he darkness didn't fall.
It rushed.
Like a tidal wave of ink swallowing every detail of the forbidden memory.
For a moment I felt weightless—
not floating,
but un-made.
Then everything slammed back into place.
I hit the ground.
Hard.
The world around us was no longer the lab room—
nor the field—
nor any clean memory layer.
It looked like a corrupted archive:
walls flickering between concrete and sky
floors dissolving into pixel static
fragments of childhood echoes blinking in and out
voices overlapping, none belonging anywhere
A half-formed hallway twisted in the air above us like a glitching Möbius strip.
Lira crawled toward me, coughing.
"Elias—are you hurt?"
"No," I said shakily. "Not physically."
Which was the problem.
She held my shoulder until my vision steadied—
though "steady" was generous.
Everything shivered like a half-rendered dream.
And then—
A soft voice behind me:
"Eli."
I turned.
Marin stood there—no longer grown, no longer child.
She flickered between the two every few seconds:
A child
A teenager
A grown woman
A version I didn't recognize
A version that looked like she was made of broken glass
Her body couldn't decide what age it belonged to.
Her outline pulsed, tearing at the edges.
Lira stood between us, raising a hand cautiously.
"Marin. Stay back—your Echo is destabilizing."
Marin ignored her and stepped closer.
Her eyes—whatever age they were—locked onto mine.
"Eli… don't leave me."
My breath caught.
"Marin—what's happening to you?"
She swallowed, voice cracking through different ages.
"He's trying to pull me apart," she whispered.
"He wants to scatter me… so you can't find the real me."
Lira cursed under her breath.
"The shadow is corrupting the forbidden sector. We need to move."
But Marin shook her head violently.
"No. If you leave this space now, I'll disappear."
A cold spike stabbed through my chest.
"No—never. I won't—"
Before I finished, Marin's form glitched violently.
A scream tore from her throat—
shifting pitch each time her age changed.
Lira grabbed me before I could run to her.
"You CAN'T touch her, Elias! She's unstable—your neural link will snap!"
Marin collapsed to her knees, clutching her head as her memories shredded like fabric.
"Eli—help—please—!"
Her voice hit a primal place inside me.
A place deeper than memory.
Deeper than logic.
Lira tightened her grip.
"She's not fully real, Elias! She's a composite! A byproduct! The shadow is using her against—"
"No," Marin gasped, glaring at Lira through the flickering ages.
"Don't lie to him."
The room shook—
the floor peeling upward like wet paper.
Lira gritted her teeth.
"He's collapsing the entire forbidden sector.
We have to move NOW."
Marin crawled toward me, half-her body glitching into static.
"Eli… please… don't let me fade."
My heart broke at the sight of her—
a child, a woman, a ghost, all begging with the same eyes.
Lira pulled harder.
"If you stay, YOU die. And so does she. The only way to save Marin is to get out and decode the memory physically."
Marin's voice quivered.
"No. That's what he wants.
He wants you to leave me here."
The shadow's laugh slithered through the collapsing walls:
"She's right."
The world buckled.
Fragments of memories—
Ari's smile,
my childhood bedroom,
a stranger's funeral,
a beach I've never seen—
all began falling from the ceiling like shattered glass.
Marin screamed again—
and this time, her form split.
Not in two.
In six.
Six versions of her—different ages, different futures, different lives—
spilled across the broken ground like scattered photographs.
All of them crying.
All reaching for me.
All begging:
"Eli… don't leave me again."
My chest constricted so hard I couldn't breathe.
Lira pulled me back by the collar, shouting:
"Elias—LISTEN TO ME.
This isn't real Marin.
These are all the SIMULATIONS she was forced into.
The shadow is using them as chains."
Marin's voices overlapped, harmonizing in agony.
"Am I not real enough for you?"
"Why didn't you come sooner?"
"You promised you'd find me…"
"Please—save me—"
"Don't forget me—"
"Eli—don't—walk—away—"
Something inside me cracked.
Wide open.
I lurched forward—
toward the closest Marin—
toward the one with trembling hands and terrified eyes.
Lira grabbed me with both arms, screaming:
"IF YOU TOUCH HER YOU WILL LOSE YOURSELF!"
I stopped inches from Marin's outstretched fingers.
Tears blurred my vision.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
Marin's fracturing faces shifted from hope—
to heartbreak—
to something like resignation.
And then she said the line that shattered me:
"Then take me with you."
The sector groaned violently—
the ceiling splitting open into a vortex of static.
The shadow emerged from it—
not fully formed,
but enough to see eyes made of void.
"You can't save her."
Lira pulled me backward, fear raw on her face.
"Elias—JUMP—NOW!"
The collapses reached us—
the floor cracking beneath my feet.
Marin screamed, all six versions reaching toward me as they began dissolving.
I made a choice.
I didn't run.
I grabbed one of her hands.
Not to save her—
But to pull a memory fragment with me.
Light exploded.
The forbidden sector ripped apart—
and the world vanished.