The pale hand clawing out of the broken memory wasn't human.
It looked like mine—
my size, my fingers, my skin tone—
but wrong.
Glowing veins pulsed under the skin
like liquid light was crawling inside it.
It reached toward me with a trembling, desperate hunger.
I stumbled back so fast I nearly slipped into another collapsing timeline.
The stranger caught me by the waist—again—pulling me behind him.
"Don't let her touch you," he growled.
HER?
The boy's voice trembled.
"It's too soon… she wasn't supposed to wake this early."
My breathing hitched.
"Wh—who IS THAT?"
Neither of them answered immediately.
Because the hand kept coming.
Then an arm.
Then a shoulder.
Then dark, wet hair sliding out like a drowned ghost.
A girl.
A version of me.
A version I should never see.
Her eyes snapped open.
Not brown like mine.
White.
Bright white—
like empty light.
Like someone erased her pupils completely.
When she looked at me, I felt my heartbeat… stop.
Not slow down.
Not skip.
STOP.
Like my body forgot how to be alive for a second.
Her voice was a whisper sharp as ice:
"You took my place…"
I froze.
The stranger shoved me behind him so violently I gasped.
"Don't talk to her," he hissed.
The girl stepped out of the glitching memory, her feet leaving cracks in reality with each move—
as if the universe itself couldn't hold her weight.
"…my timeline…"
she whispered.
"…my memories…"
"…my end…"
She lifted her face, and I finally saw her fully.
She looked like me—
exactly like me—
but dead.
Not physically, but emotionally.
Spiritually.
Cosmically.
Like every sadness in every universe was living in her bones.
I took a step back, trembling.
"T-that's not me."
The boy whispered painfully:
"It COULD have been."
The stranger snarled, "Don't scare her."
The boy shot back, "She needs to know!"
The other me tilted her head, smiling faintly.
The kind of smile that says,
"I've seen you die a thousand times, darling."
She floated—
FEET NOT TOUCHING THE GROUND—
toward us.
The stranger tightened his grip on my wrist.
"She remembers too much," he muttered.
"That's why she's unstable."
Unstable?!
Bro, that girl looked like she could sneeze and erase seven timelines.
The ghost-version-of-me paused in front of the stranger.
"She always chooses you," she whispered.
His jaw clenched.
Her smile widened.
"And you always destroy everything for her."
The boy stepped forward, fists trembling.
"That's why you killed me," he said to the stranger.
"To save her."
The stranger's voice lowered into a growl.
"Not now."
But the other-me giggled.
A glitchy, broken giggle that made my skin crawl.
"He'll kill him again," she whispered to me.
"And again. And again. In every timeline."
My stomach twisted.
"Is that true?" I whispered to the stranger.
He didn't deny it.
He just looked… devastated.
As if the truth itself tore him apart.
Other-Me leaned close to my face.
"Want to know what happens if you stay alive?"
"NO—!" the stranger shouted.
"Tell her," the boy demanded.
The glowing-eyed version of me tilted her head again.
Then she whispered, slowly, painfully:
"Tomorrow dies."
Silence.
The kind that feels like the universe is swallowing sound.
I whispered, "Tomorrow… like the day?"
Other-Me shook her head.
Not no—
but something twisted.
Then she leaned closer until her forehead almost touched mine.
"Tomorrow isn't a day," she whispered.
"Tomorrow is alive."
My blood froze.
I whispered, "A-alive… how?"
Before she could answer—
Reality exploded.
Glass-shatter sound.
White flash.
The ground cracked open.
Other-Me shrieked in a voice that wasn't human:
"YOU TOOK MY FUTURE— NOW YOU'LL TAKE MY END—!"
She lunged at me.
The stranger grabbed me and shoved me backward through another timeline crack.
The boy shouted my name.
The universe pulled apart—
And I fell into darkness again.
But this time—
I wasn't alone.
Because as I fell, right next to my face, floating through the void, I saw something small.
A memory fragment.
It showed a child.
A LITTLE boy.
Brown eyes.
My eyes.
Calling out:
"Mama… run."
---