The world above was still trembling as Jae-Won stepped deeper into the fissure Serin had vanished into. He could feel it—this wasn't just a crack in the terrain. It was a tear in time.
His boots hit stone that pulsed faintly with a violet glow. The air was colder, but not from temperature. Time itself was fragmented here, slowing, skipping, like a corrupted recording.
"Serin!" he called, voice echoing strangely, repeating in distorted versions of itself seconds later.
He gritted his teeth. She'd taken something. Not just data—no, something more potent. A node buried deep in the Rift, a temporal core. She was leading him into a trap, or… maybe into a truth.
He clenched his dagger tighter. The blade hummed with his pulse, the glitch energy weaving through it more steadily than ever before.
> "System Notification: Temporal Interference Stable. Glitch-State Enhancement: 11%."
That was new.
Another level of his ability? Or was it the Rift amplifying him? Either way, he didn't have time to hesitate.
Ahead, a shifting shadow stirred. It wasn't Serin—but it wore her shape. A Time Echo.
"Do you really think you understand her?" it asked, voice flickering through Serin's pitch, then morphing into something deeper, layered with static.
Jae-Won didn't answer. He surged forward, blade sweeping. The Echo dodged—barely—flickering sideways like a glitch in a simulation. He slashed again. The dagger met resistance, then tore through the echo's form, warping it into a splash of violet static.
More came. Dozens. Echoes of Serin, each different—her laughing, crying, commanding troops, kneeling at someone's grave, even one whispering "I'm sorry."
He stood still. Watching. These weren't illusions. These were fragments of her life—real memories distorted through time.
Jae-Won lowered his weapon slightly.
"…Show me," he said. "If this is what she's hiding… show me everything."
The Rift obliged.
The static warped into one memory. A clearer one. A room filled with towering servers, wires spilling across the floor, machines pulsing with glitchlight. And there, young Serin—no older than thirteen—stood beside a man with stark white eyes and a cybernetic arm.
"I told you, she's the key," the man said. "Her synchronization rate is higher than any candidate. But she won't make the cut if she still has ties."
Serin's younger self trembled.
"Cut them all. Burn the bonds. Or be discarded."
The scene shifted again—Serin holding a dying classmate in her arms during a training sim gone rogue. Again—Serin standing over the corpse of someone wearing a Coalition badge, her hands shaking. Again—Serin watching Jae-Won laugh during training, a brief, private smile tugging at her lips before she turned away.
Jae-Won stumbled back, heart pounding.
None of this had been about just betrayal. It was survival. It was programming. It was trauma wrapped in silence.
The Rift began to close around him.
> "System Update: Memory Stream Integrated. Emotional Link Established."
"Glitch Evolution Available: Path of Divergence."
His mind reeled. Was this what Serin had gone through? The path she'd been forced to take?
Then—real footsteps.
The real Serin emerged from the darkness ahead, face pale, lips taut. Her hand hovered near her sidearm but didn't draw it.
"You weren't supposed to see that," she said, voice quiet.
Jae-Won didn't move. "But I did."
A beat passed. Neither of them blinked.
"You still going to kill me?" she asked.
He shook his head slowly. "No. But I need the truth."
Her eyes flashed—not with power, but with pain.
"Then follow me," she said. "You deserve to know everything. About me. About the Coalition. About what you were meant to become."
Together, they stepped deeper into the Rift, not as enemies—but as remnants of a future both broken and unfinished.