The world felt… too quiet.
Kael and Aeris stood at the edge of the sea where Present Core City once was, now replaced by a field of pale lavender grass stretching endlessly under a sky without scars.
The war was over.The Rift was gone.Time flowed straight.
The peace was unnerving.
Aeris touched the side of Kael's face, her fingers trailing over the lines that hadn't been there a year ago. "We're alive," she murmured. "Truly alive."
Kael didn't respond right away. His eyes were fixed on the horizon, where the sun rose from a direction it never had before. As if the world had been flipped without asking permission.
"That's not how the sun rises," he finally said.
Aeris turned. "What?"
"The sun. It's moving the wrong way."
Her heart clenched. "That's not possible. We closed the Rift."
"No," Kael said. "We became the Rift. That child... she didn't end it. She reoriented it."
As they spoke, a single white bird with ash-tipped wings flew across the field. Its shadow cast two silhouettes. But as it passed… it split into three.
A flicker.
A ripple.
Then — laughter. Familiar. Young.
From behind them.
They turned—
And standing where no one should be, at the edge of a mirror-like pool that had not existed a second ago, was a girl with grey eyes. Older than before. Wearing a necklace made from Riftstone.
"You thought I was a resolution," she said, smiling sadly. "But I was always the restart."
Kael stepped forward. "You're... alive?"
"No. Not exactly," she whispered. "I'm the version that never left."
Aeris blinked. "The Rift didn't close."
"It evolved."
She stepped aside, revealing a crack in the pool's reflection—through it, glimpses of alternate realities pulsed like veins of light in obsidian. Some showed Kael and Aeris holding hands on a distant moon. Others showed them as strangers, enemies, ghosts.
The girl held up her hand. "I'll keep them stable. For now."
"For now?" Aeris asked.
"Every convergence has a cost. You sealed the war, but... not the consequences."
Kael's voice broke. "Then what happens next?"
The girl turned, eyes suddenly older than the stars.
"You rest."
She began to walk into the pool of light, vanishing one footstep at a time, leaving only her voice behind.
"But one day, when the threads pull too tight... when time aches again... they'll call for you."
Kael tried to run after her, but Aeris grabbed his arm. "Let her go. She is the balance."
Silence fell.
And then—a chime.
Like a bell that rang at the beginning of everything.
Behind them, etched into a rock by the shore, were words neither of them had written:
"You've lived this story before.But not like this."
Final Line:
Kael looked at Aeris.
"Do you think we're finally free?"
Aeris didn't answer.
Because behind her… her shadow just blinked.
Twice.
[The End... Or is it?]