Chapter 6: She Knew Her Before the End
It was raining again.
Not the kind of rain that cleanses. The kind that blurs the world into something half-forgotten—like a photograph soaked too long, colors bleeding, edges frayed. It soaked the city slowly, deliberately.
Selene didn't speak as they walked.
She moved ahead like she belonged to another layer of reality. Always just far enough to seem unreachable. Her footsteps barely made a sound on the wet pavement. She didn't look back.
Aria followed.
Past shuttered cafés and broken lampposts. Past empty newsstands displaying yesterday's headlines like ghosts clinging to meaning.
Behind them, sirens wailed.
Somewhere in the city, a building burned.
No one looked up.
⸻
Aria's voice cracked the silence like a dropped plate.
"Where are we going?"
Selene didn't turn. "Somewhere they won't look for you."
A pause.
"Yet."
"You keep saying they," Aria said. "Who are they?"
Selene stopped.
Turned.
And in the shadowed glow of the storm, Aria saw something strange in her eyes. Not anger. Not fear.
Weariness.
Like the gaze of someone who had lived through too many endings.
"They're not people anymore," Selene said, voice almost reverent. "Some of them never were."
⸻
The shelter was a forgotten art studio on the edge of the old quarter.
Its door was painted over with rust. Ivy had begun reclaiming the frame. Inside, the air was thick with turpentine, charcoal, and the memory of forgotten masterpieces.
Broken windows let the rain whisper in.
The marble floor was cracked beneath Aria's boots as she stepped inside. The scent of oil paint lingered, faint but sharp. Everything felt paused. As if the room had been waiting.
Selene shut the door behind them.
Locked it.
Then lit a single candle on the windowsill.
The flame danced in the quiet like it didn't know it was alone.
Aria sank to the floor.
Her hands wouldn't stop trembling.
"…That place I went," she whispered. "It wasn't a dream."
"No," Selene said, her voice as gentle as the rain outside. "It wasn't."
"It felt… safe. Like time didn't move there."
"It didn't," Selene replied, as if confirming gravity.
Aria looked up at her.
"How do you know?"
Selene walked closer, her figure flickering in and out of shadow as the candlelight twisted across the room. Her face was half-lit, half-lost. As if she hadn't decided which version of herself to show.
"I know it's not supposed to exist," she said. "But you… you've always been the exception."
Aria blinked, her throat tight.
"What does that mean?"
Selene didn't answer right away.
For the first time since they met, her certainty cracked—not visibly, not loudly, but in the subtle pause before she spoke. She crouched beside Aria, knees creaking against the marble.
"I don't expect you to understand yet," she said softly. "You don't remember me. Not now."
Aria's breath hitched.
Selene met her eyes.
"But I remembered you," she murmured. "The moment I opened my eyes again, I remembered."
Aria's voice came out in a whisper. "We've met before?"
"In another story," Selene said. "One that ended."
A silence grew between them. Not awkward. Reverent. Like the hush before the sky breaks open.
Selene leaned in, just enough for Aria to notice the faint scar beneath her jaw.
Just enough to say:
"You're not the beginning of the end, Aria."
Her hand reached out—not to touch, just to anchor her words in the air between them.
"You're what comes after."
⸻
Outside, the rain turned to ash.
It drifted through the empty streets like falling ghosts.
And across the city—
Something screamed.
Not through lungs or lips.
But through every mirror.
And every flower that dared to bloom.