The prep room was quiet, lit only by the strip-lights overhead and the steady pulse of the tether sync console.
Final checks buzzed in the background—heartbeat monitors, comms alignment, environmental filters. But neither Rowan nor Lucian moved.
They sat on the low bench against the wall, side by side, not touching.
Not speaking.
Not yet.
Lucian was the one who broke it.
"Do you think we'll recognize it? If it tries to show us what we wanted?"
Rowan didn't answer right away.
His gaze was on the floor, on the scattered scuff marks near the edge of the wall—marks left by boots long gone. People who'd waited here before them. Some who came back. Some who didn't.
"I don't think that's the point," he said finally. "I think it's going to show us what we almost believed we could have."
Lucian let out a quiet breath—half a scoff, half a sigh. "So we're walking into nostalgia weaponized."
Rowan tilted his head slightly, the corner of his mouth twitching. Not a smile. Just a weary shape that might've been one, in another life.
"I've been stuck in worse things than memory."
Lucian looked at him then. And for once, didn't try to soften what was in his eyes.
"I'm scared it'll feel better in there," he said. "That it'll be easier to stay."
Rowan turned to him fully.
"No. You're scared that I might want to stay."
The air stilled.
Lucian didn't respond. Didn't deny it.
Rowan's voice dropped lower.
"That file you found? It didn't just show me what I lost. It showed me what you were willing to give up. What you already did give up. And if I hadn't walked in when I did, I don't know if you'd have opened it at all."
Lucian's fingers curled slightly at his sides.
"Because it wasn't meant to be opened," he said, voice tight. "That version—he—was smarter than I am. He knew how to walk away."
Rowan's reply was quiet.
"No. He just died first."
That silenced Lucian.
The hum of the tether console ticked over again. Ready. Waiting.
Rowan stood first.
"Whatever's in that rift—whoever we see—I need you to understand something."
Lucian stood beside him, jaw clenched, silent.
"If I see a version of myself who's at peace without you," Rowan said, eyes meeting his, "I will grieve for him. I will hate that peace. But I'll walk away from it. Because I know what it cost."
Lucian looked at him then, not like a wounded animal, not like a savior, not like a monster.
Just Lucian—terrified, flawed, and listening.
"And if I see a version of you that's whole," Rowan added, "I'll remind him that the only reason he's whole is because you shattered first."
Lucian's lips parted—but whatever he was going to say, he swallowed it.
They didn't touch.
They didn't hug.
They didn't promise.
They just walked out of the room, side by side, into whatever version of themselves waited on the other side.
Scene Shift – Site R4, Rift PerimeterThe perimeter shimmered like heat distortion across a frozen surface—paradox made visible. The air was thick with a static pressure, as if the rift was holding its breath.
Ari was the first to step forward, visor pulled down, sensors already active. "Gate's stable," she called. "For now. Reading temporal elasticity at threshold, no immediate collapse. We're clear for entry."
Quinn adjusted his tether relay, linking Rowan to Nolan, then to Mira, then looping the circuit to Sloane.
"Tethers are live. Keep emotional feedback below 15%—anything higher and you risk a collapse. Rowan, you'll feel a pull. Don't follow it."
Rowan exhaled, nodding once.
Vespera stood at the rift's edge, eyes half-lidded as her resonance field synced to the outer bleed.
"It's quiet," she murmured. "But it's listening."
Sloane stepped beside her, adjusting the mist dispersal valves on his gloves. "Then let's not keep it waiting."
Evelyn's voice crackled over comms. "Primary team—entry in thirty seconds. Once you're inside, you're on a hard ten-minute clock. No extensions."
Lucian adjusted his wrist interface, eyes fixed on the ripple ahead.
Mira loaded her rifle. "Visuals will shift. Don't trust perspective."
Nolan synced his anchor loop. "Don't trust emotion, either."
Rowan took a step forward—and the rift pulsed once.
Like recognition.
Like a door opening just for him.
Quinn's voice echoed one last warning through the link:
"Whatever you see in there—it's not a gift. It's a question."
And then they stepped inside.
Inside Site R4 – Initial Entry
Mira's boots landed soundlessly on the moss-damp ground as she scanned the forest.
Too symmetrical.
The trees were placed in perfect irregularity—an imitation of nature without nature's randomness. Every few paces, the same patterns repeated. A broken branch mirrored three meters later. A stump—duplicated, rotated, and slightly grayer.
She raised her scope and focused toward the horizon. A shape flickered.
A porch.
Weathered white beams. Red ceramic tiles. A hummingbird feeder hanging still in windless air.
And just behind it, a pair of boots on wooden steps. Small. Scuffed.
She didn't even need the scope to recognize them.
