The dark doesn't drop.
It just… unravels. One thread at a time, like someone pulling a sweater apart until you're left standing in nothing but the shape the sweater used to hold.
I'm floating—or standing—or being held—there's no difference anymore. No up, no down, no weight. Just me and the hole I fit into perfectly.
The pin is still in my hand, glowing the way a promise glows when it's about to ask for payment.
A voice arrives without traveling. It's in the space behind language.
You opened.
I don't open my mouth, but the words come out anyway.
"I didn't mean to."
Choice is just memory wearing better clothes.
The other thing drifts closer. It's shaped like me if you took every maybe I ever had and glued them together. Same face, but the eyes are empty in a way that doesn't look bored—just finished.
Something loosens behind my ribs.
The kitchen.
Yellow light over the sink.
Someone laughing at a joke I can't hear anymore.
It slips away. Not yanked. Just… let go. Like a balloon string sliding through fingers that forgot how to hold tight.
I feel it leave.
"You took that," I say, and my voice is thin as paper.
No. You traded. You always trade. You're built from what's missing.
The darkness shivers, like it's pleased with itself.
Return.
The word lands heavy, like gravity just learned my name and likes how it tastes.
My fingers tighten around the pin until my knuckles ache.
"No."
The other me doesn't argue. Doesn't frown. Just stops being there.
And everything collapses.
—
Sound hits like a slap.
Sirens, metal groaning, monitors rebooting with angry beeps. My knees smack tile and I suck in air that suddenly remembers how to be air.
Hands grab me—Mara's first, then Sato's, then Rey's shaking ones.
"Ryo, look at me, right now."
I do.
The lab is back, but it's wrong. Colors arrive half a second late. Edges too crisp. Like someone turned the sharpness up too high and forgot to fix the lag.
Sato is already shifting his weight left—I feel it before his boot moves.
Rey's mouth is open on an apology he hasn't said yet.
Kwan is inhaling to tell everyone not to panic.
I know all of it before it's going to happen.
I'm not reading minds.
I'm reading the shape of what's about to be.
Mara crouches so we're eye-level. Her pupils are huge.
"Tell me you're still in there."
I open my fist.
The pin is warm now. Alive-warm. Like it has its own pulse that's flirting with mine.
"I don't know," I say.
The floor rumbles—deep, slow, patient. Not the building. Something way under the building turning over in its sleep.
The crack isn't inside me anymore.
It's all around us.
Listening.
Waiting.
Learning my name the way a tide learns the shore.
I look at Mara and try to find the words that still belong to me.
"It's not over," I say.
She nods once, like she already knew.
"Yeah," she says. "I was afraid of that."