The forest past the Citadel had once been a buffer zone—green, vibrant, full of research stations and soft-metal pathways. Now, it was a war relic. Overgrown. Twisted. The trees grew unnaturally tall, the roots coiled like something alive and watching.
Selene kept walking.
She didn't speak much after the Vault. No one did. They gave her space, and she took it—but inside, her mind wouldn't stop. She'd stared at the original version of herself. At the face that launched a thousand secrets. She'd chosen not to open the pod. Not to merge. Not to erase herself.
But that choice had consequences.
They would come for her again. And next time, it wouldn't be a squad. It would be the ones who still remembered her as she was.
"We need to find shelter before nightfall," Daro said, breaking the silence.
Arin pointed toward the left. "There's a half-collapsed station near the eastern ridge. If it hasn't been scavenged, we might still find supplies."
"Let's move," Selene said quietly.
They followed her.
---
The ridge station was worse off than expected—its solar plates shattered, its comms tower crumpled like foil. But the lower levels still held power, flickering low-light panels and sealed doors with functioning biometric locks.
Selene's presence unlocked the place without a code.
Kai whistled. "Guess having a legacy identity has perks."
Selene gave a dry smile. "Let's hope the kitchen works too."
They settled in. Arin took first watch. Daro and Kai worked on restoring partial comms. Selene wandered deeper into the station, drawn by an old instinct—something familiar in the layout. A hallway turned left into a glass observation chamber.
Inside stood a woman.
Older. Broad-shouldered. Wrapped in a long coat made from stitched-together resistance patches and worn data cables. She leaned against the window, staring out into the dark.
Selene froze.
She didn't recognize her.
But the woman smiled like they'd spoken yesterday.
"Took you long enough," she said.
Selene's pulse spiked. "Who—how did you get in here?"
"Same as you. I remembered the path."
Selene approached cautiously. "You're… from before?"
The woman turned. Her eyes glimmered silver-blue, Echo-coded. "I'm from between. Name's Varra. You saved me once, Selene. Back when you still thought saving people was a good idea."
Selene blinked. "I don't remember that."
Varra stepped forward. "I know. But I do. You pulled me from a collapsing thread stream. You reprogrammed my time-lock manually and refused to let them write me off."
She touched Selene's shoulder gently.
"You were stubborn. Kind. Reckless. And brilliant."
Selene felt heat rise behind her eyes. "Why do you all remember me?"
Varra smiled sadly. "Because you mattered. Before you became the project's property. Before they sliced your identity like data. We were your crew. Your friends."
Selene shook her head. "Then why didn't you come for me?"
"I did," Varra said, voice tight. "But they made sure I couldn't find you. Buried you under layers of failsafes. I watched twenty different Selene-variants dissolve in failed loops. But you—you're different. You made it out."
Selene stepped back. Her hands trembled.
"I don't know how to be that person anymore."
"You don't have to," Varra said. "You just have to decide who you are now."
---
Later that night, they gathered in the station's command room. Varra stood by the holo-map, projecting data lines across fractured regions.
"I intercepted comms from a sleeper unit two clicks from here. They're trying to reconstruct something called the Interface Gate. Does that mean anything to you?"
Selene frowned. The name tugged at her thoughts like a half-remembered song.
Daro answered. "That was their cross-dimensional failsafe. A door to access… alternate versions. Echo-Seven was the key."
Varra looked at Selene. "Then they'll come for you. Not to erase you. To use you. If they get the Gate operational, they can rewrite everything—including you."
Kai grimaced. "So they want to overwrite Selene with a 'better' one?"
"No," Selene said softly. "They want to stabilize the timeline. I'm the anomaly. I chose to diverge."
Arin looked between them. "Then what do we do?"
Selene straightened. The fear hadn't left—but something stronger rose to meet it.
"We go there first," she said. "We destroy the Interface Gate before they activate it."
Daro blinked. "That's suicide."
"No," Selene said. "It's memory. It's choice. I'm not Echo-Seven. I'm not a shadow. I'm the one who remembers. And I'm not letting them write me out again."
Varra grinned. "Now there's the voice I remember."
---
As they prepared to move out, Selene stood alone one last time in the observation chamber.
She watched the stars.
For the first time since waking, she didn't feel like she was missing something.
She felt like she was becoming something.
And whatever happened next, she wouldn't face it as a ghost.
But as Selene.