Elisa had arrived in a new universe, now standing between two twin moons, trapped in a cycle of death and rebirth. Around her, a storm of liquid light danced as if the sun itself had melted.
Before her, a crack slowly opened. It wasn't large, but its shape trembled like a wound that refused to close.
It was the nineteenth.
With her hat in her hands, Elisa felt the now familiar pressure in her chest. Each closure added weight to her soul.
A tiny death.
A possibility thwarted.
"How many more are there...?" she whispered wearily, though she didn't expect an answer.
She pointed her hat at the fissure. A ray of silent darkness emerged from within, enveloping her like a shroud of shadow.
And the crack...closed.
Only the echo remained.
The echo of something that no longer was.
In another reality, Astrid walked through a world made of living geometry, where mountains breathed and trees spoke in languages humans couldn't understand.
There, an opening shone between the sky and the earth.
Astrid lifted her brooch. The object responded with a golden vibration, opening its core like a heart ready to beat.
And then, the rift melted and merged with another universe. A gentle union. An integration.
A new world was born, an amalgamation of two worlds that should never have touched.
"This is how you truly heal," Astrid said. "Not by closing yourself off...but by accepting."
At that moment, Astrid felt a presence behind her, one that felt...familiar.
"Are you sure about that, sister? Because to me, it seems like all you're doing is trying to escape the destiny you know you were meant to have. You might believe that by merging the universes into one you can redeem yourself, you can eliminate all this guilt you feel for having survived and create a better world for everyone, but deep down you know that nothing you do will change the fact that we all die and that in the end you're only doing this because you're scared and desperately want to die, as you know you should have."
Astrid didn't turn around; she already knew perfectly well what was behind her: an illusion. Unlike Elisa, every time Astrid used her brooch, she didn't feel any weight on it, or nostalgia, or any other such sensations. Instead, her fears and remorse materialized into illusions that reminded her of her past experiences.
Astrid had grown accustomed to these illusions and now simply ignored them, yet she couldn't help being affected by them. She knew they weren't real and that they weren't truly her family, but it still hurt every time she heard them.
The brooch could unite entire universes and create new life, but ironically, it couldn't bring beings or worlds back to this one. She had already tried, she had tried everything to bring back her family and her world, but... she never succeeded.
Astrid remained silent as a tear fell and she opened a portal to another world.
As they both walked through the universes they found themselves in, separated by realities and time, a question began to grow in Elisa's heart:
What is lost each time I seal a rift?
A universe? A life? An opportunity? Am I preventing a dimension that could have flourished from even beginning?
Elisa found herself in a dimension where time flowed in a spiral. The beings there didn't live in a straight line, but in existential circles. They were born, died, and were reborn knowing exactly what was going to happen, but unable to prevent it.
One of them approached her, a creature made of thinking clouds and liquid eyes.
"Why do you close these openings?" it asked.
Elisa didn't answer immediately; she paused for a few seconds before giving her reply.
"Because if I don't, everything will collapse," Elisa replied.
"My world and my people have already collapsed. What difference would it make if you sealed that opening?"
Elisa remained silent.
She quickly sealed the crack and left without answering.
At a floating station on the edge of universal consciousness, Elisa observed a mural carved in cosmic stone. It depicted two opposing figures: one with a hat that absorbed stars, the other with a brooch that multiplied them.
They touched each other with a finger. In the center, the multiverse.
Below the image, an inscription in a dead language:
"Only in contradiction is balance born."
Elisa looked at her reflection in the black crystal of the mural.
For the first time…she didn't fully recognize herself and simply asked herself one question as she stared at her hat:
"Why me? Why did you choose me? Why did I have to be the one to find you in that forest? Why do I have to be the one to seal the cracks?... Why do I have to be the vessel of nonexistence...?"
Elisa remained silent as she gazed at her reflection in the glass, as if she truly awaited a response from her object, but there was nothing, only silence. Meanwhile, in her mind, she could only imagine what her life would be like if she had never found the hat, if she had stayed in her world, if she had followed the rules. Perhaps now she would be with her family, perhaps now she would live a peaceful life... perhaps now she would be happier.
She summoned her ship again through a portal and entered a room she hadn't been in for a long time: her stuffed animal room. In that place, Elisa kept several stuffed animals she had since she was little. On her planet, having always been an outcast, these little toys were her only company and the only people who hugged her and comforted her. Elisa picked up her favorite and hugged it for a few minutes.
A small tear trickled down her face as she could only feel the effects of using her hat to seal the cracks, each time the pressure inside her grew stronger and more intense.
Astrid, on her own path, was also beginning to feel the effects of her mission.
Not all worlds accepted the merging. Some screamed. Others imploded.
Some...fought back.
"I can't stop," she said, alone, her forehead resting on the brooch.
What she was doing wasn't perfect.
But she believed it was necessary.
And in the vastness of everything, the multiverse began to tremble.
Not because of the cracks.
Not because of the merging.
But because of the approaching conflict of wills.
A choice.
A forked destiny.
Two forces destined to clash, not out of hatred, but out of irreconcilable convictions.
And as the rifts closed... and the worlds merged...
...Elisa began to understand that she wasn't saving the multiverse.
She was only fixing it.