Chapter 9-Inside his Mind
880 Words
Everything was light.
Not the warm, golden glow of the Ember Stone or the calming brightness of morning sunlight—but a blinding, endless white. Nina was suspended in it, neither standing nor floating. She couldn’t feel her limbs, couldn’t hear her breath.
Then, gradually, the light began to flicker. It folded in on itself like paper being burned at the edges, revealing patches of darkness—of memory.
She landed with a jolt.
Her feet touched cracked marble. She stood at the center of a vast corridor, its walls towering and made of shifting mirrors. The air was thick with static, like the moment before a thunderstorm. Above, the ceiling melted between skies—sometimes clear, sometimes filled with stars, sometimes red with fire.
This was not a real place. It was Efe’s mind, shaped by the trauma of forgotten timelines and rewritten truths.
Nina took a cautious step forward. Each mirror she passed flickered with pieces of Efe’s life:
A boy no older than seven, sitting in a quiet church, clutching a rosary.
A teenager rebuilding a broken radio from scrap in a dimly lit room.
A younger Efe watching her — watching Nina — from across a university lecture hall, awe in his eyes.
Each image was vivid, painfully so. And each was surrounded by darkness creeping in at the edges.
Then she heard it.
Whispers.
Low, echoing voices that repeated the same phrase over and over:
“She isn’t real.”
“You were programmed to forget.”
“The Anchor must collapse.”
Nina spun around. At the end of the hallway, a new door appeared. Its surface pulsed like a living thing. She reached for the handle, but before she could touch it, the hallway shifted violently. Mirrors shattered. Wind screamed through the space. She was thrown backward.
When she opened her eyes, she was no longer alone.
Standing before her was the shadow-version of Efe — not the one she had saved, but the fractured ghost molded by the Timecasters. His eyes glowed silver. His smile was cruel.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“I’m not leaving without him,” Nina replied.
“You think he’s a victim,” the shadow-Efe whispered. “But he chose to forget you. Again and again. The Archivists offered him peace. No chaos. No broken timelines. He took the deal.”
“That’s a lie.”
The shadow smirked. “You think love is stronger than programming?”
The floor began to c***k beneath her. Flames burst from the mirror walls, and scenes began to twist:
Efe letting go of her hand in a collapsing building.
Efe walking away as she screamed his name.
Efe standing beside an Archivist, whispering into her ear.
Nina clutched her head. “This isn’t real!”
“But it could be,” the shadow said, stepping closer. “What if he does it again? What if saving him only guarantees your next erasure?”
Nina gritted her teeth. She looked past the shadows, deeper into the burning corridor. There—a single memory untouched by the storm. A moment from Efe’s mind the Archivists hadn’t yet corrupted.
She ran toward it.
The shadow-Efe lunged, but she was faster. She burst through the final mirror—
—and landed in a quiet, sunlit room.
This was real.
Efe sat at a table beside a window, sunlight pouring in over old notebooks. He looked younger here, happier. And when he turned to see her, his eyes widened—not with fear, but recognition.
“Nina?”
She rushed to him. “Efe, listen to me. This place isn’t real. We’re inside your mind. You’ve been infected by a memory trigger—implanted by the Archivists. I’m here to remove it.”
He stared at her for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.
“I’ve felt it,” he said. “Something inside me that doesn’t belong. But I didn’t know what it was.”
Nina placed her hand on his chest. “Then trust me. Let me find it.”
The room trembled. The walls peeled back, revealing circuitry underneath. The last layer of illusion faded.
Nina saw the trigger now — a black thorn of memory lodged in his mind like a parasite. It pulsed with the same energy as the Timecasters.
She reached for it—
But it screamed.
Not a sound, but a thought. A wave of fear and doubt that flooded her mind. Her hands shook. Her birthmark glowed.
“Don’t forget why you came,” a voice whispered inside her — her elder self.
Nina gritted her teeth, focused, and pulled.
A shock of energy surged through her. Every version of herself flashed before her eyes. Every goodbye. Every betrayal. Every time Efe forgot her.
She screamed and held on.
And then—
Silence.
The trigger dissolved in her hands like ash.
The world around her began to heal. The mirrored corridor reformed. The flames died. The shadow-Efe evaporated into mist.
Efe knelt before her, shaking. “You did it.”
“We did it,” she said, tears in her eyes.
The space began to collapse—not in terror, but as a dream gently ending.
Nina closed her eyes.
And woke up.
- Writer
