System Record: Archived Memory File 001
Subject: Her.
There are moments when time folds in on itself — when years collapse into a single heartbeat, and a single breath stretches across lifetimes.
I remember the weight of her voice. Not just the words she spoke, but how they settled into me like sunlight on skin after a nuclear winter. We were young enough to believe "forever" was a promise we could keep, and old enough to know it was a beautiful lie.
That didn't stop us from reaching for it anyway.
...
Her laughter carried something rare — like wind chimes caught in a summer storm, delicate yet unbreakable. My chest would tighten every time she looked at me, as if she could see through the armor, through the levels, through the stats, right down to the terrified boy hiding in the cockpit of a hero.
"You're always so serious, Solmere," she'd say, fingers tracing patterns in the air between us. "Like you're carrying the weight of two worlds."
If only you knew, I'd think.
Because how do you tell the person you love that one of those worlds is a dream, and you're no longer sure which one it is?
...
"Love" is too small a word. It's too simple for the terrible mathematics of what we shared.
It was recognition.
It was the feeling that we had met before the universe decided to separate us into different dimensions. That's why, when I woke up in Stellarum — with a sword in my hand and a system interface burning in my retina — I didn't panic. I felt her presence. Not in memory. Not in dreams.
But in the silence between my heartbeats.
She had eyes like molten silver under moonlight, holding secrets she kept just for me. There was a fragrance that followed her, subtle as a morning breeze: Moonflowers and ozone. A scent that didn't exist on Earth, but that my heart recognized as Home.
"Promise me something," she said once, during one of those golden afternoons before the Ash Wars began. The light came through her window just right, painting everything in shades of honey and hope.
"Anything," I said. And I meant it. I would have burned kingdoms for her. Eventually, I did.
"When you find who you're supposed to be — who you really are — don't lose who you are right now."
I didn't understand then. I didn't know that being a "Hero" meant erasing yourself piece by piece until only the mission remained. I didn't know I'd have to choose between the boy who loved her in silence and the weapon that could save her kingdom.
I didn't know that love wasn't about finding someone.
It was about remembering them when the world tries to make you forget.
...
The last time I saw her, we stood on the threshold of the Void.
"I have to go," I said, the words tasting like ash and iron.
She nodded, but her silver eyes held all the questions I couldn't answer. Where? Why? When will you come back?
"I know," she whispered. "I've known for a while. You're fading, Solmere."
"Will you wait?" I asked, hating myself for the selfishness of it. Hating that I wanted her to pause her life while I ran away to save mine.
Her smile was heartbreak made beautiful. "I'll always be here. But you already know that, don't you?"
...
I ran.
I told myself it was to protect her. That it was noble. That it was kind.
I told myself it was love.
But maybe it was just fear dressed up as virtue.
I didn't leave because I stopped loving her. I left because I was beginning to love the war. I left because the System was whispering that she was an inefficiency, a vulnerability, a weakness in my armor.
I left because I was afraid that if I stayed one moment longer, the boy she loved would be completely devoured by the monster I had become.
...
When I returned to Earth — when the world bent around me once more and dropped me back into a life of subways, spreadsheets, and mediocrity — she was the first thing I searched for in the dark.
And the last thing I allowed myself to remember.
I built a new life. A quiet life. An optimized life.
I buried the sword. I ignored the System notifications. I pretended that magic was just a story I wrote in my head.
But love — real love, the kind that transcends time and space and the cruel logic of destiny—doesn't work that way.
It doesn't ask you to be perfect.
It doesn't demand you stay the same.
It only asks that you remember.
...
Her name was Luna.
Is Luna.
And now, standing in this new city, with the sky turning the color of bruised plums and the shadows pointing the wrong way, I realize the truth I tried to outrun.
Love isn't about holding on.
It isn't about letting go.
It's about the courage to return.
To stand before the fire that burned you and say: I am ready to burn again.
...
[System Alert: Anomaly Detected.]
[Memory Integration Complete.]
[Prologue Ends.]
…
But first, I have to become worthy of it.
First, I have to become who I'm supposed to be.
First, I have to learn that being a hero isn't about saving others from who you think they should be protected from.
It's about having the courage to save yourself from the person you're afraid to be.
Even when that person is yourself.