CHAPTER SIXTEEN: WHEN STARS COLLIDE.
[The things we forget always find a way back. Especially the ones we buried in silence.]
---
PRE-DAWN – ZAREINA'S ROOM
The floor was cold against her knees, but Zareina didn't move. The broken mirror had shattered hours ago, yet the pieces still trembled—just like her.
Each jagged fragment bled her face into distorted versions of herself: one with crimson eyes full of rage, one sobbing into the void, one smiling a smile she didn't recognize but almost trusted.
And one that whispered back.
"You knew him before."
Her eyes flared—gold swallowing turquoise, then fading again.
"You loved him before."
She clenched her fist. Blood trickled from her palm where glass bit skin.
"I don't remember," she whispered.
But even as she said it, her Evol stirred beneath her skin. A rhythm. A frequency. A hum that felt like Icarus.
The steam from her untouched tea coiled upward like incense. She traced invisible runes on her forearm again—those ancient markings blooming like instinct. Her hand stopped over one symbol.
One that pulsed.
Her dream still echoed in her chest like thunder.
---
THREE DAYS LATER –
CITY ON EDGE
The Arena countdown pulsed across the underworld like a siren.
Every syndicate. Every mercenary. Every forgotten faction watched with breathless anticipation.
The ghost of their bond had become something sacred and savage to the world:
Nyx vs. Icarus.
Myth.
Rivalry.
Prophecy.
And no one could predict the ending.
---
FORGOTTEN CATHEDRAL – SUNSET BLEEDING THROUGH GLASS
Zareina remained motionless on the altar. Braids woven with silver and red framed her face like a war crown. Streaks of dried blood laced her arms—some hers, some not.
She stared at the rusted knife before her, its handle etched with a sigil she couldn't name… yet her bones remembered.
Her mask rested beside it.
Cipher's voice came from behind her, low and hesitant. "You've barely spoken since the flash."
"So,you finally showed yourself,"
She looked at Cipher,"Aylin."
Cipher was embarrassed,"You.. you know me?"
"How could I not know my stalker?"
Zareina didn't look at her.
"Why are you here?"
Hearing the smooth velvet voice,Cipher was like she was hypnotised by her.
"It's...its just..that we know that you and Icarus were known each other before.."
Silent.
Zareina's hand grazed the blade. "So,that kiss… in the rain… that wasn't a dream."
Cipher stepped forward slowly. "Your body remembered before your mind did."
Zareina turned her gaze skyward, watching the cracked ceiling filter dying sunlight onto her boots.
"I'm afraid of what I'll do when I do remember everything."
Cipher hesitated. "Are you afraid of him? Or of yourself?"
Zareina closed her eyes.
"…Both."
---
ICARUS'S INNER SANCTUM – NIGHTFALL
The walls bore dents from his fists. His reflection in the cracked mirror looked older than his twenty-eight years.
A blade lay unsheathed on the floor, humming faintly. His Evol had activated by itself three times in the past hour—drawn by her name. By memory.
He picked up the black ring, ran his thumb across the engraving.
The name: NYX
Written in a dialect extinct before history was even recorded.
He pressed it to his lips again.
His voice, hoarse:
"I forgot how to breathe without you. My Midnight."
---
FLASHBACK – MEMORY SHREDS RETURN
A battlefield, bathed in red.
Nyx, hair wild, blade in hand, bleeding from the stomach.
Icarus screamed her name across smoke.
She smiled through the pain. "Told you… I'd go first."
He caught her before she hit the ground.
She raised her hand to his cheek. "You're better angry than heartbroken."
He kissed her.
One last time.
And the world burned.
---
ASPEN – TRAINING HALL
Plasma spun around her blade like a dance partner. Aspen moved like war wrapped in rhythm. Hell power in her eyes like anything will burn.
Cipher recorded quietly, knowing better than to speak when Aspen was in this state.
When Aspen finally stopped, she didn't pant. She didn't smirk. She simply stared at the blade.
"I've seen couples like them before," she murmured.
"You went to her."
Cipher blinked. "Yeah?"
Aspen laughed,"Don't worry,I won't bite you.. I guess its good that you went there. You know what.."
Cipher blinked again,"W-What?"
"They either save the world… or set it on fire."
"What do you think?"
Aspen turned. Her purple-red eyes gleamed.
"...Both."
---
BOSS'S OFFICE – STRATEGY IN SILENCE
The Boss stared at the three files: Nyx. Icarus.
UNITY PROJECT.
The assistant poured him a glass of dark wine. The Boss didn't drink it.
Instead, he traced the circle symbol drawn on Zareina's file. "They're catalysts."
"For what?" the assistant asked.
The Boss smiled faintly. "For memory. For destruction. For evolution."
He clicked a remote.
A holo-image appeared: a planet fractured at its core. A vision. A prophecy.
