Caleb felt it first—a shiver in the air that didn't belong. A quiet hum, like the sound of strings resonating through the void, pulling at something deep inside him.
A ripple, subtle yet undeniable, pulsed through the space around him. Time fractured, mended, bent again. The moment cracked open, and through it spilled a familiar energy—Resonance.
His breath caught as the atmosphere grew heavier, more distorted. The light fractured slightly as if reality itself had hiccupped. Spacetime bent.
The monitors in his room flickered once. The lights dimmed. A faint pulse danced across the walls like shadows of light slipping through shattered glass.
The resonance. It wasn't just residual. It was active, alive. Mira's energy.
He didn't hesitate.
Throwing aside his blanket and ignoring the medical wires still half-attached, Caleb burst into the corridor barefoot, his gown loose over his powered exosuit that had slowly regenerated its plating like muscle memory—rebuilding itself with the remnants of gravitational energy left in him. The nurses barely saw more than a blur as he moved, following the threads, the intangible whisper that was her.
She had returned. She was here.
Not just her body—her soul, her power.
The energy felt like the moment just before they converged. The infinite flash when the two of them resonated beyond physical laws, collapsing everything they were into a single supernova of truth. That familiarity now drew him like a gravitational beacon through the halls.
He reached the door to the shared recovery room and opened it silently, cautiously, not to startle her or the moment.
The door creaked open silently.
And there she was.
Mira.
Standing by the window, illuminated by the pale moonlight, silver and soft. Her IV tube still trailing behind her like a tether to this fragile, human world. But she stood tall—eyes distant, posture heavy with weight, and yet... ethereal.
The device in her hand crackled faintly, her old phone catching some stray distortion in spacetime. Around her, barely perceptible to the eye, the air glitched. Microfractures in the very fabric of reality. Her exoskeleton shimmered in and out of view. Her floating blades buzzed softly, flickering like ghost wings—mechanical, fragile, luminous. The same wings he saw in the moment they first broke the loop.
Caleb took a step forward, his voice barely a breath.
"Mira."
She turned.
Time slowed.
Her eyes met his, wide, wet, disbelief etched into every trembling line of her face. The moonlight caught the tears streaming freely down her cheeks, each one like a memory dissolving in real time.
"I kept my promise," Caleb whispered, walking toward her like one afraid she might vanish.
She dropped the phone to the windowsill. Her lips parted in stunned silence.
"…Caleb?" she breathed.
He said nothing else. His eyes—those gravity-bound, storm-choked eyes—only had room for her. His steps unwavering, quiet, like the last heartbeat before a miracle.
"The world being destroyed… isn't as scary as being separated from you," Mira said, her voice fractured but resolute. Beside her, the silverglow seed shimmered with a pulse of quiet light. Still warm. Still alive.
As if the entire universe had refused to erase the memory of him.
Caleb reached her, slowly brushing a lock of hair from her face. She didn't move away. His hand trembled slightly as it rested on her cheek. The other pulled her close by the waist.
"You're here," she whispered, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
He touched his forehead to hers, the old ritual—the connection forged in dark labs, quiet nights, and endless running.
"Then it's a promise," he said, voice low, reverent. "In life… and in death… we will never be apart."
Their lips met.
And in that kiss, the world stilled.
The cracks in the air paused. The flickering stopped. Even time seemed to hold its breath. His gravity curled around her like a cocoon, wrapping her in safety, warmth, and memory. Her resonance answered, the glow from her spine softly rippling outward like fireflies suspended in a glass globe.
Around them, the shards of all their timelines shimmered like constellations, a thousand possible lives, a thousand unfinished stories now converging into one truth—this moment.
Caleb pulled her closer, anchoring them both. Not just with gravity, but with faith. With longing. With everything he was.
Outside, the moon continued its silent vigil.
And inside, two souls that had crossed dimensions, timelines, and death itself… were finally home.