Rowan's childhood home. And that was him—ten years old, maybe eleven.
Then it was gone.
Trees again.
Mira lowered the scope, unshaken—but alert.
"Eyes up," she said into comms, voice clipped. "Visual projection is dynamic. Rift is generating personalized memories on proximity. No confirmation if the projections are isolated to one anchor or shared."
"Translation?" Ari asked dryly over comms.
"It's reacting. Not random. Not ambient. It's baiting us."
Nolan didn't look ahead. His focus was on the atmosphere—the resonance itself.
He walked slowly, his hands loosely open at his sides, fingertips twitching in subtle rhythm with the emotional pulse of the rift.
It wasn't like a corrupted zone—there was no hostility, no chaos.
But something about it was too soft.
He brushed the edge of the tether field connecting to Rowan and frowned. The energy wasn't looping back clean—it came back delayed, like an echo.
Not just emotionally delayed.
Predictively delayed.
It was mimicking Rowan's emotions—but a heartbeat ahead of them. Feeling them before he fully processed them himself.
"This isn't a mirror," Nolan murmured through comms. "It's a shadow with memory."
He paused.
"Resonance response is anticipatory. Like it already knows what Rowan will feel next."
Lucian's voice cut in, sharp and low. "It's reading him?"
"No," Nolan said. "It's remembering him."
The clearing held its breath.
The seated version of Rowan remained still beneath the tree, back to the team. Peaceful. Composed.
In the distance, the other Lucian—rigid, unfamiliar—faded slowly into the treeline, one deliberate step at a time.
"Lucian," Nolan said calmly, "don't follow it. The tether sync could—"
"I'll maintain signal," Lucian cut in, voice low but resolute. "But I need to see where it goes."
He didn't wait for approval.
Just turned, and walked.
Not fast. Not like he was chasing.
But like he knew the version wouldn't wait forever.
Quinn frowned, glancing down at the emotional sync panel. "He's still tethered. But if his emotional state spikes—"
"I've got him," Nolan said softly, already reinforcing the side loop through Lucian's field. "Let him go."
Ari muttered, "Is it just me, or are they both being real cryptid-core about this?"
"Not just you," Quinn said dryly.
Rowan didn't move.
Didn't stop Lucian. Didn't call out.
He just… watched him go.
The trees folded around Lucian like they belonged to him, the shimmer of light bending over his shoulders as he disappeared into the hush of the woods.
Rowan turned back toward the bench.
The other him still hadn't moved.
Didn't speak. Didn't acknowledge.
Just breathed quietly, like someone who had already made peace with the world.
Rowan took a step forward.
Each footfall was muffled against the soft grass.
Rowan stopped a few paces away from the bench, heart steady—not calm, but strangely… numb.
"I know what you are," he said aloud.
The seated version tilted his head slightly, not enough to look back. His voice was quiet, smooth, without the exhaustion Rowan carried in his own throat.
"Then why are you afraid to sit?"
Rowan stiffened.
"Because I don't trust a version of me who found peace without Lucian."
The echo let out a soft exhale—amused, maybe. Or sad.
"Then you already know how this ends."
Rowan stepped closer. "Is that what this is? A warning?"
"No," the echo said. "I'm not here to stop you. I'm here to remind you that peace without grief isn't real. It's performance."
He finally turned, and Rowan flinched.
Not because the face was wrong.
Because it was perfect.
Unscarred. Eyes clear. No weight behind them. No tether cuff on his wrist.
No trace of Lucian.
"I don't miss him," the echo said. "Because I never met him."
A pause.
"You still can choose that."
Rowan's breath hitched.
"I won't."
—
The trees blurred past like memory half-recalled.
Lucian's boots crunched on ground that shouldn't have existed.
He wasn't being hunted. Not pulled. Just… led.
Ahead, the other version of him walked at an exact pace. Never faster. Never looking back.
Lucian said nothing.
Didn't call out.
Until the figure finally stopped—at a clearing just beyond the tree line.
It was smaller. Simpler.
A patch of old garden stone.
A set of footprints in the dirt.
And a single, gently folded cloth—a field jacket.
Lucian's jacket.
And beneath it:
A photo.
Of Rowan.
Smiling.
Holding a cup of coffee in both hands. Looking directly at the lens.
Lucian stared.
Then the other version finally turned.
His face was the same. But older. Tired in a different way.
"You don't get to keep him," the echo said.
Lucian's voice was hoarse. "I already lost him. A thousand times."
"That's the cost of trying again."
Rowan's Path – Deeper Into the Rift
The echo of himself had turned fully now, seated with perfect posture, hands folded calmly in his lap.
His face wasn't blank. It was serene. And that made it worse.
