The battlefield dissolved like dust swept away by an unseen wind. Rafael landed hard on a marble floor that hadn't existed moments ago. For one breathless instant, the world was dark and hushed—a sanctuary between beats.
Then light spilled across him.
He blinked up at stained glass windows tall as cathedral towers. Each pane shimmered with moving images: battles, betrayals, moments of passion and horror—a familiar face snarling in defiance, and threads—thousands of glowing threads—intertwining and tearing in impossible patterns.
The ceiling above arched like a ribcage, impossibly vast and pulsing, as though the entire cathedral breathed.
Dasha groaned beside him, pushing up onto her elbows. Her gear was singed, her rifle nowhere to be seen. She spat blood and scowled at the kaleidoscope of images overhead. "That looks like bad news."
"Everything here does," Rafael muttered, helping her up.
A chuckle echoed from the shadows. Not cold—worse. Familiar.
Rafael was on his feet instantly. Dasha tensed, fists clenched. The chuckle turned into a low, mocking applause, slow and theatrical.
From the darkness at the far end of the chamber, a figure stepped forward. Tall, lean, wrapped in a coat of liquid black velvet stitched with shifting sigils. A blade rested at their hip, sheathed in glass and threadlight. Their hair was silver-white, bound in a braid that swayed like a pendulum.
Their face was Rafael's.
But not quite. Not anymore.
Their eyes shimmered like oil-slicks, full of stars. Their smile was cruel and knowing, honed on regrets Rafael hadn't fully faced.
"You made it farther than I thought," the figure said, voice rich and velvety. "I almost believed you wouldn't try. But then again, we both know how stubborn I can be."
Rafael stared. "Echo."
The figure bowed mockingly. "Rafael's shadow. His fracture. His failure. His potential, twisted. I go by Echo now. Simpler. Honest."
Dasha raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "He always had a smug face. You just turned it up to eleven."
Echo laughed. It was almost musical. "Dasha Woodbanks. Still punching nightmares and chasing ghosts. Still wearing those old scars like medals."
"You don't get to say my name," she growled. "You weren't there. Not when the threads frayed. Not when the gate failed."
Echo turned to Rafael. "She means when you ran. When you left her behind."
Rafael's fists clenched. "I never left her. I was pulled out."
"And that made it better?" Echo's smile widened. "She died screaming in a memory that wasn't hers, Rafael. And now she's looped it so long, she's forgotten which screams were real."
Dasha's voice trembled—not with fear, but rage. "Say another word and I swear—"
"Peace," Echo said, raising a hand. "I didn't come to fight."
Rafael stepped forward. "Then why did you come?"
"To offer a deal," Echo said smoothly. "The Uncore isn't what you think. It doesn't want to destroy the Loom. It wants to evolve it. To free the threads from predestination, from suffering. I'm proof. I was born when you broke. When you hesitated. I'm what comes after restraint."
"You're corruption," Rafael said coldly.
"I'm freedom," Echo replied. "I'm what you would be without guilt. Without fear. Imagine it, Rafael. No more threads pulling you into roles you never chose. No more systems whispering rules. Just potential, blooming endlessly."
"You're a lie," Rafael said. "A mask made from my worst day."
"Perhaps," Echo admitted. "But even masks serve a purpose."
Dasha stepped beside Rafael. "You're wasting your breath. He's already chosen."
Echo sighed. "I thought we might find common ground. Shame. But I'll leave you with a gift."
He unsheathed the blade. Its edge shimmered with stolen futures. Then, with a theatrical flourish, he vanished in a burst of falling petals that turned into ash.
On the floor where he had stood, a glowing mark pulsed. A sigil unlike any Rafael had seen—half warning, half invitation. It was burned into the stone, twitching like a living wound.
Dasha looked to him. "He's not done."
"No," Rafael said, voice tight. "He's just getting started."
The sigil pulsed once more.
Then the walls began to bleed light. Not just illumination—memory. Images spilled from the stone: childhoods, deaths, betrayals, triumphs. Rafael saw his own face split across timelines.
In one, he stood alone atop a mountain of corpses. In another, he knelt, weeping, as the Loom collapsed. In yet another, he embraced a version of Dasha glowing with threadfire, their fates woven into one.
He staggered. The overload was too much.
"Hold onto me!" Dasha shouted, grabbing his arm. "Don't let it rewrite you!"
But it already had begun.
Inside his chest, something cracked. A truth unspoken. A memory buried.
He remembered the mission. The day it went wrong. The flash of light, the sound of the gate destabilizing, and Dasha screaming as the world folded in. He hadn't run—but he hadn't reached her either.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
Dasha looked at him, startled. Then, after a long pause, nodded. "Me too."
Together, they stood as the chamber unraveled. The sigil pulsed a final time—
—and the next door opened.
Their next choice waited beyond it.
And Echo's laugh lingered like smoke.
As the sound faded, Rafael turned to Dasha and said, "He was wrong about one thing."
"What's that?" she asked.
"I don't wear guilt like a weight. I wear it like a blade. And I'm learning where to point it."
She smirked. "About time."
The next chamber came into view, vast and dimly lit. Rows of statues lined the corridor—faceless figures with hands outstretched, each holding a thread.
"Do you recognize this place?" Dasha asked.
Rafael stared. He didn't. This was probably the threshold. The corridor before the Fold of Choices—the ancient Loomspace between timelines. A place only visited by those meant to reweave fate.
'He had been here once. No, almost here. In training. In simulations. But he'd never crossed the Fold.'
'Until now.'
As they stepped forward, the statues twitched. Slowly, their blank faces turned.
A voice—calm, ancient—echoed in their minds. "One thread must be cut. One memory must be sacrificed. Choose."
A pedestal rose. Upon it: two small lights.
One shimmered with Rafael's childhood—the laughter of his brother, his mother's hands weaving fabric, the scent of cedar and sunlight.
The other glowed with his first day at the Loom Corps—meeting Dasha for the first time, clumsy and cocky, making her laugh despite himself.
Rafael hesitated.
Dasha didn't speak. She just watched him, trusting.
He stepped forward. And chose.
The light of his childhood dimmed.
The other flared.
He sacrificed it like it was nothing. But no, it was something he'll regret. Maybe now, maybe thousands loops from now, he didn't know.
He turned back to her. "Let's keep moving."
They walked on. Threads shifted behind them. Echo's sigil pulsed once more, faintly, in the distance—still watching. Still waiting.
And above them, high in the stained glass arch, a sliver of silver braid twisted through a storm of fractured reflections.
Echo's presence remained.
But Rafael's resolve sharpened.
There would be no more hesitating.
Not this time.
---
Calyx — The Shatterloop
Time was a thread, and Calyx had pulled the wrong one.
She drifted through a broken corridor that both existed and didn't. Lights blinked backward. Voices echoed in reverse. Every few minutes, she saw herself running the other way, screaming warnings she couldn't remember giving.
She had been with Rafael during the breach at the Tangent Vault. They had split up to divide the heat trails and confuse the Mawspawn. Her last glimpse of him was a flash of defiance—Rafael standing in the archway, flanked by Clara, before a Threadburst blinded her.
Her hands sparked with unstable threadlight. The overload during the Memory Warden skirmish had shattered her tether—left her unstuck, a splinter in the Loom's mind.
"Focus," she whispered, clutching her sigil. "Anchor, align, awaken."
Nothing. And yet—
A pulse. A flash of Rafael's voice. Not words. Just presence.
She wasn't as alone as she thought.
In the next loop, If that would happen, she want to turned and ran toward himself instead of run away.
***