The sky above them wasn't a sky.
It was a memory.
Soft and cracked,
like paint peeling from an old canvas.
The ground wasn't solid either.
It shifted with every step,
rippled like a pond touched by forgotten hands.
Noé stood still, Mira and Lysira beside him,
all three breathing in silence.
This place wasn't a dream.
It wasn't a nightmare.
It was something left behind.
And now it was awake.
Mira touched her fingers to her lips, blinking up at the purple-silver expanse above.
"It feels like... like we're inside someone's goodbye," she whispered.
Lysira didn't answer immediately.
She stared into the distance, where spires of light floated like distant, broken promises.
Then she said:
"No.
We're inside a choice."
Noé's heart beat harder.
He looked at his hand—
the Memory Rune burned faintly, steady now,
as if it had accepted where they were.
The world responded to thought.
When Noé imagined a path, the ground shaped itself.
When Mira remembered a garden, faint flowers shimmered into being.
When Lysira focused on a bell—
A soft toll echoed in the distance.
A bell.
Not a warning.
A reminder.
They walked forward.
No map.
No stars.
Only memory shaping reality
with every breath they took.
And as they moved—
the air ahead of them shivered.
Figures began to form.
Not people.
Shadows.
Stitched together from old memories and broken time.
Eyes empty.
Hands trembling.
Mouths whispering songs no one alive should know.
Mira stumbled.
Noé caught her.
"What are they?" she gasped.
Lysira stepped in front of them both.
"Memory-thieves," she said grimly.
"Creatures that feed on who you were."
And the first of them lunged.
The first shadow moved faster than thought.
It lunged toward Mira, arms outstretched,
mouth yawning open in a silent scream.
Noé reacted on instinct.
He shoved Mira behind him,
his hand flaring with light as the Memory Rune ignited.
A barrier snapped into existence—
not made of magic,
but of memory.
A wall of all the moments he refused to forget.
The shadow hit the barrier and recoiled, hissing without a voice.
Mira stumbled back, clutching her head.
"I can hear it!" she cried.
"I can hear it trying to take my name!"
Lysira was already moving,
her runes weaving a sharp spiral of defense around them.
"Stay together!" she shouted.
"Don't think too hard!
Don't remember what you're afraid to lose!"
The second shadow attacked.
This time at Noé.
But it didn't strike him directly.
Instead—
it whispered.
A voice so familiar
that Noé staggered in place:
"You promised you'd never leave me."
He clutched his head.
A rooftop.
A kiss.
A goodbye he never wanted to say.
Mira screamed.
Another shadow had latched onto her sleeve,
pulling at a memory she couldn't quite reach:
• A birthday party under endless stars.
• A boy laughing—whose face she couldn't see.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
Noé forced himself to move.
To act.
He slammed his palm into the ground,
the Memory Rune burning brighter—
and a ripple exploded outward.
A shockwave made of remembered truth.
The shadows shrieked—
their stolen faces twisting—
and burst into smoke.
Silence fell.
Only the sound of their ragged breathing remained.
Mira clung to him.
Lysira stood guard, scanning the flickering horizon.
Noé gritted his teeth.
"They're getting stronger."
Lysira nodded grimly.
"And the more we remember—
the more they'll come."
Mira's voice was small.
"But if we forget..."
She didn't finish.
Because forgetting wasn't survival.
It was death.
And ahead of them—
through the flickering veil of broken sky—
they saw it.
A bridge.
Thin.
Fragile.
Stretching across a void filled with whispering shadows.
At the end of the bridge:
A door.
Waiting.
Silent.
And carved above it:
"Only Those Who Carry Themselves May Pass."
The bridge groaned under their weight.
Not from weakness.
But from recognition.
Every step they took—
the bridge responded.
A memory.
A whisper.
A regret.
The void beneath them pulsed with soft, terrible echoes:
• "You were supposed to stay."
• "You could have saved her."
• "You were never enough."
Noé tightened his fists.
The Memory Rune on his palm burned hotter.
Mira clung to his side.
She stared down once—
then snapped her gaze upward.
Beneath them,
shadows moved.
Figures she almost recognized.
A mother's laugh.
A brother's voice.
A friend she never properly said goodbye to.
Lysira led the way.
Her face was pale,
but her steps never faltered.
The bridge seemed to hesitate beneath her.
As if even it remembered something she didn't want to admit.
Halfway across—
the real test began.
The air thickened.
And from the void rose their own reflections.
But wrong.
Twisted.
Echoes made of doubt and fear.
Noé's echo spoke first.
A version of him, broken and cruel,
eyes hollow, smile bitter.
"You'll fail them again," it hissed.
"You always do."
Noé staggered.
The rune on his hand flickered.
Mira's echo followed.
A version of her that had never smiled,
never hoped.
"You think they care," it whispered.
"But they'll leave you when it matters."
Mira whimpered, clutching her head.
