The room we landed in was something between a maintenance hub and an abandoned server station.
Thick cables ran along the walls like black veins.
Old processors hummed with intermittent, unstable power—
just enough to light the space in pulses.
Pulse.
Dark.
Pulse.
Dark.
My mind pulsed the same way.
One moment I knew where I was.
The next—I was standing in some foggy half-memory, a hallway from Theta, a café with Ari, a childhood bed.
Reality wasn't holding still.
Lira crouched in front of me.
"Elias. Look at me. You're slipping."
Her voice felt like it came from underwater.
Marin flickered beside me, thinner than before—
her outline jittering like a skipping film frame.
She pressed a small hand to my arm.
"You're missing too much."
I swallowed thickly.
"What… promise?"
My voice cracked.
"What did I promise you?"
Marin's expression tightened—
sorrow mixed with fear.
She opened her mouth.
But no sound came out.
She grabbed her throat, eyes wide.
"I—I can't… I can't say it."
Lira leaned forward sharply.
"Something's blocking her. Mnemosyne? Or the shadow?"
A low hum vibrated through the room.
Not machinery.
A presence.
The shadow's voice slithered into the air:
"Of course she can't say it.
It belongs to me."
Marin winced, glitching.
The temperature dropped.
My breath fogged.
The air around us darkened, as though someone dimmed reality.
The shadow did not appear fully—
but its silhouette stretched across the floor like spilled ink.
Marin took a trembling step back.
Lira raised her disruptor.
"Show him," she snarled.
The shadow laughed with my stolen voice.
"He cannot handle it.
He never could.
That is why I exist."
Something in me snapped.
I stepped forward.
My voice barely held together:
"Give it back."
The shadow's silhouette expanded, rising up the wall.
"No."
The single word was absolute.
Marin's small form glitched violently—
fading to near transparency.
"Eli—please—figure it out—before it's too late—"
Her voice ended in static.
I grabbed her hand.
Her fingers slipped through mine like smoke.
"I'm trying, Marin. I'm trying. But I need something—anything."
A tear flickered down her cheek, pixelating before it fell.
"You already have the first piece…"
I froze.
"The first piece?"
"What piece?"
She looked up at me.
Her form flickered again—
but her eyes were clear.
"The promise started… with a hand."
My breath hitched.
"A hand?"
"Yes."
"You held my hand."
"You said something. Something I never forgot."
My vision blurred—
and suddenly, the room was gone.
The mental plane ripped itself open beneath me—
dragging me down, pulling me into a flash of something broken, something bleeding through.
Fall.
Darkness.
Then—
A hallway.
White.
Cold.
Theta.
A younger version of me—
maybe eight—
stood alone in the corridor.
Crying.
Marin—tiny, trembling—sat curled against the opposite wall.
She sobbed silently into her knees.
I watched the memory like it was behind glass.
I couldn't control it.
Could only witness.
Little Elias wiped his eyes.
Walked to her.
Knelt.
And reached out a small, shaking hand.
Marin flinched—
then slowly lifted her face.
He whispered something.
But the sound was muffled—silenced—
like someone had pressed mute on the world.
The scene wavered.
The shadow's voice cut through the silence:
"Stop."
The walls buckled.
Marin screamed:
"No—NO—LET HIM SEE—"
The shadow screeched:
"HE IS NOT READY!"
The memory cracked.
Glass fractures split the scene from corner to corner.
But I grabbed the edges of the vision—
clawing at it, holding it open with raw will.
The sound returned—
just a whisper of it—
Little Elias's voice.
So soft.
So scared.
So certain.
He said:
"I'll remember you.
Even if they make me forget."
My heart stopped.
The memory dissolved.
I hit the cold servers-room floor hard, gasping for breath.
Marin collapsed beside me—
half-formed, shaking, crying soundlessly.
Lira covered her mouth.
"Oh… oh my god…"
The shadow's voice tore through the room, furious:
"THAT MEMORY BELONGS TO ME."
I stared into the darkness where its shape writhed.
My voice rose despite the terror clawing inside me.
"You stole the first promise I ever made."
I clenched my fists.
"You stole the reason she exists."
The shadow screamed—
a sound like steel ripping apart.
The cables on the walls split.
Lights burst.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
Lira grabbed my shoulder and yelled:
"Elias—we have to move—NOW!"
But Marin pulled at my sleeve with shaking, half-vanished fingers.
"Eli…"
She was crying hard—
glitching in and out between words.
"You remembered it."
"You remembered me."
Then—
her body flickered wildly.
Her feet disappeared.
Her arms pixelated.
Her face began to distort.
"No—no—no—"
I reached for her—
But her form phased through my hands.
"Eli—" she choked—
"I think I'm—"
She dissolved.
Gone.
Only silver dust remained.
The shadow's laughter echoed around us:
"Nothing stays without me."