The apartment in Lisbon became my starting point, but I knew I wasn't meant to stay.
Each morning, I would sit by the window, studying the photograph Selene left me. It was more than just a memory—it was a map. The creases on the paper formed patterns. The ink faded in places that aligned with star charts I later uncovered in old archives.
Selene had left me a trail.
She wanted me to find her.
I boarded trains, crossed borders, traveled on foot through abandoned railways and forgotten towns. Every stop on the trail led me to fragments of stories, messages carefully left behind, puzzles I was uniquely built to solve.
In Prague, I found a collapsed library with coordinates scribbled on the underside of a stone table.
In Marseille, a locked briefcase buried beneath the docks held a projection device. It played a message of Selene's voice:
"You didn't think I'd make it easy, did you?"
In the projection, she was smiling—alive and real.
"Keep going. I'm waiting."
I chased her across fractured cities, where time loops still flickered despite the Rebirth Accord. The Memory Thieves had grown desperate, leaving traps and illusions behind, trying to throw me off the path.
But I had changed. I could see through the false timelines now. I could feel the difference between real echoes and planted memories.
One night in Berlin, I encountered a man who claimed to be from a timeline where Selene never met me. His version of her had led a resistance but disappeared before their final battle.
"She was searching for someone," he said. "Someone she couldn't remember."
The ache in my chest deepened.
Even across broken timelines, she was always searching for me.
The trail led me to an observatory on the edge of time—a place where fractured stars hung suspended, tethered by the last strands of collapsing timelines.
I wasn't alone.
Selene was there, standing beneath the star map, her hand pressed against the shifting constellations.
When she turned, her smile was soft but tired.
"You found me."
"I told you I would."
We stood in silence, letting the weight of the journey settle between us.
"I wasn't sure if you would remember me this time," she whispered.
"I always do," I said. "Even when I forget, I always find my way back to you."
We pieced together the final fragments of the timeline, using the observatory's core to seal the last of the dangerous loops.
But the price of closing the remaining fractures was steep.
One of us had to remain as the anchor—to stabilize the core from within.
Selene stepped forward.
"No," I said, grabbing her hand. "We promised to fight together."
"And we did," she said, her eyes glistening. "But I remember now—I was always meant to stay behind."
I shook my head, desperate to change fate.
She smiled. "You'll find me again. You always do."
She pressed a final message into my palm, activated the core, and vanished into the collapsing light.
The observatory dissolved around me, but I survived, carried back to Lisbon by the stabilizer's emergency pulse.
When I opened the final message, her voice filled the room.
"I'll wait for you. Across timelines, across memories. I'll wait until you remember the stars we used to chase."
I sat by the window, clutching the photograph, watching the sky.
And I knew this wasn't the end.
The stars would lead me back to her.
They always did.