The glimpse memory of past events rang wildly inside his skull.
Long before the Whispering Hollow had earned its name, long before Rafael had ever stumbled through time's broken glass and apocalypse's loop, Mira and Kelan had stood side by side.
Not as uneasy allies, but as survivors. And more than that, as friends bound by blood spilled, truths unspoken, and sacrifices that even time couldn't erase.
It had been timeline seventeen—no, perhaps eighteen or even three. The exact numbers had started to blur when failure became a routine that carved deep grooves into Rafael's soul.
Importantly, in those loop, the breach had erupted early in the desert city of Sunrest, a gilded city of sandstone spires and magic-fueled markets. Rafael had been too late.
But Mira and Kelan had already been there, caught in the eye of catastrophe, fighting shoulder to shoulder.
Mira had been a junior researcher at the time, her robes too big and her confidence too small, barely trusted with minor leyline diagnostics.
Kelan had been a part-time mercenary; leather-armored, half-drunk most days, hired to protect a pompous noble's caravan. They hadn't known each other. Not yet.
But Sunrest fell in a single day. What began as faint whispers of distortion spiraled into flaming skies, the ground warping like liquid glass. The air tasted like copper and grief.
Then came the monsters, things that looked like they'd crawled out of dying memories, with eyes that reflected futures that hadn't yet come.
They met in a broken spire library, one of the last standing structures as the city tore itself apart. Kelan had been bleeding, half-buried under fallen stone. Mira had found him only because of the screams—and the silence that followed.
"Hold still," she'd whispered, scrawling a quick barrier rune on the wall. The sigil fizzled, barely holding.
"Who the hell are you?" Kelan rasped.
"Someone trying not to die. You?"
He coughed, laughed. "Same."
With nothing but unstable glyph grenades and a half-burnt spellbook, Mira held off a Riftspawn long enough to drag Kelan through the shattered halls. He was sarcastic even with a collapsed lung, cracking jokes between her stuttered incantations.
"You don't look like much of a knight," she'd muttered, glyph sparking in her hand.
"And you don't look like much of a mage." He winced, but smiled through the pain.
They survived three days alone. They rationed water from shattered fountains, boiled cloth for bandages, and whispered plans neither of them believed in. Kelan offered her his dagger when their defenses failed. Mira drew runes across his ribs that shimmered against the skin like glowing vines.
Trust was born not from oaths or obligation, but from the silence between chaos. From the places no one else came back from.
When Rafael finally reached them, he found two half-starved survivors who looked like they'd been forged in fire and grief. They followed him without question. And died for it.
Mira had been disintegrated in the leyline nexus collapse. She hadn't even screamed, just a look of distant surprise, then ash. Kelan had thrown himself into a collapsing chasm, blades flaring, holding back a wave of Riftspawn so the others could escape. Rafael had reached the portal alone.
He'd reset the loop two hours later. He didn't sleep that night—or for the next four loops.
***
Now, in the quiet hush of this new timeline, new loop even, Mira sat at a riverbank, boots off, toes dipped in the cold water. Kelan was behind her, muscles rippling as he ran sword drills beneath a dappled canopy of green and gold.
The sun was low, and the others were busy setting up camp farther uphill.
"Do you ever feel like you've died before?" Mira asked suddenly, eyes focused on the rippling surface.
Kelan froze mid-swing. The wind seemed to pause with him. "What kind of question is that?"
She shrugged, still not looking back. "I don't know. Sometimes I dream about sand and fire. About losing something I can't remember. Especially after my first talk with Rafael." Her voice was soft, almost brittle.
He walked over, sheathed the blade, and sat beside her. "Sometimes I wake up and feel like I forgot someone's name. Or a promise I didn't keep."
"Maybe we were friends in a dream," Mira said.
Kelan gave a crooked smile. "Wouldn't be the worst dream I've had."
They sat in silence for a while, watching dragonflies skip over the river. Neither said what they were truly thinking—that something in their bones itched when they looked at each other, like ghosts of memories clawing at the veil.
***
Later that evening, while the others shared food and laughter around the campfire, Rafael approached them.
"You two seem to work well together," he said casually, though the weight behind his gaze said otherwise.
"Guess we do," Kelan replied, tossing Mira a half-smile.
Rafael studied them both, then sat down. He pulled out a worn map, one Mira instantly recognized. She'd seen it charred in loop sixteen. Not remember the exact moment or time. It was like an idea popped up out of nowhere.
"In another life, you two saved a city. For three days, you kept the breach from spreading. No one remembers that now. But I do."
They stared at him, confused. But Mira's brow furrowed, as though catching an echo.
"Why tell us that now?" Kelan asked.
"Because I'm tired of losing the same people in different ways," Rafael said, voice quiet. "And maybe this time, we do things differently. Maybe we stop dying alone."
The fire popped. Mira looked down at her hands, the same hands that once drew runes over bleeding ribs. Kelan reached over and quietly placed his fingers over hers.
"Alright then," he said. "Let's make this loop count."
Far above them, the stars blinked into life. Old watchers of countless timelines, bearing witness again.
***