A World Without Her

The silence was deafening.

Kael stood alone on a bridge suspended in skyfire—a floating path of stone and gold arching over a fractured city that shimmered with familiar yet alien architecture. Buildings leaned at impossible angles. Trains floated through rings of blue light. Time here… was wrong.

No Aeris.

Not even a memory of her existed in this place.

The sky churned with constellations he didn't recognize—like someone had rewritten the stars just to spite him. Time on his chronoglove read: "Null." No date. No coordinates. Just an abyss in place of time.

Kael moved forward, his boots echoing on the hollow bridge.

Billboards in this timeline flashed with news:

"President Virex signs Treaty of Continuity—Time War officially never happened.""Project Riftwalker Unveiled: Humanity's Savior Kael Virex Returns Home."

His name.

On every screen.

But he wasn't the Kael of this world.

He stepped into the heart of the city, and it was then he saw her.

Aeris.

Or at least… someone who looked like her.

She stood on a stage, giving a speech to a roaring crowd. Her hair was tied in a tight braid, her outfit pure white—a uniform marked with the Paradox Guild's insignia.

"We thank Director Virex," she said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes, "for giving us a world without chaos, without risk, without… deviation."

Kael's heart twisted. She was alive. But twisted by a version of reality where they never met—where she never broke from the Guild, never fell in love with him, never bled and healed beside him.

She was perfect.

And perfectly hollow.

Suddenly, guards in sleek silver armor surrounded Kael. "Director Virex," one said with confusion. "You're not… you."

Kael raised his hands. "I'm not from here. I'm from a thread where the world burned, where she and I—"

They didn't let him finish.

A blast of null-energy knocked him to the ground, vision spinning. From above, Aeris looked down on him, eyes cold and calculating. "You're a variant. A breach in pattern. You'll be corrected."

She didn't recognize him.

Didn't blink.

Didn't feel.

But as Kael was dragged into the underground holding facility—a tomb of those erased by time—he clutched the chain around his neck.

Her chain.

From his timeline.

"I'll bring you back," he whispered into the shadows. "Even if this world forgot you… I never will."

Suddenly, the ground trembled.

The lights flickered.

Then—a voice in his head. Familiar. Fractured.

Kael... can you hear me? I found you. Across the rift. I'm coming.

Aeris.

His Aeris.

Across timelines, through collapse and chaos… she had found a way to reach him.

But so had the Shadow Kael.

As Kael looked up, the cell door swung open.

And standing there—half-glitching, wrapped in anti-time and paradox matter—was the Shadow.

Smiling.

"You ran from your reflection, Kael. But what happens when she has one too?"