*Everything was white.*
*Then it wasn't.*
I opened my eyes—except they weren't my eyes. The perspective was wrong, the height was wrong, everything felt like wearing someone else's skin.
Because I was.
I was seeing through Raven's consciousness, trapped in the memory-loop created when she touched my swords.
And I couldn't move.
I looked down. Chains. Heavy, spectral chains wrapped around my arms, my legs, my entire body. Not physical—these were conceptual. The chains of an observer. I could see, hear, feel—but not act. Not interfere.
I was a ghost in someone else's nightmare.
*My* nightmare.
"No," I whispered. Or tried to. No sound came out.
The white faded, replaced by familiar scenery that hit me like a punch to the gut.
*Portland. 2067. Harrison High School.*
The parking lot. Late afternoon sun. Students streaming out, heading home, laughing, making plans.
And there—there I was.
Seventeen-year-old Marc. Not Marcus. *Marc.* Wearing jeans and a hoodie, backpack slung over one shoulder, talking with Jake and Mira.
"Oh god," I tried to say. The chains tightened, cutting off even that.
I was going to have to watch.
Watch myself die.
Again.
But this time through someone else's eyes.
Raven stood next to teenage-Marc, and she looked... normal. Not the curse specialist with choppy black hair and dark eyes. She looked like a student. Like she *belonged* here.
She was wearing the same style clothes as everyone else. She was laughing at something Jake said. She looked at Marc—at *me*—with the easy familiarity of someone who'd known him for years.
"Come on, slowpoke," she was saying to teenage-Marc. "If we don't leave now, we'll hit traffic."
"Since when do you care about traffic?" Marc-me responded, grinning.
"Since I have a chemistry test tomorrow and need to study. Not all of us are naturally brilliant."
"You got a 98 on the last test."
"And I'm aiming for a hundred on this one. Excellence requires dedication, Marc."
They talked like old friends. Like they'd done this a thousand times.
But this was impossible. Raven wasn't from Earth. She was from Aethermoor. She was—
The drunk driver's sedan came screaming around the corner.
I tried to close my eyes. The chains wouldn't let me. I had to watch.
Had to watch teenage-Marc see the car. See his face change from laughing to horrified understanding in a fraction of a second.
Had to watch him shove Jake and Mira out of the way.
Had to watch Raven scream his name—"MARC!"—reaching for him, too slow, always too slow.
The impact. The sound of metal on flesh. The way teenage-Marc's body crumpled, broken.
And Raven—this version of Raven who apparently existed in my Earth memories—fell to her knees beside him, hands shaking as she tried to stop the bleeding.
"No no no, stay with me, come on, you're fine, you're going to be fine—"
But he wasn't fine. I watched my own eyes glaze over. Watched the life leave them.
Watched Raven sob, her hands covered in my blood, screaming for someone to call 911, screaming that this wasn't fair, that he'd saved them, that heroes aren't supposed to die on street corners—
The scene dissolved.
I thought it was over.
It wasn't.
We were back at the training grounds in Aethermoor. Loop 1.
Sixteen-year-old Marcus—me, but not me, the first loop version—was fighting bandits. Untrained. Desperate. Trying to protect his mother.
And there was Raven.
Standing behind me. Transparent. Like a ghost. But there.
She was wearing her curse specialist clothes now. Taking notes in that damn notebook. Watching with clinical detachment as Loop-1-Marcus took a sword through the chest.
Watching me die for the first time in this world.
But then—as I died, as the light left Marcus's eyes—Raven's clinical expression cracked.
"No," she whispered. "Not again. Please, not again."
The loop shifted.
Loop 23. My mother's funeral. I stood there in the rain, sixteen years old, watching them lower her casket into the ground.
Raven stood beside me. Not the real me—the Loop-23 version didn't see her. But she was there. Watching. And this time she was crying.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to the me who couldn't hear her. "I'm so sorry. I tried to warn you. Tried to change things. But the rules—the fucking rules—"
The loop shifted.
