By the third time Cael forgot what day it was, Lira stopped pretending not to notice.
They were camped beneath a rust-split overpass, firelight flickering against pillars etched with old military designations: THR-7, THR-11.
Thirian testing sites.
No one scavenged here anymore.
The zone still screamed in its sleep.
"You've been quiet," Lira said, tossing him a ration bar.
Cael stared at it blankly.
"Do you want me to unwrap it for you?"
"No," he muttered. "I just… thought I already ate."
"You didn't."
He frowned.
But his mouth tasted like citrus and protein powder.
That night, he dreamed of walls with no doors. People in gray lab coats. Someone holding his hand — calling him "Director Vel."
He woke with his fingers curled like they'd just gripped a weapon.
They moved through the corridor in silence.
This one was different.
No vines. No corpses.
Just… sterility.
Like time had paused here.
Then: footsteps ahead.
Cael raised his hand, signaling Lira.
She vanished behind a collapsed data-core.
A figure approached.
Tall. Pale skin. Wrapped in combat mesh reinforced with fragments of Locksteel.
She stopped five meters away, eyes sharp with calculation.
Then she said:
"You came back."
Cael didn't speak.
"Took you long enough. Or maybe it's only been a day. Time's stupid now."
"Do I know you?"
Her jaw tightened.
"You told me to hold the breach while you ran the override at Lock-4."
"You said you'd come back in sixty seconds."
"It's been five years."
Lira stepped out from cover, blade half-raised.
"Step back."
The woman didn't move.
She looked only at Cael.
"What's the last thing you remember from before the mark?"
"Nothing. Just the Lock chamber."
"Then you really don't know what you left behind."
She tossed something at his feet.
A bullet casing.
Burned with spiral symbols.
"You said this would buy us time."
"It bought us body bags."
She turned and walked away.
No fight.
No shout.
Just the kind of silence people use when they're too tired to hate anymore.
Cael stared at the bullet.
Something inside him said: you made that.
But he didn't remember.
That night, he didn't sleep.
Lira sat nearby, back to a pillar.
"Who do you think she was?" he asked.
"Someone who wanted closure."
"Do you believe her?"
Lira didn't answer.
Then said:
"I believe you're becoming someone who might have left people behind."
End of Chapter 11: Identity Lag