The words echoed in my head long after the Seeker left.
"You're from the version of this world that was discarded."
What did that even mean?
I sat alone in one of the barracks—Elira off filing reports, Rhys silent behind locked doors. The Voidbrand itched beneath my skin, like it wanted to peel away the layers of who I thought I was. I pressed a damp cloth to the back of my neck, trying to focus, trying to think.
That's when it happened.
A pulse.
Not from outside.
From inside.
Like something deep within me cracked open.
And memory—not a dream—spilled out.
I was standing in a city.
Not this world. Not Earth.
Something in between.
Steel towers floated in the sky, held by gold threads of script. The streets shimmered with liquid light. Everyone wore colors I couldn't name. I saw a girl with a triangular halo floating behind her back, laughing as she pulled me into a glowing door marked with the same symbol on my back—
The Voidbrand.
Inside, walls pulsed with veins of light, and a machine with no shape asked me the question:
"Do you want to stay, or be rewritten?"
My breath caught as I jolted back into the barrack, heart hammering.
What the hell was that?
A memory?
A parallel life?
A glitch?
I looked down at my hand—and for a flickering second, I saw through it.
Like my body was caught between frames of existence.
Like I wasn't fully here.
A knock at the door nearly made me jump out of my skin.
It was Elira.
She looked... concerned.
"There's a Rift opening near the Bone Pines," she said. "High energy. Warped terrain. Rhys says you're coming."
"I don't even know what I am yet," I said, still rattled.
She studied me quietly.
"You want answers?" she asked. "This is how we get them."
I hesitated.
Then nodded.
She smiled—tight, but real. "Good. Because if that Rift leads to a version of this world that's bleeding through… we'll need you to stabilize it."
And as we rode toward the fracture in reality, one thing settled in my bones:
I wasn't a visitor anymore.
I was a reminder.
A glitch from a forgotten world, returned to ask a question this world hoped never to hear again:
"Why was I erased?"