The world felt frozen. The wind didn't stir. The trees stood still.
He was gone. I saw it happen. I know I saw it happen.
But here he is.
A step forward. A step back. My lungs won't work. My mind won't catch up.
"You remember," he says. His voice is exactly the same. Too much the same. Like no time has passed at all.
I don't answer. I can't.
"Good," he continues. "Then we don't have much time."
There it is again—that feeling, like my fate is not my own.
My voice finally catches up. "How?" It's barely a whisper, but he hears it.
"Because I refused to disappear too," he says. And just like that, the ground beneath me isn't stable anymore.
The air around us is too thick, too silent. My pulse pounds in my ears.
I should run. I should scream. I should do something.
But I don't.
Because I know him. Because I watched him vanish under the Second Moon just like I did.
And yet, here he is—whole, solid, standing right in front of me.
"You're not supposed to be here," I finally say, my voice hoarse.
"Neither are you," he answers.
His eyes are sharp, watching me like I might disappear again if he blinks. There's something in them—something knowing. Something haunted.
"How long have you remembered?" I ask.
He exhales slowly. "Too long."
I don't like that answer. I don't like any of this.
"Where did you go? " I press. "When you vanished—where did you wake up?"
For the first time, his expression changes. His jaw tightens, a flicker of something dark flashing across his face.
"Nowhere," he says. "And everywhere."
A chill runs through me.
"That doesn't make sense," I whisper.
"No," he says. "It doesn't. But you already know that, don't you? Because you were there too."
My breath catches.
Because he's right.
Because I do remember. The empty space. The voices. The endless, endless waiting.
"They lied to us," he says. "And if we don't stop this, they'll do it again."
A heavy silence hangs between us.
Then, from above, a shadow moves across the ground.
I don't have to look up. I already know what's there.
The Second Moon is rising.
The ground trembles beneath us, a faint, almost imperceptible vibration. The kind that warns before a storm.
The Second Moon hangs overhead, its eerie glow bathing the world in cold silver light. I can feel it pressing down on me, like a weight inside my chest.
"We don't have much time," he says.
"For what?" I demand.
"To decide."
He turns, his gaze sweeping across the empty street. The world feels too quiet, too still. As if it's watching.
"If we run, there's no going back," he continues. "They'll come for us."
I swallow hard. They.
The ones who decide who stays and who disappears. The ones who whispered in the dark when I woke up in a life that wasn't mine.
I clench my fists. "And if we don't run?"
"Then we forget," he says, voice tight. "Like last time."
I shake my head. "I won't let that happen."
He studies me for a long moment. Then, finally, he nods. "Then we move. Now."
He turns sharply, heading toward the shadows between the buildings. For a second, I hesitate.
I've spent too long trapped in this cycle. Too long letting them erase me.
Not this time.
I take a deep breath and step forward—
And then a voice slices through the silence.
"Stop them."
A shiver rips through me.
Footsteps. From all around. Coming fast.
I spin toward him. He's already reaching for my hand.
"Run," he breathes.
Then the night explodes.