The First Memory That Screamed

Darkness wasn't empty.

It was loud — filled with broken time, fractured voices, and Kael's own heartbeat echoing like war drums in a metal coffin of eternity.

He hovered, suspended in liquid memory, unable to move — a prisoner inside the Rift-shaped prison forged by the Crowned Aeris. Every second twisted itself backward. He blinked, and saw moments from his past replaying like holograms stitched into the void.

His first touch with Aeris.The first time he bled for her.The night he died — and was reborn.

But then, something changed.

One fragment shimmered differently. Not soft, not nostalgic — but violent.

A dark room. A mirror. A child — him — screaming as a needle plunged into his back. Scientists watching, unmoved. And behind them, an unseen figure whose voice dripped with venom:

"He is the Alpha. Break him. And rebuild him."

Kael's breath hitched.

That wasn't part of his memory. Not one he ever recalled.

The Rift was showing him what was hidden — what was stolen.

"They altered my past," Kael whispered, eyes wide. "I was never born. I was built."

Suddenly, the liquid surrounding him cracked. Not physically — but existentially.

Time, even trapped, was listening.

He reached out — and the memory bled into his skin. Power surged. Not his Riftborn energy, but something older. Purged. Buried. Forbidden.

He screamed — not in pain, but in realization.

"I am not just Kael. I'm the key."

The walls trembled.

Outside the Rift prison, Crowned Aeris faltered mid-blow, her eyes twitching.

Inside, Kael's pulse became thunder.

Chains of quantum code snapped off his arms. His aura — once dim — exploded into a burning storm of black and starlight blue. A gravity-defying force tore the void open, and Kael began to fall upward — back to reality, back to her.

But just before he breached the boundary—

A hand grabbed his ankle.

Another Kael.

His reflection.

Eyes empty.

"You're not the only version that wants her back."

They stared into each other — same face, same heart, opposite fates.

And as the memory-chamber began collapsing into chaos, both Kaels fell toward the breach, toward the battlefield where two Aerises already danced with death.

Because only one Kael could return.

And the other?

Would rewrite the end of time.

🔥 What if the person trying to save the world... isn't the only one wearing your face? And what if the one trying to save her is also the one who destroyed her in another timeline?