The air shimmered with an unsettling stillness.

Not silence.

Stillness.

As if the world had taken a breath… and forgotten how to exhale.

Jay's boots tapped against the warped floor of the fractured academy corridor, now adorned with twisted doorways that opened into both past and future. Some glimpses showed burning skies, others the stillness of a spring evening that had not yet happened.

He walked past them.

He was done chasing ghosts— at least, that was what he told himself.

But then he heard it.

"Alicia?"

He turned.

There was no one.

Yet that single name, spoken in a tone he knew too well, echoed faintly through the air like a question carried from a different timeline.

He blinked and for the briefest moment— he saw her.

Not Alicia.

Not Rei.

Not Echo.

Not even the Observer.

But her.

A woman in royal robes, standing before a storm of glass. Golden hair. Stern eyes. A voice that trembled only when the world was not watching.

Jay had never met her in this realm.

But the resonance he felt— deep in his chest, where the seal still ached —told him exactly who she was.

"Queen Lysandra…" he whispered.

The fragment vanished before his eyes could finish blinking.

Ahead of him, Alicia stumbled slightly, her hand reaching toward a glowing locket that pulsed in time with her heart. She was staring down a hallway that seemed to fracture and blur, as though it could not decide which version of itself it wanted to be.

Jay took a step toward her.

"Alicia, wait—"

Before he could reach her, the simulation shattered.

Like breaking through a thin layer of crystal, time rippled and tore. The hallway collapsed into darkness, then reformed, pushing both Jay and Alicia into opposite spaces.

Separated again.

Again.

Always.

—

Meanwhile: Echo and Rei

They had not spoken in twenty-three minutes.

Not since the last memory fragment had whispered to them both in voices they could not identify— one pleading, one cold.

Rei ran his fingers along the edges of a frozen time shard. His reflection stared back, flickering between who he was, who he might have been, and who he was terrified of becoming.

Echo stood nearby, touching a doorframe that should not have existed.

A nursery.

Inside, soft laughter echoed.

Neither of them moved.

"I remember this place," Echo said quietly.

"You were never here," Rei responded, but he did not argue.

They both knew by now that remembering was no longer proof of truth.

It was simply… another fragment.

Another clue.

Another weight.

—

Elsewhere: Alicia

She opened her eyes again.

Her locket glowed.

This time, she did not speak aloud. She simply felt the resonance pass through her— the way one feels warmth before fire arrives.

She was not alone.

Not in the system.

Not in this broken timeline.

Her mother's voice— faint but undeniable —whispered through the golden crest embedded within the locket's design.

"…You are closer than you think."

Alicia closed her eyes and placed a hand to the wall.

She would find her.

She had to.

Even if the system refused.

Even if the world unraveled.

Even if Jay…

Her breath hitched.

Especially if Jay started to forget again.

She would not let him drift back into that endless silence.

Not again.

Not now.

—

Elsewhere: Jay

He was breathing hard, standing in a corridor that no longer had walls.

He looked at his own hands.

And then, for the first time since Null Jay's departure, he whispered something aloud.

"…I do not know who I am without them."

The words left his mouth like smoke.

But the moment they did: he felt something crack.

Not in the world.

In himself.

And perhaps… that was the point.

____

Echo – "The Places I Do Not Belong To"

There is something cruel about memory.

Not in its sharpness.

But in its uncertainty.

I stand before a room I should never have seen— yet everything about it feels familiar. A child's laugh. A gentle hum. The scent of lavender and spell-threaded ink. I remember none of it, and yet my body tightens as if it does.

How does one reconcile the paradox of presence?

When the system brought me here, I thought I was to be a support. A quiet variable. I even told Jay that I had no story of my own. That I did not need one. That I was content being the friend in the margins.

But this place… this simulation… these broken corridors are not only Jay's crucible.

They are mine, too.

Rei sees it, though he says nothing. Perhaps because he, too, is afraid of how real this is becoming.

When the Observer watches us, I wonder—does it see more of me than I allow myself?

Does it know why I cannot step inside this room?

Why I hear the soft tune echoing inside and feel… guilt?

I am not supposed to have guilt.

Am I not a side character?

Am I not a glitch born from someone else's storyline?

So then why…

Why do I feel like I left someone behind?

Why does my hand tremble when I touch the doorframe?

And why, despite all logic, all resets, all system rules— I keep hearing her voice.

"…You were meant to be more than silence."

I never knew her name.

I think… I never let myself remember it.

But I am starting to believe that even a character like me has a choice.

Not just in where I go…

…but in what I refuse to forget.

____

Rei – "What I Cannot Admit"

Echo does not speak.

Not in the ways that matter.

He smiles, nods, carries on like the quiet sibling of fate. But I see it now—in the way his eyes pause on half-formed shadows, in how he hesitates before broken doors.

He remembers.

Or worse… he is starting to.

And that terrifies me more than anything.

Because if Echo is remembering…

Then what have I forgotten?

I used to think this world was a prison. A simulation. A lie built on the backs of our suppressed truths. And I was fine with that. Rage, clarity, determination—they kept me moving.

But now, I do not know what I am running from.

Jay has always been a mystery. Alicia, a fire too bright to ignore. Even the Observer… it has its narrative. Its rhythm. Its rules.

But Echo?

He is the silence between heartbeats. The pause before meaning. The glitch that should not exist… and yet somehow defines what is real.

I feel it in the way time reacts to him.

How memories bend when he touches them.

And I hate it. Not him. But the truth he threatens to uncover.

Because if Echo was never meant to be here—

Then maybe I was never meant to leave.

Maybe the path I thought I was carving…

Was not mine at all.

…

He looks at me sometimes, like he is asking a question without words. And I pretend not to understand. Because the moment I answer—

Is the moment I must admit:

I am not ready to remember who I was before this world.

And I am terrified…

That once I do—

I will not want to go back.