Jared didn’t run this time.He just stood there, in the middle of the street, as the crowd of his own faces passed him by. Every screen showed him smiling, shaking hands, saving cities that never fell. The applause sounded hollow. Too perfect.He raised his hand, almost afraid to touch the nearest display. His fingers met cold glass. The man inside the screen mirrored him perfectly, down to the twitch in his jaw—then, for a split second, didn’t.The reflection blinked the wrong way.A chill slid down his spine.The system whispered, soft but shaking.[Observation node unstable.][Loop integrity: 92%][Warning: anomaly detected.]Jared’s chest ached. He could hear his own heartbeat echoing like it didn’t belong to him anymore. He had been here before, hadn’t he? This street, this moment, this air that tasted like metal and memory.“Stop it,” he muttered. “Stop showing me this.”But the city didn’t stop. It kept moving, kept smiling, kept pretending everything was fine.Then one screen—

The light faded slowly, like someone pulling a curtain across the world. Jared blinked until shapes returned, until the white around him loosened into shadows and walls. His breath came unsteady, but he stayed standing. He had to. Emma’s voice still clung to him like a hand that refused to let go.He rubbed his palms together out of habit. The gold lines still moved beneath his skin, restless, almost alive. They pulsed every time he remembered her fading shape.He didn’t call her name. It felt dangerous to speak it, like the room might break again.The core chamber settled around him. Dust floated lazily in the air, glowing when it passed through the patches of weak light. The whole place looked tired, as if it had held its breath for too many years. Screens cracked. Cables half-buried in the floor. Old logs flickering with broken sentences.He let his fingers graze one of the metal rails. It vibrated faintly, humming from the system overload earlier. He wondered if she could still fe

Jared’s POVThe fall back into the system wasn’t violent this time.It felt more like sinking under warm water. Slow. Thick. A pull he couldn’t fight even if he wanted to. Emma’s hand stayed in his, tight enough to ground him, gentle enough not to scare anything inside him that was still shaking.When his feet hit solid ground again, he expected the usual. The dark halls. The ruined corridors. The broken screens screaming warnings at him.But the system had changed.It wasn’t a battlefield anymore.It was… a hallway.Long. Quiet. Soft white lights humming above their heads. Windows lining one side. And outside those windows wasn’t code. Or dust. Or the endless void.It was the academy courtyard.Sunny. Still. Green.A perfect memory wearing the skin of something that had never been this peaceful in real life.Jared blinked slowly. “Why this place?”Emma let go of his hand, only to walk a few steps ahead, her fingers brushing the cold glass like she was touching a ghost.“Because this

Jared’s POVThe field didn’t end.It spread in every direction like someone had forgotten to draw borders. The grass moved in slow waves, brushing his knees each time the wind passed. Emma walked beside him, her footsteps uneven, like she still wasn’t used to having weight again.Every few minutes she’d stop to look at something small.A flower.A stone.The way the sunlight broke through the clouds.She’d kneel to touch the ground like she expected her hand to pass through it.It never did.The sixth time she stopped, Jared watched her from a few steps ahead. She was crouched over a cluster of tiny white flowers. Her fingers hovered above them but didn’t pluck one. She only touched the petals like she was afraid the whole world might shatter.He walked back to her quietly.“You keep stopping,” he said.“I keep breathing,” she replied in a small voice. “Everything feels strange.”He lowered himself beside her. “Strange good or strange bad?”Emma looked up at him.He hadn’t realized un

POV: JaredIt happened without drama.No alarms. No sudden pull in the air. No sharp warning in his head telling him to brace.They were walking along the riverbank, farther out than before. The land curved strangely here, rocks stacked like they’d been placed by hands that got tired halfway through. Emma was ahead of him, stopping every now and then to point out things she liked. A bend in the water. A stretch of moss clinging stubbornly to stone. A bird sitting too still to be brave.Jared stepped where he shouldn’t have.The rock shifted under his boot. Not enough to send him down. Just enough to scrape his hand when he reached out to steady himself.A sting. Fast. Sharp.He sucked in a breath without meaning to and straightened.It took him a second to look down.There was a cut across his palm. Thin, uneven. Already red. Blood welled slowly, not dramatic, not rushing, just there. Present.Jared stared at it.He waited.His body knew the routine better than his mind did. He waited