The light of the Source realm shimmered like an ocean without water. Every step Ethan took rippled across the surface beneath him, the echoes trailing behind like threads of memory. Around him, the world shifted — sometimes resembling a field of glass, sometimes the vast architecture of the Vault he’d destroyed.
Maya stood a few paces ahead, her figure both real and translucent, her hair drifting as though in a current. She watched him approach but didn’t move closer.
“I told you to run,” she said softly.
Ethan stopped. “Not without you.”
“This place doesn’t follow your rules, Ethan. You don’t walk through memory — you drown in it.”
He looked around. The horizon was an endless whirl of colour, a spiralling vortex of time and light. Fragments of the world hung suspended in the air — th