Loop 45. The training montage. Me pushing myself to exhaustion, training eighteen hours a day, breaking my own bones to rebuild them stronger.
Raven sat in the shadows, taking notes, her face getting paler with each day.
"Stop," she whispered. "Please stop. You're destroying yourself."
But Loop-45-Marcus couldn't hear her. Just kept training. Kept breaking. Kept pushing.
The loop shifted.
Loop 67. The Thornwood ambush. Demons surrounded me. I was going to die—knew it, felt it coming.
Raven materialized behind me, screaming. "LOOK LEFT! THE WEAK ONE IS ON YOUR LEFT!"
Loop-67-Marcus didn't hear. Didn't turn. Died.
And Raven collapsed, sobbing. "Why can't you hear me? Why can't I help? What's the fucking point of seeing if I can't change anything?"
The loops accelerated.
Loop after loop after loop, faster now.
In every single one, Raven was there.
Watching me fight. Watching me love. Watching me die.
Sometimes taking notes. Sometimes trying to warn me. Sometimes just crying.
By Loop 89—the loop where I destroyed Valenhall—Raven wasn't taking notes anymore.
She was screaming.
Screaming at me to stop as I burned the city. Screaming as I killed millions. Screaming until her voice gave out.
When Loop-89-Marcus finally died, killed by Azkaros in the ruins, Raven just stood there in silence. Looking at the destruction. Looking at what I'd done.
"You're breaking," she whispered. "Loop by loop, you're breaking. And I can't stop it. I can only watch."
Loop 96. The successful one. The one where I defeated Azkaros.
Raven watched me fight. Watched me win. Watched me hold Sarah—pregnant Sarah—as I bled out.
"Finally," she breathed. "Finally you won. Finally you can rest—"
But then the regression happened. And her face crumpled.
"No. No, please. Let him rest. Let him finally rest. He won. He earned peace. Please—"
The loops continued.
Loop 103. Loop 108. Loop 115.
In every one, Raven was there. Getting more desperate. More broken. Taking fewer notes. Crying more often.
By Loop 120—the loop where I created the swords from my own bones—she wasn't crying anymore.
She just stared as I carved pieces of myself into weapons. As I screamed and bled and created something that should never exist.
"You're not human anymore," she whispered. "You're becoming something else. Something that can't stop. Won't stop. And I'm just—I'm just watching you break. Over and over. Forever."
Loop 127. The most recent one. The one right before 128.
Raven stood beside me as Azkaros ran me through with his sword one final time.
"I'm tired," she said to my dying body. "I'm so tired of watching you die. I'm tired of being helpless. I'm tired of these fucking rules that say I can only observe, never act."
Loop-127-Marcus died.
And then the regression happened again.
But this time, Raven followed.
I felt it—the pull of regression, the reset, the cosmic mechanism that dragged me back to sixteen.
And Raven came with me.
"No more," she said, her voice hard with determination. "I don't care about the rules anymore. I don't care if I'm not supposed to interfere. Loop 128. This one. I'm going to actually help. Not just watch. Not just take notes. Actually fucking help."
The scene shifted.
We were in the academy. Loop 128. Recent.
I saw myself—current Marcus—training with Sarah and Celeste. Saw the moment I summoned my swords. Saw Raven's expression as she looked at them.
"Those swords," she breathed. "They're anchored to the curse. They're the key. If I can touch them, if I can see the curse structure from inside—"
She reached out.
The moment her hand touched the blade, everything exploded.
And suddenly we were here. In the memory-loop. Experiencing all 127 deaths simultaneously.
Raven stood before me now—the real Raven, not a memory. Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes wild.
"I've been watching you die since Earth," she said, her voice breaking. "Since Portland. Since that fucking drunk driver killed Marc. I've been following you through dimensions, through regressions, through everything. Because I'm cursed too."
The chains around me loosened slightly. I could move my mouth.
"What?" My voice was hoarse.
