paint drips and splintered wood.
This was the cost.
This was the aftermath of miracles.
Aria didn't remember, but Selene did.
Every choice.
Every sacrifice.
Every time Aria had been the one to walk into the fire, into the storm, into the end — so that the rest of them could walk out.
And now she was here again.
Alive.
But not safe.
Selene could feel it. The way the city pulsed underfoot. The way the air trembled when Aria spoke, even softly. Something ancient had begun to stir again — something waiting.
And it would find her.
Eventually.
The question wasn't if.
It was when.
Selene didn't know how many chances the universe would give Aria. How many more loops they'd be allowed to run before the world decided it was done rewriting itself.
But if this was the last one —
Selene wasn't going to waste it.
Not this time.
She reached into her coat and pulled out a crumpled photo — creased at the corners, water - stained, old.
It was a snapshot from the world before.
A girl standing in front of a mural.
Book in hand.
Flower in her hair.
Smiling like she didn't know yet what she'd have to do.
Selene stared at it for a long time.
Then slid it gently into the pocket of Aria's coat where she knew it would be found later.
A seed.
A reminder.
A truth waiting to bloom.
Selene sat back against the wall, watching the sky lighten, just barely. Somewhere beyond the skyline, a power grid flickered to life. A flock of birds lifted off a rooftop like they'd been startled by a memory.
Aria shifted again under her blanket.
Selene didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Didn't breathe.
She would stay here.
As long as it took.
Because even if the world burned again —
Selene had already made her choice.
She'd burn with it.
If it meant Aria could live.