They left the basin before dawn.
No one spoke.
The memory of the masked figure's face—her face—haunted Selene with every step. She felt it like a burn behind her eyes, a silent echo that wouldn't stop ringing.
Was it a future? A warning? Or a piece of her that had already been lost?
Kai kept glancing over his shoulder. Arin walked a step ahead, hand on her weapon, her jaw tight.
They didn't ask questions. Not yet.
The terrain slowly shifted back to something more familiar—scorched brush, faded paths. Civilization was still distant, but the illusion of safety helped them breathe again.
It wasn't until they stopped to rest that Arin finally broke the silence.
"You saw her. Didn't you?"
Selene didn't answer right away. She sat on a broken column of stone, turning over a cracked medallion she'd found half-buried in the dirt. It was stamped with the same glyphs as the spire.
"She was me," she said quietly. "But not."
Kai crouched nearby. "A twin?"
"No," Selene said, shaking her head. "She felt... parallel. Like someone took who I was supposed to become and kept going. No breaks. No stops. Just... evolution."
Arin watched her carefully. "Then the real question is: did she want you to become her? Or avoid it?"
Selene met her eyes. "I think she wanted me to choose."
Kai frowned. "And what the hell kind of choice is that?"
Selene didn't answer. She didn't know.
She only knew one thing: that vision—the lab, the shattered world, the whisper of Echo-Seven—wasn't just a dream. It was a roadmap. A sequence.
And something inside her had begun to unlock.
Later that night, while the others slept in the ruins of an old relay station, Selene wandered outside.
She stood beneath a violet sky, stars flickering like old thoughts. Her fingers curled instinctively, and something strange happened:
Light gathered.
From the air. From nothing. From the Void itself.
It spun into her palm—a small, pulsing orb. Not heat. Not flame. A memory.
She stared, entranced.
> "The past inside you. You are the last map."
The words returned, unbidden.
Was this what they meant?
She reached out with her mind, hesitantly. The light responded—growing, shifting. It wasn't just a weapon. It was a message. A language.
And she was remembering how to read it.
A twig snapped behind her.
She turned sharply, and the orb vanished.
Arin stood nearby, arms crossed. "You always this dramatic, or is it just now kicking in?"
Selene gave a tired smile. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"You didn't." Arin walked closer. "I haven't really slept since… you know. Mirror-Selene."
Selene grimaced. "Yeah. Me neither."
They stood in silence a moment, watching the stars.
"Back in the lab," Arin said suddenly, "before everything went to hell… you saved my life."
Selene looked over, surprised.
"You pushed me into the evac chute. You stayed behind to destroy the data. We thought you were gone. And then months later… we found you in that cryo-pod."
Selene stared. "I don't remember any of that."
"I know," Arin said, not unkindly. "But I do. And whatever's waking up inside you now? Just remember—it doesn't erase who you are now."
Selene looked down at her hands. "What if who I am now is just an echo of something I can't control?"
"Then you hold onto the part that's real. The part that chose to rip the mask off, not put it on."
Selene nodded slowly.
And for the first time in days, something inside her stopped trembling.
---
By morning, they resumed their journey east, toward what remained of the Citadel ruins. If there were answers—real ones—they would be buried there.
On the third day of travel, they saw smoke.
Not the wild kind. Controlled. A campfire.
And voices.
Selene signaled for silence and approached cautiously, weaving through the ruins of collapsed towers and bent steel. The source of the fire came into view—a small group of survivors, armored, armed, but not hostile.
And one of them stood up sharply, eyes wide.
"Selene?"
The man stepped forward quickly. His hair was silver at the edges, his coat lined with scavenged tech, but it was his face that stopped her.
He knew her.
More than that.
He ached when he looked at her.
"You're alive," he whispered.
Selene blinked. "Do I… know you?"
The man smiled bitterly. "Guess the reset held longer than I thought."
Arin appeared behind her, eyebrows raised. "Friend of yours?"
He nodded slowly. "Name's Daro. We served together. Before she vanished. Before… the convergence project collapsed."
Kai narrowed his eyes. "You're with Echo Division?"
"Was," Daro replied. "Until they tried to bury us along with her."
Selene stared at him. "What was I to you?"
Daro looked her in the eyes.
"You were hope."