Falling shouldn't feel familiar.
But this fall did.
The moment the child's room collapsed, the ground vanished beneath us—
and Lira and I dropped into a roaring darkness that wasn't air,
wasn't gravity,
wasn't anything human.
I didn't feel my stomach lurch.
I felt my mind lurch.
Fragments of the memory shattered around us like glass in slow motion.
Pieces drifted by:
Little Marin's tear-filled eyes.
My small hand reaching for hers.
A white hallway drenched in cold light.
Lira shouted something—
but her voice warped, bending in pitch and direction.
The darkness around us thickened,
shifting into a viscous, tar-like swirl.
It wasn't a void.
It was a layer.
A layer between memories.
A place where nothing should exist.
A hand grabbed mine.
"ELIAS!"
Lira's fingers dug into my wrist, anchoring me as the world spun.
But her face—
it flickered.
Not physically, but conceptually.
Like her presence wasn't fully projected into this layer.
"Lira—"
My voice broke.
"Where are we?"
She gritted her teeth.
"In a bleed between constructs. The shadow pulled us out too fast."
The tar-darkness trembled.
And then—
Marin appeared.
Not approaching—
not walking—
Just manifesting.
Right in front of us.
Except—
Her form wasn't right.
Her body was half-static, half-light,
glitching in different ages at once:
A child,
a teenager,
the fractured echo I knew,
and a version I'd never seen—
older, smiling, real.
They all flickered over each other like overlapping transparencies.
She shivered violently, clutching her head.
"E… Eli…"
Her voice echoed with multiple tones—
a girl's whisper layered under a woman's cry.
Lira reached out instinctively.
"Marin—don't move—this layer isn't stable—"
Marin staggered toward me as the space around her bent upward like a warped sheet of metal.
"It hurts."
Her outline fractured.
"It hurts so much—"
My heart clenched.
I stepped forward—
but Lira yanked me back sharply.
"Elias. STOP. This isn't her. Not fully."
She was right.
Marin didn't look at us—
not intentionally.
She was reacting to something internal,
something tearing her apart.
Her chest glowed faintly—
a shape pulsing beneath her ribs.
A hollow space.
A missing piece.
I knew what it was.
The memory he stole.
The memory that held her together.
"Marin," I whispered, feeling something inside me tear,
"I'm here. I'm trying to fix this."
She lifted her head.
For one moment—
one fleeting, agonizing moment—
Her face synchronized into a single version:
soft eyes,
warm smile,
the sister I remembered.
"Eli," she said,
voice clear as a quiet dawn.
Then—
It shattered.
Her body convulsed—
splitting into shards of light and static.
"NO—NO—NO—"
Her scream tore through the layer like lightning.
The darkness reacted, rippling outward.
Lira swore.
"She's destabilizing the bleed—Elias, we need to move—NOW—"
But I couldn't move.
Marin wasn't fading naturally—
she was being pulled.
Dragged backward.
Into something behind her.
A shape forming in the darkness.
The shadow.
But not the humanoid version.
He was an absence—
a rift—
a jagged hole in reality shaped like my silhouette.
His voice rolled through the void.
"You should not remember."
Lira aimed her disruptor at him.
"Oh shut up—"
The beam fired—
but it curved mid-air,
absorbed into the shadow like water into sand.
He extended an arm.
Marin screamed as she was tugged toward him,
light ripping off her body in strips.
I lunged forward.
"MARIN!"
Lira grabbed me, voice shaking.
"Elias—DON'T—he'll take you too—"
I didn't care.
I tore free from her grip and reached out—
My fingertips brushed Marin's—
A spark.
A flash of white.
And then—
I saw it.
Not a memory.
A bond.
A thread between us, glowing faint gold,
stretching from my chest into hers.
But the thread was frayed
—almost severed—
because the middle of it was missing.
Stolen.
Marin sobbed through static.
"He took the middle.
He took the part that tied us.
He took the day you made me real."
I felt something inside me collapse inward.
The shadow spoke behind her.
"She was never meant to exist."
Marin cried out.
"Eli—don't let him—PLEASE—don't let him—"
I grabbed the thread with both hands.
It burned like fire.
Lira shouted:
"ELIAS—WHAT ARE YOU DOING—STOP—"
But I pulled.
Hard.
The darkness screamed.
The shadow reeled backward.
Marin was thrown forward—
—and collided against me, collapsing into my arms.
For a moment—
one fragile instant—
She felt real.
Warm.
Human.
Her fingers curled weakly into my shirt.
"Eli," she whispered,
her voice fading,
"Don't forget me again…"
I swallowed hard.
"I won't."
Her body flickered.
"No matter what he takes…
no matter what he breaks…
please… don't…"
And she dissolved.
Completely.
Gone.
The thread snapped in my hands.
The shadow roared—
a furious, guttural sound.
Lira dragged me backward.
The void trembled violently—
and the world beneath us
fractured.
The bleed collapsed.
We fell through.
Into—
White.
Light.
Noise.
Reality.