They awoke not with a start — but with silence.
Soft grass beneath them.A lavender sky.A river flowing upward into a spiral.
"Where are we?" Mara whispered.
Theo sat up slowly, watching petals drift in reverse across the air.
"I think we're in a memory… not ours. Theirs."
"Whose?"
"The other versions. The ones that never escaped."
They stood together in a garden where the laws of physics bent to feeling. Trees bloomed in response to memory. Birds sang only when you thought of someone you'd lost. A breeze whispered names they'd tried to forget.
The garden welcomed them like an old friend.
But something was… off.
Every so often, the sky blinked.And in the blink, they saw other selves.
Theo holding a child.Mara in a wheelchair.Theo alone, with gray hair and no smile.Mara with fire in her eyes and a gun in her hand.
Each version lasted only a second.
"They're all… us," Theo muttered.
"No," Mara said quietly. "They're choices."
Then they saw her.
A girl, sitting in a swing made of woven stars.
She was around 10. Wearing a faded hoodie and humming a lullaby Mara knew from childhood.
"Do you see her?" Mara asked.
Theo nodded slowly.
"She looks like…"
"Me," Mara finished.
They approached carefully.
"Hi," Mara said. "Are you real?"
The girl smiled.
"I was."
"What do you mean?"
"You left me behind."
Mara's breath caught.
"I… I don't understand."
"When you escaped the loop, you chose to forget. You cut the parts of you that were 'too soft'… to survive. But I stayed."
Tears welled in the girl's eyes.
"I was your hope. Your kindness. You told me to wait until it was safe again."
Mara dropped to her knees.
"I didn't know. I didn't know you were still—"
"I was always here. Watching. Waiting."
The swing began to dissolve.
"Wait—please!" Mara cried, reaching for her.
The girl only smiled.
"Don't be sorry. Just… remember me."
And with that, the girl vanished like morning fog.
Mara sobbed into the grass.
Theo held her, saying nothing.
"I left her," she whispered. "I chose survival over soul."
"You didn't know," he said.
"But now I do."
The garden began to decay.
Trees turned to ash.Water flowed backward into stone.The sky cracked like old porcelain.
"We have to go," Theo said.
"Where?" she whispered.
A door appeared in the ground, made of glass and regret.
On it, a message:
"Beyond this lies the truth. But you will not come out whole."
They looked at each other.
"You still with me?" he asked.
"Only if you'll help me find the pieces I left behind," she said.
And together, they stepped through.
End of Chapter 14