The next morning, the entire campus feels like it's holding its breath.
Fog clings to the trees like ghosts. Crows line the power cables in eerie silence. Even the bells — always five chimes on the hour — are muted.
Haera knows it's time.
She wraps the mirror shard in cloth, slips Lilienne's letter into her jacket, and walks toward the tallest building on campus: the East Tower.
Students call it the "Old Wing," and it's supposedly sealed off due to "structural concerns." But every past version of her has found their way there.
This one will, too.
---
The rusted door yields without a fight.
Dust coats the marble stairway. Cobwebs stretch like gauze between banisters. Every step she takes feels like stepping into someone else's skin.
But she isn't afraid.
Not anymore.
She climbs all the way to the top. The door at the end is carved with symbols — not in English, not in any known language. But she understands them.
They spell her name.
All of them.
Haera. Lilienne. Elira. Maeve. Solenne.
Every version she's been across lives.
She places her palm on the door.
It opens.
---
The room is circular, filled with light despite there being no windows. Dust hangs in the air like memory.
A velvet chaise sits in the corner, half-covered in a white sheet.
And on the far wall, scrawled in deep red, is a message:
> "You came back alone this time."
---
A memory hits her like lightning.
The same room.
Snow falling through the cracks in the roof.
Cairos pacing. Kael shouting. She — Lilienne — standing between them, begging them to stop.
One of them had a blade.
The other had tears.
And she…
She made a choice.
---
The room starts to spin.
She collapses to her knees.
Her palm — the one that bled the message — begins to ache again. The mirror shard burns in her pocket.
Haera pulls it out and stares at her reflection.
Except… it's not her.
It's Lilienne.
Same eyes. Different posture. Regal. Powerful. Sad.
Lilienne stares at her and whispers:
> "It wasn't the tower that killed us.
It was love… and the lie it carried."
---
Footsteps behind her.
Cairos.
He doesn't speak. Neither does she.
Then:
"You weren't supposed to come here," he says.
"Why? Because I'd remember?"
He nods once. "And because you'd hate me for it."
She stands, voice steady:
"I don't hate you, Cairos. But I don't love you out of loyalty to a past I didn't choose."
She looks at him — really looks.
"I want to remember fully before I decide. For me. Not for you. Not for Kael."
---
A slow, bitter smile touches his lips.
"You're stronger this time."
"No," she says. "I'm finally awake."
---
A sudden chill sweeps through the room.
The shadows stretch. The walls moan. And a new presence arrives — not through the door, but from the air itself.
Kael.
He doesn't look the way he did in dreams.
He looks older. Bruised by time. But his eyes still carry that storm of unfinished love.
He bows slightly. "You called for me."
Haera sways between the two of them.
The tower groans.
The veil between worlds is thinner than ever.
---
Then Kael steps forward and says:
> "We were all bound by that first lie. But this time, let her decide."
Haera lifts her chin.
"I'm not ready to choose either of you."
She places the mirror shard between them on the floor.
The ground trembles.
> "I choose myself."
---
The tower doors slam shut.
And the walls begin to crack — not with destruction, but with release.
The cycle is breaking.