The world snapped back into shape.
Cold air.
Dust floating in a narrow beam of afternoon light.
The faint smell of old wood and metal trunks.
Aarav didn't need to look around to know where he was.
His childhood home.
His old hallway.
And in front of him—
a wooden door with peeling paint.
The attic.
Aarav's breath hitched.
He hadn't been here in years.
Not because anything supernatural had happened…
but because this door carried memories he had tried very hard to bury.
Behind him, something shimmered—
a fading echo of light.
Soren's outline flickered, blurred, then disappeared entirely.
"Soren?" Aarav called.
No reply.
He was alone.
Except… he wasn't.
Someone stood next to the attic door.
It was the younger Aarav again—
but clearer now, more solid, like this was where he truly belonged.
The boy didn't say anything.
He just looked at the door, then at Aarav.
"You brought me here," Aarav said quietly.
The boy nodded.
"Why?"
"You forgot," the boy whispered.
"Forgot what?"
The boy pointed at the door.
"It started here."
Aarav swallowed hard.
"When I was young, I had a nightmare," he said aloud, mostly to himself. "I woke up crying. I came to this door but… I never went inside."
"Yes," the boy said softly. "You left someone behind."
Aarav frowned. "Left who behind?"
The boy hesitated—
a strange look on his face.
A mix of fear… and hope.
"Not someone else," the boy said.
"Me."
Aarav stared.
"You didn't come inside that day," the boy continued. "You were scared. You walked away. And the fear stayed here. You kept running from it. You grew older… but I didn't."
Aarav finally understood.
This wasn't a ghost.
Not a spirit.
Not a supernatural memory.
This was a fragment of himself—
a piece of fear he had abandoned years ago.
Aarav felt a deep ache in his chest.
He had always brushed it away—
the memory of running from the attic, the panic he felt, the guilt for crying alone.
He had told himself it was nothing.
But time didn't forget what the mind tried to hide.
The boy stepped closer and opened his small palm.
Aarav's heart jolted.
It was another object—
not the attic key this time, but a tiny brass compass, cracked on one side.
Aarav remembered it instantly.
His father had given it to him.
"Whenever you feel lost," he had said, "use this. Your direction is always inside you."
Aarav had dropped it during that nightmare years ago.
He had been too scared to come back for it.
"You left this here," the younger Aarav whispered, placing the compass into his older self's hand. "And when you left it, you left me too."
Aarav closed his fingers around the compass.
The metal was cold.
Old.
But somehow warm at the same time.
"I'm sorry," Aarav whispered.
It wasn't something he said often.
Especially not to himself.
The boy smiled—
a small, relieved smile.
"You remembered," the boy said. "Now you can open the door."
Aarav looked at the attic door again.
This time, it didn't feel like a monster waiting to swallow him.
It felt like a chapter he had never allowed himself to read.
He reached toward the handle.
Before he could touch it—
THUD.
The entire hallway shook.
A faint ringing filled the air—
like a clock striking somewhere far away.
The boy's eyes widened.
"They found you."
Aarav froze. "The Timekeepers?"
The boy nodded. "They can enter memories… but only if someone powerful opens the thread."
Aarav felt his pulse quicken.
Powerful?
Who?
Before he could ask, the walls around him flickered.
Shadows lengthened.
The wooden floor creaked as if something enormous pressed against the timeline itself.
The boy grabbed Aarav's sleeve.
"You have to open it now."
"The attic?"
"Yes," the boy whispered urgently. "If you don't open it, they will. And they'll take what's inside."
Aarav turned slowly toward the door.
His hand hovered over the old metal handle.
One breath.
Two.
He tightened his grip around the compass.
And pushed the door open.