Coming back to my body felt like being poured into the wrong shape.
My lungs expanded too slowly.
My eyes took too long to adjust.
My heartbeat—
wrong rhythm, wrong tempo—
like it belonged to someone else.
I woke on the floor of a storage bay.
Metal against my cheek.
Cold.
Still.
Lira was kneeling over me, breathing hard, her hands shaking as she tapped the side of her neural band.
"Elias. Focus. Focus on my voice."
Her voice seemed far away—
like a recording played in the next room.
I blinked.
The world shifted in a strange double-frame.
One frame: the physical room.
Dim overhead lights.
Dusty crates.
Concrete walls.
The second frame:
White hallways.
Childhood echoes.
A small hand clutching mine.
Two realities overlapped, neither syncing properly.
I tried to sit up.
My body seized with a violent shiver.
"Easy," Lira breathed, grabbing my shoulders.
"You're not all the way in yet."
My voice came out broken.
"Where… is Marin?"
Lira's eyes flickered with something—
sympathy, pain, and fear mixed into one.
"She didn't come through the bleed."
I shook my head.
"No—she was with me. I was holding her."
Lira bit her lip.
"I know. But she dissolved before we hit the barrier. She didn't cross."
A hollow numbness bloomed in my chest.
"She's gone."
Lira hesitated.
"…not exactly."
I looked up sharply.
"What does that mean?"
She swallowed.
"You pulled her too hard. You destabilized her, Elias. Marin might be scattered across multiple layers now—echo reflections, unanchored fragments—she's not dead, but she's not… whole."
Her voice shook.
"She's looking for you, but she can't find you."
Something inside me twisted painfully.
My hands trembled.
"Lira… I failed her."
"No. You remembered her. You saw the promise. That's more than anyone thought possible."
But that didn't feel like enough.
This mindscape—this nightmare—
everything we'd been through—
It had taken too much.
I rubbed my eyes, trying to shake the double-images.
But they didn't go away.
The white hallway still hovered over the real room like a transparent overlay.
Marin's small silhouette sat curled in the corner.
The faintest whisper of her voice echoed from somewhere that wasn't in the room but wasn't out of it.
"Eli… come back…"
I flinched violently.
Lira froze.
"…you heard that too?"
"Yes," I whispered.
But hearing wasn't the right word.
It was like a thought that didn't belong to me
had been placed inside my skull.
Lira knelt lower.
"Elias… listen to me carefully. You're experiencing bleed-through. Your mind isn't sealed. Part of you is still in the memory layer, trying to reconcile both realities."
I clenched my teeth.
"How do I stop it?"
She hesitated.
"We… stabilize you with a neural anchor. But there's a problem."
I exhaled shakily.
"Of course there is."
She sat back against a crate, exhaustion finally breaking through her composure.
"The shadow followed us."
My blood went cold.
"Lira. No."
She nodded grimly.
"He's not fully here—not physically—but part of him crossed with us. He's in your neural pathways."
I felt sick.
"He's inside me?"
"Not in your body," she corrected. "But your mind. Your memories. He's clinging to whatever gaps he created."
My pulse spiked.
"That's why the bleed isn't closing."
"Yes."
"And Marin's voice—"
"Isn't just a memory," Lira whispered.
"She's calling from wherever she was scattered."
The room around us flickered.
Once.
Twice.
As if someone dimmed the world and brightened it again.
I felt something cold press against the back of my skull—
not physical,
but internal,
like a thought that didn't feel like mine.
A voice whispered deep inside the static:
"You can't escape me.
You brought me here."
I gasped.
Lira grabbed me.
"What did you hear?"
I swallowed hard.
"He's not just in my head."
I turned toward the darkest corner of the room.
The shadows there felt too heavy,
too thick,
too still.
"He's in this room."
Lira's eyes widened.
"Elias—don't—"
I stood up slowly.
My legs shook beneath me.
But I walked toward the corner anyway.
The double-vision of the hallway still lingered—
superimposed over reality.
As I stared into the darkness,
I saw two layers at once:
The room as it was—
concrete and crates.
And the memory as it was—
white tiles and a small Marin hiding in the corner.
Only…
This Marin wasn't crying.
This Marin wasn't shaking.
This Marin was staring at me.
Eyes wide.
Unblinking.
Wrong.
Her head tilted at an unnatural angle—
too slow—
too controlled.
Lira whispered behind me:
"Elias… what do you see?"
The Marin in the corner didn't blink.
Didn't breathe.
Her mouth stretched into a too-wide smile.
And in a voice that wasn't hers—
In my voice—
She said:
"We're not done."
The lights flickered violently.
Lira grabbed her weapon.
"Elias—STEP BACK—THAT'S NOT HER—"
The fake Marin dissolved—
melting into darkness like ink spilled in water.
The real shadow's voice crawled up my spine:
"You took something from me.
Now I will take everything from you."
Lira pulled me back sharply.
"We need to leave. NOW."
But I couldn't move.
Because my own memory—
my own mind—
had just been used as a doorway for him.
And the worst part?
A thought surfaced—
one I didn't want:
What else did he take that I haven't remembered yet?