Lasi waited until Scarlet had drifted into the kind of sleep that mimicked death—limbs slack, breath shallow, dreams elsewhere.
Then, quietly, she rose.
Blanket discarded like a husk, journal clutched tightly, she slipped through the window and climbed the emergency ladder with ghostlike precision. Each rung cold. Each creak a whisper she pretended not to hear.
The rooftop exhaled a strange stillness. The city glimmered faintly beyond the containment dome—distant lights blinking like forgotten beacons. Above, the stars pressed close, almost too close, as if they'd been watching this rooftop for a very long time.
She lit a cigarette, its flare a sudden wound in the dark. Smoke spiraled up like a prayer gone unanswered. Then, beneath the thin beam of her flashlight, she reopened the journal.
More entries.
Rituals that sounded like riddles. Symbols that felt etched into her bones. The writing shifted at times, as if it had been penned by someone in a trance—or not entirely human.
Lost in thought the cigarette burns down to her fingers.
She didn't notice the pain at first. Only the smell—flesh, carbon, and something else. Something metallic.
She dropped it. Let it hiss out on the rooftop gravel.
Her hand trembled as she pressed it flat against the open page. Not to smudge it—just to confirm it was real. That it didn't vanish when touched. That she hadn't slipped fully into whatever fold the old woman had spoken of.
A gust of wind swept over the rooftop.
It didn't feel like weather.
She lit another cigarette to clear her thoughts.
It felt like a breath.
Her fingers turned another page—
And stopped.
A sketch stared back at her.
Drawn with precision and eerie calm—a portrait. Of her.
Almost.
The face was hers, and yet not. The jawline bore a subtle difference. A small scar beneath the left eye. But the eyes… Those were unmistakable. The same deep-set gaze. The same grief that had no name.
Lasi didn't breathe.
Tucked beside the drawing was a folded slip of paper. Its edges were brittle, like it had been handled by time itself.
She opened it.
I still see you when I close my eyes.
Even if the stars forget, I won't.
Wherever you end up—be more than they made you.
You were always more.
—E.H.
Her fingers trembled. Her name wasn't there, but somehow, the note had always been meant for her.
She stared again at the portrait, a reflection drawn by a stranger with impossible familiarity.
The journal fluttered. Pages flipped without her help, rustling like whispers in a language she almost understood.
And then—stillness again.
Not silence. Stillness.
As if the entire city had taken a breath and forgotten to let it go.
She stood slowly, journal clutched tight to her chest. Her gaze lifted.
The shimmer was there.
Barely visible. A ripple in the air above the far edge of the dome. A shimmer where the stars bent wrong. Where light curled in on itself like memory folding through time.
She stepped forward.
Not close enough to touch it.
Not yet.
But close enough to know it was waiting.
She whispered into the dark,
"I remember."
And the shimmer flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then it was gone.
But not forgotten.
She closed the journal. Turned back toward the window. Toward Scarlet. Toward the next day, and the next chapter.
Because whatever this was—this folding of reality, this echo of identities not lived and lives not chosen—
And she was done pretending not to notice.
The cigarette burned down to the filter, an ember clinging to existence. She flicked it over the edge. It vanished into the void below—falling, falling, swallowed by the hush.
The rooftop held its breath.
The shadows pressed in, thick with a silence that wasn't empty but listening.
And from somewhere not entirely outside herself—deeper than memory, older than fear—something stirred.
It didn't speak in words, but she heard it clearly:
You're not supposed to remember any of this.