Because serenity had never come freely.
Not for him.
"You look at me like I'm a lie," the echo said, voice level.
Rowan didn't answer at first. He took another step closer. Then one more.
"You're not a lie," Rowan said finally. "You're just what I might've become… if everything that made me me never happened."
The echo gave a faint tilt of the head. "Then you resent me?"
"No," Rowan said. "I mourn you."
The figure on the bench blinked. Slowly.
"I didn't lose anyone. I didn't learn how to fight. I never watched people die in my arms. I didn't carry Lucian out of the rift while screaming his name into a field full of static."
He leaned forward slightly, and now his voice wasn't calm anymore—it was hollow.
"But I also never held his hand during recovery. I never told him I'd stay. I never stitched his mind back together piece by piece. I never knew what it meant to choose someone every time the world threatened to erase them."
The seated version's lips parted. For the first time, he didn't have a response.
Rowan's breath hitched slightly. "You got peace," he whispered. "But I got truth."
And with that, the seated version began to fade—not vanish, but unravel like fog lifting off dew-soaked grass. His outline blurred, body fragmenting into particles of light as the bench emptied beside Rowan.
A faint voice lingered behind Rowan's ribs.
I'm the version that didn't have to carry him. But you're the one who kept him alive.
Lucian's Path – Deeper Into the Rift
The other Lucian didn't move from where he stood, hands behind his back, coat neat and unscarred.
He looked like someone who had never fought for anything.
Lucian approached slowly, boots crunching across fractured stone.
The other version finally spoke, low and sharp.
"I kept him safe."
Lucian's eyes narrowed. "You erased yourself."
"So he could live. You're still dragging him through this because you want to be chosen. But I chose him first."
Lucian clenched his jaw. "You don't get to claim that like it's noble."
"Don't I?"
The older Lucian stepped aside, revealing the small memorial—Rowan's photo, untouched.
"I gave him peace."
Lucian shook his head slowly. "You gave him amnesia. You gave him a life where he wakes up every day feeling like something's missing."
His voice dropped to a murmur.
"You think that's peace?"
The other Lucian's face twisted. For the first time, he looked angry. "You're selfish."
Lucian stepped closer, every inch of him taut. "I am. I am selfish. And bitter. And broken. But I'm here."
He pointed to the photo.
"And he's not a picture to me."
Silence.
Then the other Lucian—older, colder—faded. Not with light, but like a shadow shrinking into itself.
And Lucian was left standing in front of the photo.
He stared for a long moment.
Then bent down…
And picked it up.
Command Team – Holding Perimeter Inside Site R4
Tether fields steady. No emotional spikes.
No panic. No fear.
And somehow, that was worse.
Quinn frowned at his relay as readings leveled out.
"Rowan's baseline is stabilizing," he murmured.
"Lucian's too," Nolan added, brows furrowed. "Heart rate, tether sync, field rhythm—they're centered."
Ari raised an eyebrow. "And that's bad… because?"
"Because this place reacts to conflict," Quinn said. "To imbalance. That's how it mirrors memory."
Vespera, standing beside him with eyes half-closed in empathic attunement, spoke softly.
"They're no longer feeding it."
That caught Ari off guard. "So… it's starving?"
"Not starving," Vespera replied. "Rejecting."
And then—
The rift shivered.
The trees didn't move. The sky didn't change.
But something in the air twisted. Like a breath held too long. Like static beneath the skin.
"Field pressure's building," Sharon reported from the command relay link. "But tether signals remain clean. No spikes."
Sloane turned slowly, mist pulling around his boots like instinct. "It's about to collapse."
"No." Mira, standing sharp and unmoving, didn't take her eyes off the center of the field. "It's about to respond."
—
Rowan walked out of the clearing first.
His face was pale, eyes glassy, but his shoulders didn't sag. They held steady, spine straight, like he had put something heavy down and decided not to pick it back up.
He didn't speak.
Just gave Quinn a single nod.
Then turned back toward the trees.
A few heartbeats later—
Lucian emerged.
He was carrying something in his hand.
The photo.
He walked slower than Rowan. Like the weight wasn't physical, but emotional. Not grief—but truth.
He reached Rowan silently and held out the photo.
Rowan took it.
Didn't look at it.
He didn't need to.
Their eyes met—just once. Brief. Quiet.
Not full of promises.
Just knowing.
The field around them began to distort again—this time not into memory, but into static.
Mira raised her scope. "Collapse is starting."
Quinn checked the readings. "They severed the recursive threads."
Nolan murmured, "The rift can't sustain without their longing."
And from the static—
One final whisper, not from a person. Not from a memory.
From the rift itself.
So you chose this version after all.