The moment Aster opened his eyes, the world felt off-center.
Not wrong…
Not broken…
Just shifted, like reality itself had exhaled and forgotten to inhale again.
He sat on the cold stone floor of the sub-basement corridor, breathing hard. His vision was tinted silver, and the sound of distant gears turning pulsed behind his skull.
The aftermath of the encounter with the Thread-Reaper still clung to him like frost.
His shadow moved first.
It unlatched itself from beneath him, stretching along the wall like spilled ink. Instead of mimicking him, it watched him—its presence heavy, sentient, expectant.
Aster swallowed.
"What do you want from me…?"
The shadow tilted its head. A delayed echo of his own voice whispered back:
"The part of you that's missing."
Aster's chest tightened. He didn't dare ask what that meant.
Before he could breathe again, the corridor lights flickered—once, twice—
and then he felt it:
A presence behind him.
Aster turned slowly.
A door stood there.
Except it shouldn't.
This hallway was empty minutes ago. Even Professor Kael confirmed no doors existed on this level. But now… the old wooden frame seemed carved out of an older reality, bleeding faint golden dust around its edges.
Aster felt a cold realization:
The door wasn't installed.
It was remembered into existence.
His shadow whispered:
"This is the first fracture."
Aster's voice dropped. "Of what?"
"Of you."
The door trembled, as if something on the other side was breathing against it.
---
A voice whispered from beyond the door.
Quiet. Familiar.
A voice Aster had heard only in nightmares:
"Aster… don't open it."
He froze.
The voice belonged to him.
Not his echo.
Not his shadow.
But another Aster Vale—older, harsh, and full of a kind of sorrow that weighted the air.
Aster's heartbeat spiked.
"Who—"
He caught himself.
No. He knew. Deep down, he knew.
The voice spoke again:
"If you open that door, you will no longer be this version of you. You will become the one who walked this path before. The one who failed."
Aster's breath shuddered.
His shadow stepped closer, its tone a cold counterpoint:
"He fears what you'll remember. I crave what you've forgotten."
Aster clutched his head as a sudden surge of memories—not his own—flashed behind his eyelids:
A ruined academy.
A winter sky split by threads of time.
Lyra lying motionless in a circle of broken sigils.
Raven turning to ash in his hands.
A city collapsing under a tide of shadows that roared with his own voice.
Aster gasped, stumbling backward.
"No… no, that wasn't me—"
His older voice hissed urgently:
"Aster, listen to me. Every timeline falls when you open that door. Don't repeat my sin."
His shadow whispered back:
"And every timeline collapses when you refuse it. You are trapped. You always were. Choose the fracture that hurts the least."
The door handle turned.
Aster didn't touch it.
Something on the other side was choosing for him.
The air thickened.
The world trembled.
Then the door creaked open by itself—just a sliver—and a slanted beam of golden light spilled out, illuminating Aster's face.
He saw it.
A silhouette standing inside the golden glow.
A version of himself…
with no shadow at all.
The Shadowless Aster raised his head.
His voice was calm, gentle, and terrifying in its certainty:
"Welcome back, Aster Vale.
We've been waiting for the version of you who still remembers how to choose."
The corridor fell silent.
Aster stepped toward the door.
His hand trembled.
He didn't know if he was approaching salvation…
or walking straight into the final loop.
But he crossed the threshold.
---
The door slammed shut behind him.
And the entire academy exhaled like something ancient finally waking.