Elisa had arrived in a new universe.She now stood between two twin moons, locked in a cycle of death and rebirth. Around her, a storm of liquid light danced as if the sun itself had melted.
Before her, a rift slowly opened. It was not large, but its shape trembled like a wound that refused to close.It was the nineteenth.
With the hat in her hands, Elisa felt the now-familiar pressure in her chest. Each closure was another weight added to her soul.A tiny death.A canceled possibility.
"How many are left…?" she whispered tiredly, though she expected no answer.
She aimed the hat toward the fissure. A beam of silent darkness emerged from within, wrapping around her like a veil of shadow.And the rift… closed.
Only the echo remained.
The echo of something that no longer was.
In another reality, Astrid walked across a world made of living geometry, where mountains breathed and trees spoke in languages humans could not understand.There, an opening shimmered between sky and earth.
Astrid raised her brooch. The object responded with a golden vibration, its core opening like a heart ready to beat.
And then, the rift melted and merged with another universe. A gentle union. An integration.
A new world was born—an amalgam of two worlds that should never have touched.
"This is how you truly heal," Astrid said. "Not by closing… but by accepting."
At that moment, Astrid felt a presence behind her—one that felt… familiar.
"Are you sure about that, sister? Because to me it looks like all you're doing is trying to run from the destiny you know you were meant to have. You can believe that by merging universes into one you'll redeem yourself, that you'll erase all this guilt you feel for surviving and create a better world for everyone—but deep down you know nothing you do will change the fact that all of us died, and that in the end you only do this because you're afraid… and because you desperately want to die, just as you know you should have."
Astrid did not turn around. She already knew exactly what stood behind her: an illusion.Unlike Elisa, every time Astrid used her brooch she did not feel weight or nostalgia or sorrow—instead, her fears and regrets materialized into illusions that reminded her of her past experiences.
Astrid had grown accustomed to these illusions and now limited herself to ignoring them. Even so, she could not help being affected by them. She knew they were not real, that they were not truly her family—but it still hurt every time she heard them speak.
The brooch could merge entire universes and create new life, but ironically, it could not restore beings or worlds once lost. She had tried. She had attempted by every possible means to bring back her family and her world—but… she never succeeded.
Astrid remained silent, a single tear falling as she opened a portal to another world.
As both of them walked through the universes they inhabited—separated by realities and time—a question began to grow in Elisa's heart:
What is lost every time I seal a rift?
A universe? A life? A chance? Am I preventing a dimension that could have flourished from ever even beginning?
Elisa found herself in a dimension where time moved in spirals. The beings there did not live in straight lines, but in existential circles. They were born, died, and were reborn knowing exactly what would happen—yet unable to avoid it.
One of them approached her, a creature made of thinking clouds and liquid eyes.
"Why do you close these openings?" it asked.
Elisa did not answer immediately. She thought for a few seconds before responding.
"Because if I don't, everything will collapse," Elisa said.
"My world and my people have already collapsed. What difference would it make if you sealed that opening?"
Elisa fell silent.
She sealed the rift quickly and left without answering.
On a floating station at the edge of universal consciousness, Elisa gazed upon a mural carved into cosmic stone. It depicted two opposing figures: one with a hat that absorbed stars, the other with a brooch that multiplied them.
They touched with a single finger. At the center, the multiverse.
Beneath the image, an inscription in a dead language:
"Only through contradiction is balance born."
Elisa looked at her reflection in the mural's black crystal—at her hair and eyes, now colors different from what they once were. When she had first seen those changes, surprise and tears had overtaken her. They were caused by the cosmic pieces and their radiation, and if not for her hat, they would have affected far more than her appearance. Even so, it was enough for Elisa to understand that she would never be the same again—this was her life now.
She continued staring at her reflection, and for the first time… she did not fully recognize herself. She simply asked a question as she looked at her hat:
"Why me? Why did you choose me? Why did I have to be the one who found you in that forest? Why do I have to be the one who seals the rifts? …Why do I have to be the vessel of nonexistence?"
Elisa remained silent, staring into the crystal as if she truly expected an answer from the object—but there was nothing. Only silence. In her mind, she could only imagine what her life might have been like if she had never found the hat. If she had stayed in her world. If she had followed the rules.
Maybe she would be with her family now.Maybe she would be living in peace.…Maybe she would be happier.
She summoned her ship once more through a portal and entered a room she had not visited in a long time: her plush-toy room. There, Elisa kept several stuffed animals she had owned since childhood. On her planet, having always been a pariah, these small toys were her only companions—the only ones who hugged her and comforted her. When she escaped that world, aside from her hat, they were the only things she brought with her.
Elisa took her favorite and held it tightly for several minutes.
A small tear slid down her face as she felt the effects of using the hat to seal rifts. Each time, the pressure inside her grew stronger… and lingered longer.
Astrid, on her own path, was also beginning to feel the consequences of her mission.
Not all worlds accepted fusion. Some screamed. Others imploded.Some… fought back.
"I can't stop," she said to herself, resting her forehead against the brooch.
What she was doing was not perfect.
But she believed it was necessary.
And in the vastness of everything, the multiverse began to tremble.
Not because of the rifts.Not because of the fusions.
But because of the approaching clash of wills.
A choice.A split destiny.
Two forces destined to confront each other—not out of hatred, but because of irreconcilable convictions.
And as rifts were sealed… and worlds were merged…
…Elisa began to understand that she was not saving the multiverse.
She was only fixing it.