"The Light Between Us" – Alicia Renvale
A soft hush lingered in the ruins of the simulation. The fractured sky above had calmed, flickers of residual static dancing like tired stars. Alicia sat beneath the arch of a memory-fractured tower, knees drawn to her chest, her silver-blonde hair cascading like silk over her shoulders. Her eyes, once alight with unshakable resolve, now shimmered with quiet confusion.
She had not expected this version of Jay.
Not this quiet weight he now carried.
Not the distance in his voice, even when he was standing right beside her.
Not the way his gaze seemed to look through the world —as if searching for something not even he could name.
Alicia plucked a thin blade of memory-grass from the crumbling stone and twirled it between her fingers. The data flickered in her palm, responding to her touch like a living dream. Everything here was too real to be fake… and too fake to be real.