"They weren't meant to be apart," he said. "Their Evols are opposite frequencies. When they align…"
"They become godlike."
"Or worse," the Boss replied, voice like thunder. "Human."
---
ARENA – NIGHT BEFORE THE FINAL ROUND
Zareina stood beneath the pale moonlight, the air dense with anticipation. The Arena was cloaked in ghostly silence, untouched by crowds, unshaken by time. The floor beneath her boots pulsed faintly, as if it too remembered the blood that had soaked it in eras long past.
Her mismatched eyes shimmered like stars collapsing inward—one a storm-tossed turquoise, the other molten gold that flickered as if fire lived behind her gaze. Her hair lifted gently, strands crackling with Evol energy unbound. Every breath she took was a battle between restraint and something ancient clawing to awaken.
Across the expanse, a door hissed open.
Icarus stepped through.
His presence shifted the very air—he didn't need words. The silence around them bowed to the gravity between their souls.
They watched each other like rival constellations on a crash course.
A flicker—like a tear in space. A shared vision—
Two children.
A field under the night sky.
Hands reaching through barbed fate.
A whispered vow.
Then a scream. Then silence.
Then... war.
Zareina's voice came like the wind threading through ruins:
"I remember your scream."
Icarus's voice broke across the distance like the toll of a war drum:
"And I remember your silence."
They didn't move.
Didn't dare.
Because something was shifting.
Not just between them, but within them.
---
ZAREINA'S INNER WORLD – THE ECLIPSE MEMORY
A heartbeat.
A pulse.
Then everything shifted.
Darkness overtook her vision.
She stood in a void made of stars and ash. The shattered echoes of forgotten timelines drifted like cosmic dust.
And there—he stood.
Icarus. Younger. Wounded. Bleeding from a wound he didn't understand. His eyes weren't cruel then. Just lost. Just… reaching.
She took a step forward.
And suddenly—
A blade.
Her hand held it.
His blood on it.
And he smiled, as if he had waited for it.
"I forgave you even then," he said.
Her hands trembled in this phantom vision. "Why?"
"Because you were the only one who could."
The vision cracked—
A war cry.
A kiss in the rain.
A fall from a burning sky.
Hands reaching.
Never touching.
Then she gasped—and came back.
The Arena. Cold again. Real.
Icarus had taken a step closer. Only one. But it changed everything.
---
ICARUS – THOUGHTS UNHEARD
She's different now.
But not unknown.
He could feel the memory screaming just beneath his skin. Not as images. But as ache. As heat. As hunger for something long buried.
And in that moment, he knew—
She was his ruin. And his reason.
---
OUTSIDE THE ARENA – ROOFTOP VANTAGE
Aspen sat perched atop the highest ledge overlooking the Arena. Her legs dangled over the edge, a cigarette burning between two fingers.
Beside her, Cipher stood with a drone lens zoomed in on Zareina and Icarus below.
"You still think this ends in just one winner?" Cipher asked softly.
Aspen smirked.
"No. This ends with the sky falling."
She took a drag, exhaled smoke shaped like a question mark.
"Besides, love like that?" She tilted her head. "It doesn't fade. It detonates."
---
BOSS'S OFFICE – THE RED ROOM
In the chamber of secrets, the Boss stared at the UNITY PROJECT file now open on the desk. Diagrams. DNA strings. Soul resonance charts. Psychic bindings.
Names: Nyx. Icarus.
And one scrawled in ink too dark to be read by machines.
A gloved hand turned the final page.
A note handwritten by the previous director:
"When stars collide, they do not simply burn. They create new worlds… or black holes."
The Boss looked up at the live feed of the Arena. A slow, knowing smile curved his lips.
"They were never enemies. They were warnings."
---
THE FINAL TWELVE HOURS – COUNTDOWN
The entire underworld watched the countdown screen flicker in every corner of the city.
12:00:00
11:59:59…
The Arena wasn't just a battleground anymore. It was a crucible.
The kind that didn't just crown champions.
But exposed gods.
Or monsters.
And somewhere in the shadows, the stars themselves began to align.
---
FINAL SCENE – ARENA FLOOR
Zareina turned to leave, but her voice echoed behind her—laced with something sharp, something holy:
"If I fall tomorrow… remember me as I was before we forgot."
Icarus's answer was a whisper laced with agony:
"I never forgot. That's what broke me."
Zareina turned. Her cloak lifted behind her like wings of ash.
Icarus didn't move.
His fingers flexed—then slowly curled into fists.
From behind one of the distant pillars, the Boss watched from shadow.
Smiling.
"Let the world witness a love older than time."
The lights dimmed.
And in the silence, two heartbeats thundered in sync.
The stars had begun to move.
And when they collided—
Nothing would ever be the same again.
(To be continued)