Lysira's echo was last.
It didn't speak.
It just stared at her.
Silent.
Accusing.
And somehow—that was worse.
They stopped in the middle of the bridge.
The real Noé.
The real Mira.
The real Lysira.
Breathless.
Shaking.
Facing themselves.
Noé took a breath.
Deep.
Shaky.
And he reached out—
not to fight the echo—
but to accept it.
To say:
"I remember you.
I'm not you."
The echo recoiled.
Cracked.
And shattered into mist.
Mira did the same.
Tears streaking her face,
she whispered:
"I'm more than what I lost."
And her echo burst apart.
Lysira faced hers without a word.
Only a nod.
And the silent reflection dissolved into nothing.
The bridge solidified beneath their feet.
The void quieted.
The door ahead glowed faintly—
accepting them.
Welcoming them.
They walked the final steps.
Together.
Stronger.
And when Noé touched the door—
it opened without sound.
Beyond it—
a new world waited.
One that would no longer be shaped only by memory—
but by choice.
The door swallowed them whole.
No push.
No pull.
Just a sudden shift.
They stumbled forward—
and the world around them blurred.
For a heartbeat,
Noé thought he was falling into nothing.
But then—
the air thickened.
Colors bled into view.
Shapes solidified.
They stood in a city.
Not ruined.
Not thriving.
Frozen.
Buildings half-formed from memory.
Statues weeping stone tears.
Streets curling into themselves like broken dreams.
Mira clutched Noé's sleeve.
"This place... it knows us," she whispered.
Lysira spun slowly, eyes sharp,
her bracelet flickering with restless energy.
"Not just knows," she said.
"It's built from us."
Noé turned slowly.
The Memory Rune on his hand pulsed.
Everywhere he looked,
he saw glimpses of forgotten things:
• A classroom filled with books no one had written.
• A rooftop where the stars hung too low.
• A bell tower without time.
Every piece—
a part of them.
But it wasn't safe.
The city pulsed with a low hum.
Like a heartbeat beneath cracked stone.
Mira pointed ahead.
"Look!"
At the end of the fractured street—
a figure waited.
Not a memory.
Not a shadow.
Something different.
Wrapped in light and broken songs.
Watching them.
Waiting.
Lysira stepped protectively in front of Noé and Mira.
Noé narrowed his eyes.
He could feel it—
this was not a simple test.
This was something that remembered him back.
And it wasn't going to let them leave easily.
They walked forward.
One step.
Then another.
Noé's heart hammered with every movement.
And the voice he had heard in the tower—
the boy's voice—
whispered again inside him:
"Not all memories want to be remembered."
And some—
fight back.
They moved forward.
Each step felt heavier,
as if the city itself tried to pull them back into forgotten places.
The figure ahead didn't move.
It simply waited.
Patient.
Silent.
Knowing.
As they drew closer,
the form sharpened.
It was not monstrous.
It was not alien.
It was—
Familiar.
A boy.
Silver hair.
Eyes like broken mirrors.
Clothes stitched from old promises and faded memories.
Noé staggered.
It was the same face he had seen in the tower.
The part of him he thought he had left behind.
But different.
Older.
Stronger.
Wounded.
The boy smiled.
It wasn't cruel.
It wasn't kind.
It was simply true.
"You made it," the boy said.
Noé tried to speak.
Tried to ask—how, why, what does this mean?
But the boy shook his head.
"No words," he said.
"You already know."
Mira and Lysira stood frozen beside him.
They saw the boy too.
But differently.
Each of them saw what they had tried hardest to forget:
• Mira saw a hand reaching for hers,
pulling her away from a crumbling home.
• Lysira saw a pair of eyes,
full of hope she had once promised never to betray.
• Noé—
he saw himself.
The version that had loved too much.
Hoped too much.
And paid the price.
The boy stepped closer.
The world around them flickered.
Buildings crumbled into mist.
The sky shivered.
The ground broke into pieces of light.
"You have a choice," the boy said.
"Remember and hurt."
"Or forget and survive."
Noé's heart screamed.
Mira grabbed his arm.
Lysira reached for his hand.
Trembling.
Afraid.
But trusting him.
Noé closed his eyes.
He remembered:
• The stars they had wished under.
• The promises they had whispered.
• The love he had lost—
but never stopped carrying.
He opened his eyes.
Met the boy's gaze.
And said, voice steady:
"I choose to remember."
The boy smiled wider.
Bright.
Pained.
Relieved.
And then—
he stepped forward—
and dissolved into Noé.
The world shuddered.
The broken city exploded into color and sound.
The void filled with music.
And ahead of them—
for the first time—
a real road appeared.
Leading forward.
Clear.
Certain.
Waiting.
Noé turned to Mira and Lysira.
Their hands still in his.
Their eyes shining with tears.
"Let's go," he said.
And together—
they walked into the world they would no longer forget.