CHAPTER ELEVEN:You Remember...Me Don't You?

Elianah

She didn't sleep.

Even with the lights off, her body felt too loud. Her breath felt foreign in her chest — like someone else had borrowed it first.

She sat by her window, knees pulled to her chest, watching the stars flicker between the clouds.

A soft knock came at her door.

She didn't answer.

The door opened anyway.

Isaiah stood there — in his hoodie, barefoot, holding a piece of charcoal-stained paper in his hand.

He looked wrecked.

> "I need to show you something," he said.

She nodded.

---

Downstairs, in the silence of the living room, he unfolded the drawing.

It was a sketch of a burning chapel.

No one told him. He'd never been there. But the details were too exact.

> "I've seen it in my dreams," he said. "And now… I think I saw you inside."

Elianah looked at the sketch and felt her throat close. Her fingers trembled as they traced the edges of the flame.

> "I was there," she said softly.

Then she looked up at him.

> "Isaiah… have we done this before?"

His eyes didn't blink.

> "Yes," he whispered. "And I think last time, I lost you."

---

Cassia

Cassia sat cross-legged on the rooftop of the dorms, her red hair wild in the wind.

She was lighting matches one by one, letting them burn out on her palm without flinching.

Pain helped her stay here.

Time, for people like her, had no straight lines. It looped. Twisted. Mocked.

She remembered every version of Isaiah.

And every time…

he chose her.

Elianah.

No matter what body.

No matter what year.

No matter how many times Cassia tried to interrupt fate.

> "You think you're going to win this one, too?" she murmured into the night.

Then she dropped a match over the side, watching it vanish like hope.

---

Mr. Dane

He stood in his office, staring at an old journal written in a language long buried.

On the inside cover was a drawing — a young man kneeling before a blade, offering his life for hers.

He touched the image with tired fingers.

> "Let's not make the same mistake again," he whispered.

But even he wasn't sure who he was talking to anymore.

---

Narrator

Memory is a cruel kind of mercy.

It waits.

It watches.

Then it returns — not always in full, but just enough to make your heart ache.

Elianah and Isaiah were remembering in pieces.

But fate?

Fate was already whole.

And it had waited long enough.