Time didn't slow.
It stopped.
Like the world itself held its breath, waiting for the fracture.
Lira stood frozen in front of me, kill-switch trembling in her hand.
The shard pulsed violently in my palm, the blue filaments now woven up into my shoulder—
into my chest.
Marin's voice shook with desperation:
"Don't let her take me away…"
The shadow hissed:
"Choose the memory… or the truth."
I closed my eyes.
The weight of two lives pressed against me—
one real, one possible—
both unbearably precious.
Lira's voice cut through the stillness, soft but firm:
"Elias… she isn't alive.
She's a memory that thinks she is."
I shook.
Every breath felt like a razor.
"She felt real," I whispered.
"She loved me. Or… something did."
Lira stepped closer, lowering the kill-switch.
"Elias, love isn't just a feeling.
It's a connection.
A choice.
A presence in the world."
Her eyes softened.
"She never had that chance.
Not truly."
The shard pulsed harder—hot enough to sting.
Marin whispered, terrified:
"Eli… please… don't leave me again."
The word again
stabbed deep.
I opened my eyes.
"Lira," I said quietly.
"She's not just a fragment.
She's everything she could've been."
Lira's face fell.
"She's not your Marin."
Silence.
Heavy, shattering silence.
My voice came out raw:
"I know."
Lira inhaled sharply.
"So… what are you going to do?"
I looked at the hand holding the shard.
At the blue filaments burning under my skin.
At the way the memory pulsed with longing, with fear, with a desperate need to survive.
The shadow watched closely, still as a predator when prey hesitates.
Marin whispered again:
"I don't want to die."
A single tear rolled down my cheek.
My voice broke.
"Neither do I."
Then I spoke the decision out loud—
the one that would decide everything.
"Lira… do it."
Her eyes widened.
"Are you sure?"
I nodded slowly.
"She deserves more than being trapped inside me.
She deserves to rest.
Even if the world never gave her that."
My hand tightened around the shard.
"And I need to remember her without being consumed."
Lira's expression cracked—not relief, not triumph—
but grief.
"Okay," she whispered.
"I'll be with you."
She stepped close.
The kill-switch warmed in her hand—
its hum resonating with the shard's unnatural heartbeat.
The shadow shrieked, voice tearing the air:
"NO!
YOU WILL RUIN EVERYTHING!"
Black tendrils lashed toward us—
But Lira slammed her other hand against the emergency shield panel.
A translucent barrier locked around us—
just as the shadow hit it like a storm against glass,
screaming, twisting, clawing.
Marin's voice rose into a terrified wail:
"Eli—please—don't—don't—"
I whispered through clenched teeth:
"I'm here. I'm not abandoning you.
I'm freeing you."
Lira pressed her thumb on the kill-switch.
A crack of white light split the room—
sharp, electric, final.
The shard in my hand convulsed.
Marin screamed—
a sound that tore through my ribs.
The filaments seared up my arm, burning like fire made of memories.
I cried out—
but didn't let go.
Lira shouted over the surge:
"Elias—HOLD ON—DON'T DROP IT YET—"
I screamed back:
"JUST DO IT—"
The kill-switch discharged fully.
Light erupted from my palm—
a blinding burst that swallowed everything.
A final whisper escaped from the dissolving shard:
"Thank you…"
Then silence.
The fragment shattered.
The blue light faded.
And the filaments in my arm crumbled to dust, falling like dead pixels.
I collapsed forward, gasping in agony and emptiness.
Lira caught me before I hit the floor.
"Elias—Elias, look at me—are you conscious?"
I blinked.
Once.
Twice.
"I'm… here," I whispered.
My hand was empty.
My palm was burned.
And something inside me—
something that had filled a quiet space—
was gone.
Not erased.
Just… released.
Lira pulled me into a shaky embrace.
"You made the right choice," she whispered.
My voice cracked.
"Then why does it hurt so much?"
Lira held me tighter.
"Because loving someone doesn't stop when they're gone."
The room went silent except for my uneven breaths.
The shadow's presence faded to a simmering hatred in the corner.
He wasn't defeated.
Not yet.
But I had done something he didn't expect:
I let go.
And in that loss—
something shifted deeper inside the archives of my mind.
A door that had been locked for years trembled.
Then—
clicked open.
A memory surfaced.
Real.
Buried.
Undeniably mine.
One word escaped my lips:
"…Ari."
Lira froze.
"Elias—what did you just remember?"
I wiped tears from my face, shaking.
"A promise," I whispered.
"Not to Marin…"
I looked at her.
"…but to Ari."
Lira's eyes widened.
"Your missing memory—
it wasn't about Marin?"
I swallowed hard, heart pounding.
"No."
The truth slammed into me.
"It was Ari.
I promised Ari something before she died."
Behind us—
The shadow stepped closer—
and whispered:
"Now you remember."