"My curse," she said, laughing bitterly. "The curse specialists in my family—we don't just study curses. We're *bound* to them. I was bound to yours the moment you died on Earth. Bound to observe. Bound to watch. Bound to document every death, every loop, every moment of suffering. Never able to interfere. Never able to help. Just watch. Forever."
"Raven—"
"I broke the rules," she continued. "Coming to the academy. Talking to you. Touching your swords. All of it violated my curse contract. But I don't care anymore. I can't—" Her voice cracked. "I can't watch you die again. Not one more time. Not after 127. Not after seeing Marc die and then watching Marcus die over and over and over—"
She was sobbing now. Complete breakdown. All the clinical detachment gone, replaced by raw, desperate grief.
"I've been alone with this for so long," she whispered. "Watching you love people. Watching you lose them. Watching you break and rebuild and break again. And I couldn't say anything. Couldn't do anything. Just document. Just observe. Like a scientist studying her favorite subject's slow descent into madness."
I felt the chains crack. Felt something shift in the curse structure.
"But touching the swords," she continued, "connecting directly to your death trauma—it broke something. Broke the observer clause. Now I can—I can finally—"
The chains shattered.
I could move again.
I walked toward her, this girl who'd been forced to watch me die 127 times. This girl who'd existed on Earth as my friend and had followed me to Aethermoor as my witness.
"I'm sorry," I said.
She looked up at me, shocked. "You're sorry? I'm the one who's been stalking you through dimensional boundaries—"
"You didn't choose this. Neither did I. We're both cursed." I held out my hand. "But maybe—maybe we can break both curses. Together."
She stared at my hand. Then laughed—broken and slightly hysterical. "You're insane."
"I've died 127 times. Insanity is a prerequisite."
She took my hand.
The memory-loop shattered.
---
**BACK IN REALITY**
I gasped, pulling back from Raven's mind. She was awake, staring at me with eyes that had seen too much.
"You remember," she whispered. "Earth. Portland. You remember that I was there."
"I didn't. Not until now. The regression must have erased you from my Earth memories. Reset you to just someone I met in Aethermoor."
"But you remember now."
"Yeah. I remember." I helped her sit up. "Raven—Rae—you were my friend."
She started crying again. "You called me Rae. You're the only one who ever called me that."
Sarah and Celeste were staring at us, completely lost.
"What just happened?" Sarah asked.
"Long story," I said. "Involves dimensional curses, observation clauses, and the fact that Raven has been forced to watch me die 127 times without being able to do anything about it."
"That's horrifying."
"Welcome to our lives," Raven said, wiping her eyes. "Population: two cosmically cursed idiots."
Luna was watching with that knowing expression. "The curses are connected. Breaking one might break both."
"Or," I said, "it might kill us both. Curse-breaking is complicated."
"When is anything in your life not complicated?" Sarah muttered.
"Fair point."
Raven stood shakily. "I need to—I need to process this. All of this. Give me a few days."
"Take all the time you need."
She started to leave, then turned back. "Marc?"
"Yeah?"
"It's good to have you remember me. The real me. Not just the curse specialist who shows up and takes creepy notes."
"It's good to remember. Even if the memories hurt."
She nodded and left.
The training ground was silent.
"So," Celeste said finally. "That was intense."
"That was Tuesday for us," I replied.
"Your Tuesdays are nightmare fuel."
"You're just figuring this out now?"
Sarah came over, taking my hand. "Are you okay?"
"I just relived 127 deaths through someone else's eyes, discovered that my friend from Earth has been cosmically stalked by a curse that forces her to watch me die repeatedly, and learned that curse-breaking is now on my to-do list. So... no. Not really okay. But functional."
"That's the Marcus Vale I know. Functional despite overwhelming trauma."
"It's my brand."
She kissed my cheek. "Go rest. No more training today. You've had enough."
"But—"
"Rest. That's an order. From your..." She paused. "What am I, exactly? Girlfriend? Partner in cosmic horror? Fellow sufferer of your terrible decision-making?"
"All of the above?"
"Works for me."
---