Selene’s POV
She looked like me.
Older. Wilder. Her hair streaked with white at the temples, her scars deep and unapologetic. The Spiral mark on her wrist had faded to something faint, almost healed.
And still, I knew her.
Or maybe I would become her.
She stirred the fire with a stick and didn’t speak until I sat across from her.
“You didn’t look back,” she said.
“I couldn’t.”
“They wouldn’t have seen you anyway.”
I stared into the flames. “Then why did it still feel like leaving everything?”
She gave me a sad smile.
“Because it was.”
She handed me a canteen. I drank without question.
The water was cold. Clean. Real.
“You’ve seen them before, haven’t you?” I asked.
“The others like us?”
She nodded. “Versions. Memories. Echoes that never settled. Most of them burned. The res
