Elisa fell.
She couldn't see the sky. There was no sky. Only fragmentation existed. Pieces of the universe suspended like floating shards of glass, each vibrating at a different frequency, impossible to touch, impossible to ignore. The battle with the Guardians had ended weeks ago, but its consequences still resonated like a runaway echo through space and time.
The final shockwave had brought down the structure of the multiverse like a sandcastle. Elisa, in that moment, had unwittingly caused a multidimensional catastrophe. The Guardians, defeated not with rage, but with the sorrowful determination of someone unable to avert the inevitable, had vanished in a flash. It was a universal battle where galaxies themselves were used as weapons, where constellations were erased from existence simply to draw lines of attack.
The hat, still worn and smoking from the battle, floated beside her. As if it too had fought. As if it understood.
Elisa put it on. The moment the hat touched her head, a dull buzzing sound invaded her mind. It wasn't pain. It was something else. A resonance. Something that came from the deepest recesses of everything and nothingness.
At that moment, a dimensional rift opened beside her. Not violently, but like a wound that bled slowly. Not light. Not darkness. Something worse. The absence of both.
"Another one?" she said to herself, her voice dry, like someone who had lost too many times. Over the past few weeks, rifts had been appearing in various parts of the universe.
The hat responded, vibrating slightly. She already knew: the hat could seal those rifts. She didn't understand why, but she knew. It was almost instinctive. She only had to think, focus her will... and close that opening that had swallowed her whole. Elisa ended up falling into another universe. However, just like with the rifts, Elisa wasn't surprised by the fact that she'd been sent to a different universe. She didn't understand why she wasn't surprised; normally, the first thing she would do would be scream after being sucked into a portal, but...it was as if every time she used the hat, even unconsciously, Elisa gained knowledge of everything, as if the hat were telling her subconscious things she didn't even know existed.
The first jump was to a place that had once been a star city. Now it was a distorted reflection: inverted towers floated on dry seas, and beings made of radio noise crawled across the surface. In the sky, stars could be seen dying and space itself fading—a truly tragic yet beautiful spectacle. There was a rift there. She knew it the moment she arrived.
Elisa reached out. The hat lit up. Invisible lines emerged from her palm, enveloping the rift in the reality she had found. She closed her eyes. A faint pain, like nostalgia, coursed through her chest.
The crack disappeared.
But the nostalgia didn't. It remained.
"Every time I seal one... it's like I forget something," she whispered.
And the worst part was, she didn't know what.
Hours later, or whatever time was there, Elisa walked across a plane without a horizon. A place outside of time, a pause between the heartbeats of existence. It was there that she saw her for the first time.
Astrid.
She had a hat too, Elisa thought at first. But no. It was a brooch. Round, golden, with a blue core that pulsed like a heart.
Astrid looked at her like someone observing a broken version of themselves. There was something sad in her eyes. Something Elisa couldn't tell if it was pity or a warning.
"You're wearing yourself out," Astrid said emotionlessly. "Every crack you close brings you closer to losing yourself."
"And you... what are you doing then?" Elisa asked cautiously, but also with genuine curiosity.
"What you don't dare. I'm joining realities. I'm sewing them together. Not sealing them."
"That's madness. Do you know what that would do to the balance?"
Many years ago, Elisa had read in a book whose name she no longer remembered about the multiverse and how dangerous it would be if two different worlds were to merge or even come together.
"Balance? Balance is dead, Elisa." The multiverse has already collapsed. You're just sweeping up ruins.
"Wait, how do you know my name and what I'm doing?"
"The instant you arrived in my dimension, I could feel the energy emanating from your hat. I don't know why, but when you touched my brooch, I knew you. I could see your life and your memories as if I had been there too. I suppose we must be connected somehow."
There was silence. Elisa wanted to scream at her. But she had no energy. She just watched her walk away, disappearing into a portal she opened before vanishing. As she walked, she saw another rift curve and merge with another. Elisa could feel the universe she was in merging with another at that precise moment, and how that rift closed as those two worlds joined.
A knot formed in Elisa's stomach.
That fusion... it wasn't natural. It was as if reality itself were weeping.
And in that weeping, Elisa felt a gaze.
Not Astrid. Something else.
Something that lay behind the cracks. Something she had waited a long time for.
A whisper arrived on the nonexistent wind.
"Seal it enough... and you'll know what we are."
Elisa didn't answer. She just hugged her hat like an old friend and jumped to the next crack.
Because if she didn't do it, no one would.
And maybe... just maybe... there was still something left to save. She didn't know why, but she had a feeling that if she didn't seal the cracks, something much worse was going to happen.
Note: Chapters will be uploaded weekly, so the next chapter will be released next Friday.