POV: AIDEN
There is no floor.
No sky.
No direction.
Only shadows that move like liquid, light that flickers as if running out of breath, and fractured lines drifting like shards of black glass.
I hold Elara tightly against me.
Not because I'm certain I can protect her I've failed twice.
I hold her because I'm afraid she'll dissolve into this place like ink dropped into water.
"Elara… can you hear me?"
My voice barely exists.
She's trembling.
I can feel it against my chest.
"Yes… I hear you."
Her voice is hoarse, raw, as if her lungs aren't sure the air in this place is meant to be breathed.
We're floating.
Or falling.
Or not moving at all.
Here, physics feels like a rumor, not a law.
"Elara… I'm sorry."
I can't stop the tears that have been pressing behind my eyes.
She lifts her head a little, looking at me
but the strange light from the crack makes her eyes look like they aren't fully hers.
"Aiden… later," she whispers. "If we even have a 'later.'"
I cup her cheek, making sure her face is truly there.
"This crack… it's reacting to us," I say. "But I don't know the full pattern."
"Reacting?" she repeats, confused. "Or… choosing?"
My chest tightens.
Because that's the possibility I've been afraid to say out loud.
"Elara—"
The space around us suddenly ripples like heated air.
The crack… remembers us.
Shadows nearby form a face.
A face that shifts every second, like thousands of human versions that never existed.
Then a voice emerges, coming from every direction at once:
"Fear calls me."
Elara grips my arm harder.
"Aiden…"
Her voice is barely there.
"Is that… talking to you?"
I nod… slowly.
"Elara… this place is linked to me. Not to you."
Her eyes widen.
"Why?"
I grind my teeth.
"I don't know."
That's a lie.
And the crack knows it.
POV: ELARA
The voice comes again
but this time, not from outside.
From inside my head.
"Aiden knows."
"But he fears naming the truth."
I stare at Aiden.
His face tightens, jaw locking, breath ragged like someone holding back a thousand words.
"Aiden…"
I try to keep my voice steady.
"What are you hiding?"
He closes his eyes.
"Now's not the time—"
"This place is talking to me, Aiden!"
He freezes.
Then the crack-light around us pulses, forming something like a cosmic heartbeat.
"Because you carry the origin wave."
That voice isn't a normal entity.
Older.
Deeper.
More aware of Aiden than Aiden is of himself.
I swallow.
"Aiden… what does that mean?"
He doesn't answer.
A chill crawls down my spine.
Not because I'm afraid
but because I realize something:
This place isn't attacking us.
It's waiting.
Like a mother waiting for her child to confess.
And Aiden…
is the child refusing.
"Aiden. Look at me."
I take his face in my hands, forcing his eyes to meet mine.
"Is this talking about your past?"
His teeth press together hard enough to draw blood.
"Elara… I'm not who you think I am."
My heart drops.
"What do you mean?"
The space around us cracks—
like it's pleased I asked.
Then something appears behind Aiden.
A shadow shaped like a human.
But faceless.
Voiceless.
Just… the silhouette of a child.
A little boy.
Seven or eight years old.
Holding the hand of someone who isn't visible—
as if the shadow is only half-complete.
Ice races down my spine.
"Aiden," I whisper, "who is that?"
He doesn't answer.
He can't answer.
Because his whole body begins shaking.
"Elara… don't look at that."
"But—"
"DON'T!"
His voice cracks so violently the crack-space trembles.
POV: AIDEN
I want to run.
God, I want to run.
But in this place… there is nowhere to run.
That shadow—
that child—
is something I never wanted to see again.
"The crack isn't supposed to"
My voice fractures.
"It's not supposed to show that…"
"Elara, please… don't go near it."
But she's already taken two steps before I can breathe.
The child lifts its head.
And even without a face
I know exactly what the crack is doing.
It's pulling out trauma.
Trauma I buried so deep I thought it stopped existing.
Elara looks back at me, pale.
"Aiden… is that you?"
I go still.
The crack whispers:
"Your first fear shaped me."
I stumble forward, nearly collapsing.
"Elara… I I'm not the anomaly of the crack…"
My voice breaks.
"I'm… its origin."
Elara freezes as if time nails her in place.
I exhale shakily.
"Elara… I triggered the first crack.
Not the entity.
Not the experiment.
Not a time accident."
I look at the child-shadow.
"Me."
The crack pulses gently
as if satisfied it finally got its confession.
I can barely breathe.
"And because of that," I whisper,
"the crack will always chase me.
And anything that stays close to me."
POV: ELARA
I can't speak.
I can't think.
But I can feel one thing clearly:
Aiden has carried this… alone, since childhood.
The crack is responding to his pain, his fear, his trauma—
as if this place is an echo of his own soul.
I step closer.
Even though I'm shaking.
"Aiden."
He looks at me, terrified, bracing for abandonment.
I lift my hand.
And hold his face.
"I'm… still here."
His eyes widen disbelieving.
"No matter how dark your past is…
I'm not afraid of you."
Everything in the crack-space stops moving.
As if my words cut through its current.
Then… everything collapses.
The crack begins breaking apart from the inside.
Black light pours out like cold lava.
The child-shadow turns slowly—
and for the first time…
It has a face.
Aiden's face.
As a little boy.
I scream.
Aiden goes rigid, color draining from his skin.
Then the boy smiles faintly and says:
"You finally came back."
The crack-space shatters.