The days blurred after that. Aven spent every spare hour in the museum, trailing after Rhea as she navigated its labyrinthine corridors like a phantom guide. She showed him broken relics of impossible wars, shattered pieces of machines that hummed with residual energy, even half-finished blueprints for cities that were never built.
Each night, Aven returned home exhausted, haunted by the visions of failed futures.
One morning, Rhea led him into the oldest wing of the museum, where the walls were lined with cracked screens that flickered with static. "This is the Archive of Collapsed Timelines," she whispered. "These are the futures that didn't just fail—they were erased by something."
"Erased by what?" Aven asked, his voice tight.
Rhea brushed dust off one of the screens. It crackled to life, showing a fractured image of the city skyline, burning. "We don't know. Maybe the universe. Maybe something bigger than that."
Aven swallowed. "What does that mean for us?"
"It means," Rhea said, turning to him, "that whatever we think is real… might not be. And maybe the world you and I live in now was never meant to survive."
Aven felt the floor shift under him, like the museum itself was breathing.
Then, in the corner of his eye, he caught movement—a brief flicker of his older self, standing behind the glass. The scarred version of him from the first projection.
Aven spun around, but there was nothing there.
"Did you see it?" he gasped.
Rhea shook her head slowly. "What did you see, Aven?"
He clenched his fists. "Me. But not me. A version that keeps following me."
Rhea's eyes darkened. "Then we need to find out why the museum is keeping your failed future alive."
She touched his shoulder gently. "Whatever this place wants from you, it's not done yet."
The hum of old screens buzzed in the air, the shadows of the erased futures flickering along the walls like dying ghosts.