The crack in the sky wasn't violent this time.
It pulsed.
Slow.
Rhythmic.
Like a heartbeat calling my name.
Tomorrow stood behind me, silent, watching the air tremble.
"What is that?" I whispered.
Her answer was soft.
"A timeline calling you back."
"Which timeline?" I asked.
"The first one," she said.
"The one that shaped all others."
My stomach twisted.
"You mean the timeline where I was born?"
"No," she corrected gently.
"The timeline before that."
My pulse stuttered.
"There was a timeline before I was born?"
"Yes.
One where your existence was written before your body had formed."
The air rippled again.
The crack widened.
A faint voice echoed through it — the one from the memory core.
Warm.
Desperate.
Pulling.
"Come back to me…"
My heart clenched violently.
Tomorrow stepped aside.
"You must enter alone."
"Why?" I whispered.
"Because only you were called," she replied.
That made the air feel colder.
Scarier.
Chosen.
I took a step forward.
But as I reached the threshold, a sharp voice hissed inside me:
Don't go in there.
It was the corrupted version of me — the one now fused into my mind.
She sounded terrified.
I froze.
"Why?" I asked her silently.
Because I KNOW that voice, she whispered.
And he is not someone you want to meet.
Before I could react, the original version of me spoke too — the calm, gentle voice that felt like a memory of sunlight.
Go, she whispered softly.
You deserve answers.
I stood between two instincts:
Fear.
And truth.
And for the first time, I realized:
Neither voice controlled me anymore.
Not the corrupted one.
Not the original one.
I controlled THEM.
I stepped through the crack.
Light swallowed me.
Then the world stitched itself together—
A room.
A hospital room.
Dim.
Silent.
Paint peeling from the walls.
Machines unplugged, sparking with faint static.
A woman lay on a hospital bed — my mother — younger than the version who appeared earlier.
Her face twisted in pain.
Her hand clutched her stomach.
She was in labor.
Breathing hard.
Sweating.
Whispering prayers.
A doctor leaned over her, frantic.
"She's crashing! We're losing her!"
My mother sobbed.
"No— no, please— not her— not my baby—"
I stepped closer, trembling.
I knew this scene.
I was watching my own death.
But the air shifted—
cold at my back.
Someone entered the room.
Not a doctor.
Not my father.
Not someone human.
A tall figure cloaked in dark, shimmering fabric that absorbed the light.
His presence warped the air.
Time bent around him the way flames bend around oxygen.
I felt corruption-Me tremble inside me.
I told you not to come here.
My breath caught.
He stepped closer to my mother's bed.
The doctors didn't look at him.
They couldn't see him.
He wasn't from their world.
But my mother—
My mother looked up, right into his face.
And she gasped through her pain.
"You… you shouldn't be here."
His voice was quiet, low, devastatingly familiar.
"I had to see her."
He walked to the side of the bed and placed a hand on my mother's wrist—
and her heart monitor stopped flatlining.
Her breaths steadied.
The doctors stared at the machines in confusion.
"She's stabilizing— she's stabilizing—!"
The man leaned closer to her.
"Let her be born."
My mother shook her head desperately.
"You know she shouldn't exist. If she survives— everything breaks—"
His voice hardened.
"Let. Her. Be born."
She sobbed.
"She'll die— she won't survive— her heart is—"
"She'll survive," he whispered.
"Because I will call her back."
My stomach dropped.
No.
No, no, no.
This couldn't be—
He leaned closer to my mother's stomach — to where I existed as a heartbeat that had already stopped.
And he whispered—
Tender.
Desperate.
Commanding.
"Come back to me."
My entire body froze.
That was the voice.
The voice I heard in the memory core.
The voice I heard before I had a name.
He straightened slowly.
Light flickered across his face.
I saw him fully.
And I felt my lungs stop working.
It was him.
But not the version I knew.
Not the man who died for me twice.
Not the man who lost his memories.
This was—
Older.
Colder.
Powerful in a way that made Tomorrow look small.
His eyes…
They weren't human.
They held storms.
Centuries.
Grief.
Devotion.
Tomorrow's voice echoed faintly from the crack behind me:
"He is the one who made the first wish."
I whispered:
"Who is he?"
The corrupted voice trembled.
Don't say it.
The original voice went silent.
My mother, still crying, whispered the name like a sin:
"You shouldn't love her like this…"
He replied quietly:
"I don't love her."
He looked directly at the space where I stood—
where I existed as a memory skipping timelines.
His eyes met mine.
And even across time, I felt the pull.
"I am bound to her."
The room shook.
My heart shook.
He whispered one more sentence, and everything shattered:
"I am the reason she destroys timelines."
The hospital walls cracked.
The memory collapsed.
Before darkness swallowed me again, I heard Tomorrow's voice:
"You have finally met the one who claimed you first."