Traces of HimThe city is very quiet.Not just abandoned. Not just forgotten.Erased.Kane’s device flickers in her hand as she tries to stabilize the signal. The air around us feels off, humming with something unnatural. This place—it doesn’t belong to the world anymore. It’s a scar in the system, a place that shouldn’t exist but still lingers.Elias lets out a low breath. "This place is a dead zone." He kicks a loose chunk of pavement, watching as dust puffs up and then settles. "No signals. No cameras. Nothing.""Which makes it the perfect place to hide something,"* I say.Or someone.Kane taps rapidly on her screen, her brows furrowed in concentration. "I can’t pinpoint the source, but there’s definitely something here. An anomaly."I can’t wait. I move."Tony—" Kane calls after me, but I don’t slow down.Because I feel it now.A pulse in the air. A presence tugging at the edge of my senses. Something familiar.The deeper we go, the stranger it gets.Buildings loom overhead, their

The Cost of Remembering "You’re saying I have to be his anchor," I say, the weight of the words pressing into my chest. Kane nods. "You knew him best. If anyone can hold onto him long enough to pull him back, it’s you." Elias crosses his arms, his jaw locked. "And what happens if Tony can’t handle it?" Kane hesitates. That hesitation alone is enough to make my stomach drop. "Then we lose them both." Silence clamps down on the room. No one moves. No one breathes. The answer is right there, staring us in the face. I already know mine. "We do it." Elias shakes his head, stepping forward like he can physically stop me. "Tony—" "Don’t waste time trying to stop me," I cut in, my voice sharp enough to slice through his arguments before they even form. "We’re doing this." His hands curl into fists at his sides. "Damn it, Tony—" "Enough," I snap. "Darren saved my life more times than I can count. If there’s even a chance I can do the same for him, I take it. No second-gu

Fractured PiecesThe world outside should feel normal. It doesn’t.I sit at Darren’s bedside, watching the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of his chest. His skin is pale, almost waxy under the harsh medical lights. Alive. Breathing. But he hasn’t spoken since the moment he woke up and whispered—Who am I?The question still rattles in my skull like a broken gear in a machine that refuses to run properly. I should feel relief. I should feel like I won. But something about this victory feels incomplete.Elias leans against the doorway, arms crossed, his dark eyes unreadable. “He’s not waking up right.”“No shit,” I mutter, my voice is raspier than I expected.She stands next to me, her gaze fixed on the monitors, lips pressed into a thin line. “His neural pathways are intact,” she says carefully. “But the damage…” She exhales, shaking her head. “It’s like someone shattered a mirror and put the pieces back in the wrong order.”I squeeze the bridge of my nose, exhaustion pressing down on me l

The System Still WhispersThe voice shouldn’t exist. But it does.It lingers in the air, fractured, stretched thin, but unmistakably real.Darren grips the side of the bed, his knuckles white. His breath comes in shallow bursts.Elias shifts beside me, his stance tense, like a man waiting for the next hit in a fight he doesn’t understand. “Someone explain what the hell is happening.”Darren’s eyes flick to mine, and the look in them—fear, disbelief, something deeper—makes my stomach turn.“It’s him,” he breathes.I frown. “Who?”Darren swallows hard. His voice barely carries.“The other me.”Silence.I feel the words before I process them. They sink into my skin, cold and wrong.“The part that never made it back.”Kane hesitates, fingers hovering over her device. “That’s impossible.”Darren lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh but lacks any humor. “Yeah. Well. So I survived.”The air crackles.And then—The whisper again.“Tony… help…”My spine locks.The voice isn’t just a whisper

The New godThe void stretches before me, an endless horizon of shifting dark. It isn’t empty. It never was.I hear the voice before I see him. A whisper threaded through the emptiness, calling my name. It tugs at something deep inside me, a sensation I can’t quite explain—like remembering a dream just before it slips away.And then—I see him.Darren.But not the Darren I know.He stands at the precipice, his body half-formed, flickering between what he was and something more. His edges blur like static, shifting between his usual self and something vast and unknowable. His eyes—once sharp and grounded—hold an unnatural glow now, like something ancient is staring through them.A shiver crawls down my spine.I hesitate.“Darren?”He turns.And smiles.It’s small. Sad.“Tony,” he says quietly. “What have we become?”The weight of his words settles over me like a stone.I don’t know how to answer.Kane's voice crackles through my earpiece. “Tony, I don’t like this. His vitals are—” She s