(Trigger warning: Mention of suicide)
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The reality fractured by them did not simply shatter—it echoed, pulsed, and reverberated across dimensions. Fragments drifted through time and space, tethered to the very forces that disrupted them—Mira's Resonance and Caleb's gravitational curvature. These broken shards of reality seemed alive, seeking out the ones who caused the break, drawn to the frequencies of the Evols that tore the fabric of spacetime. In their wake, the fragments carried memories like particles of stardust—fragments of what was, what could be, and what had never been allowed to become.
Memories resurfaced not as dreams, but as moments relived in full clarity. A glance. A whisper. A silence that had once meant everything.
***
Within the fold of fractured space, two memories entwined—
"Mira," Caleb's voice trembled. He was slumped against the inner wall of his isolated containment pod, the artificial lighting casting sterile shadows across his face. His exoskeleton was cracked along the collar, his eyes dim but still painfully awake. "If you can hear me... even once. Just once. Say something. Anything."
A hum—faint, invisible, but ever-present—filled the silence between them. Mira lay in the pod across from him, unconscious, the tubes across her limbs casting shadows against her pale skin. Yet the resonance still pulsed faintly between them. It was as if the air between them carried her heartbeat.
Back then, she hadn't answered. Not aloud. Not with words. She could barely keep her memories intact.
But now, across time, space, and the breach of dimensions, the memory shivered with new life.
"I heard you," Mira whispered across the rift. A single word unspoken at the time, now freed from the silence.
***
"I will always be the one to wake you."
"We'll be together everyday and never apart."
"This is our last escape, I promise."
"Good night, my one and only..."
"What matters is that you're alive"
"I'll always be by your side."
...
"Mira.."
***
Mira woke again.
But this time, something had shifted. The haze in her mind was thinner, a veil now translucent. She could feel her body, heavy but hers. Her fingers twitched. Her breath was slow, controlled. She blinked at the ceiling—white, unfamiliar, but peaceful.
She sat up slowly, fighting the ache in her limbs. A nasal oxygen mask clung to her face. The antiseptic smell of the hospital filled her nose. Her skin felt cold but real. Monitors beeped steadily in the background. Curtains surrounded her like walls of soft cotton. The IV drip beside her swayed slightly as she moved.
She reached toward the bedside table, where her clothes were folded neatly. Her phone rested there, switched off, waiting.
This was Earth.
Her Earth.
And yet it felt distant. Like she'd returned to a version of her life that had stood still while she drifted elsewhere.
The memories of Philos clung to her—not as dreams, but as experiences. Burnt skies, the scream of war machines, the silence of space. No moon, no birdsong, just the endless hum of power conduits and alarm systems. Philos was survival, desperation, connection forged in fire.
And now...
She pushed herself up with the help of the IV stand and walked slowly toward the window.
The moon hung outside. Whole. Distant. Eternal.
She pressed her fingers against the glass, the cool pane grounding her.
The breeze that slipped through the window's edges carried no toxins. No ash. No threat. Just the pure, living scent of Earth at night.
She picked up her phone and turned it on. The screen lit up, cold and bright. There were some missed calls. Some messages. Only mundane updates, appointment reminders, fragments of a life she barely remembered.
She scrolled through slowly, searching for something—anything.
And then, it came.
"We'll always have the memory of tonight to hold close to our hearts."
The memory wasn't digital. It was spoken. Etched in her mind. A promise beneath a false sky on Philos, when the stars above had been mere simulations, yet the moment had been painfully, irrevocably real.
She turned away from the window, breath catching in her throat.
She reached into the pocket of her coat.
A silverglow fruit seed.
Faintly glowing. Still warm to the touch.
She held it tightly in her palm, as if afraid it might vanish.
"Caleb..."
His name was a whisper of breath. A memory stitched into her bones.
And then, realization struck. Like a wave, it crashed over her.
She had been here before. In this hospital. In this room. But not like this.
The last time she had stood at this threshold of life and death, she had tried to end her own life. Her grip tightened around the IV pole. The fractured memories of sorrow, isolation, despair came flooding back.
She should not have survived.
And yet she had. She'd lived. Experienced another life. Loved and fought in another world.
Had it all been in her mind? Or had the universe torn open just long enough to give her a second chance?
Reality and memory blurred. Time, twisted by Evols and fate, could no longer be trusted.
But the seed still glowed.
And Caleb's presence... it hadn't left her.
Not entirely.
Not yet.