The moment Aeris stepped through the tear, it closed behind her with a sound like memory collapsing.
She staggered, the ground shifting beneath her feet. Not real earth. Not even a constructed timeline.
This was a liminal space, where echoes hadn't yet chosen their forms.
The Spark walked ahead of her—silent, barefoot, wrapped in a translucent cloak made of crystallized seconds. She didn't speak. She didn't need to.
The Rift was speaking for her.
Around them, fractured moments played like dying dreams:
Kael being devoured by a shadow Aeris had killed long ago.
Aeris standing over Kael's corpse with blood on her hands.
A version of her marrying someone else—someone with Kael's face but empty eyes.
She clenched her fists.
"These aren't real," she muttered."Not yet," the Spark replied.
They stopped at a cliff overlooking a suspended battlefield—a war Aeris didn't remember fighting. Time stood still here: arrows mid-flight, tears hovering in air, screams frozen in silence.
"I was born from this moment," the Spark whispered, eyes on the scene. "When you chose him over yourself. When you erased the girl who swore she'd never belong to anyone."
Aeris flinched.Because some part of her did remember. Faint. Painful. Like a song she'd heard only once as a child, then hummed in nightmares.
"This Rift doesn't show lies," the Spark continued. "It shows the price of rewriting your fate."
Aeris turned. Her voice shook. "Why now? We sealed the Architect. We closed the loops. We earned peace."
"You closed their loops," the Spark said coldly. "But not yours."
Silence.
Then, the Spark touched Aeris's shoulder—and time reeled backward.
Suddenly, Aeris was on her knees in the middle of a memory. The smells, the colors, the pain—real. She wore a tattered suit, her arm bleeding. Kael was nowhere in sight.
And standing in front of her was…
Kael.But not her Kael.
This one had silver scars across his face, a metal arm, and eyes that held no memory of her at all.
"Who are you?" he asked, gun drawn.
Aeris tried to speak, but her throat tightened. This version hadn't fallen in love with her. He hadn't fought for her. To him, she was just another anomaly.
"I…" she faltered. "I'm not from this shard."
Behind her, the Spark watched, expression unreadable.
"You will relive every version," she said. "Every Kael that forgot you. Every one you abandoned. Every self you sacrificed. And if your love survives all of them… you will return whole."
Aeris's pulse pounded in her ears. "And if it doesn't?"
The Spark smiled—a smile that cut like glass.
"Then Kael dies in your reality, too. Because you are the tether. And your memory… is what's bleeding him dry."
The false Kael fired.
Aeris dodged.
And thus began her trial across the Rift That Remembers.
Not a battle of power.But a war of selves.