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Chapter One Hundred and Ninety-One – The Memory That Wasn’t
Author: Rukky
last update2025-11-27 21:51:42

He didn’t remember falling asleep. One moment he was standing beside the fractured horizon, the Engine’s pulse running under his skin like a second heartbeat and the next, he was somewhere else.

A room. Small. Sunlit. Familiar in the way dreams imitate truth. A mug sat on the table in front of him, steam curling from its rim.

He knew that mug. Knew the chipped handle, the scuff on the glaze, the faint scent of burned cinnamon because Selene always added too much.

He reached for it without thinking. His fingers passed straight through. Fowler stiffened. “No. Not this.”

The room shimmered, as if the walls were layered over something else, something deeper, darker. A tremor rolled under his feet, the kind that didn’t belong to buildings or storms but to systems correcting themselves.

“This is incorrect.”

The voice came from his left. He turned. A man stood in the doorway his same height, same posture, same face. But colder. Sharper. Eyes like polished glass, reflecting everything and rev
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