"I guess… but why did he come to my world?" Aria asked, her voice trembling.
Oban's red eyes narrowed. "Isn't the real question why you were there in the first place?"
They walked side by side, shadows peeling back to reveal glimpses of her life—snippets of her childhood, laughter, frustration, nights staring at a glowing screen. She watched from above as if it belonged to someone else.
Then, abruptly, it cut off. On her fifteenth birthday. Everything beyond that point was gone—missing, erased.
Aria froze. "Where's the rest of my life before fifteen?"
Oban lifted his paw, his movements too deliberate for a mere cat. Something shimmered around him, reality itself bending. He pawed at the air as though stitching torn fabric. And then—threads of light pulsed, weaving a connection between two versions of her. The Aria of this world… and the Aria of the modern one. A heartbeat glowed between them, steady, undeniable.
Her own heart stuttered. She pressed her hands to her head, a sharp ache clawing through her skull. "I don't understand. Why is my world—the real Aria's world—connected? Why do I remember her life before fifteen as if it were mine?"
"You are the real Aria," Oban said, irritation creeping into his tone. "And those memories… are yours."
Her breath hitched. She shook her head violently. "That's impossible."
"Then ask the old man who tampered with time," Oban growled.
Aria's hands shook harder. "But… he's dead."
"That's why I'm here," Oban said, his crimson eyes burning. "To keep the truth from dying with him. To help you survive what comes next."
"So… if I'm the real Aria, then why is there a system constantly blocking me? Why did it give me powers at all?" Aria demanded. Her voice cracked under the weight of questions. "None of it makes sense."
Oban's tail lashed, his silence heavier than words. Even he seemed… reluctant.
"The old man," he finally said, "had power no mortal should ever touch. He could see through time, walk across past and future as though they were rooms in his house. Even the gods envied him. But peace?" His voice darkened. "Peace was the one thing he never had. He watched his daughter die in every path he took. And no matter how he twisted time, he could not stop it."
Aria's breath caught.
"So he broke the rules," Oban continued. "He went further, deeper, until he decided he would not make the same mistake twice. He altered your time. Your fate."
Her pulse thundered in her ears. "Then… he created the system? And the god speaking through it?"
Oban's crimson eyes flickered. "You were supposed to awaken your power at fifteen. If you had, the sealed one would have come for you—and nothing in this world could have kept you safe. So he scattered your memories, sent you into another world, forced your awakening into delay." His lip curled, bitter. "He rewrote your life before you ever breathed. Every heartbeat you lived has already been seen… maybe even written."
Aria staggered back, shaking her head. "So… my life isn't mine? None of this was mine?"
Oban's gaze softened for only a heartbeat. "It is yours. But it was also his desperate gamble. The system wasn't meant to chain you—it was meant to buy you time."
"So the golden power was mine all along," Aria whispered. "And Grandfather only changed my fate to buy me time… Then the sealed one—it must be Khalid. But why? Why does he want to take me away?"
Oban's whiskers twitched, his red eyes gleaming. "Look at you, finally connecting the dots."
Aria's fists clenched. "Then explain this—why did I see her? Aria's figure. The girl. When Icarus tried to take his life. I saw her as he stabbed himself in madness. Was that… me?"
Oban's tail flicked lazily, but his voice was sharper. "An illusion. Raelin's last trick. Somehow, it worked."
Her chest tightened at the memory—blood, despair, Icarus's broken face. She bit her lip until it hurt. "Then what about the gods? The answers I used to get through the system? Why is it silent now? Why won't they speak to me anymore?"
For the first time, Oban's eyes softened, but his tone stayed deliberately careless. "If I told you everything, what would be left? No struggle, no choice, no story worth living. You'd be nothing but a puppet walking to an end you already knew."
Aria's voice cracked with frustration. "Didn't my grandfather command you to tell me everything?"
"No," Oban replied, curling his paws neatly beneath him. "He told me to guide you. To walk beside you. Never to hand you answers just because you ask for them."
"Oh, my head is going to explode," Aria groaned, clutching her temples.
Oban, licking his paw without a care in the world, yawned. "Don't be silly. You'll be fine."
Aria's eyes burned with disbelief. "You stupid cat—you'll never understand what I'm feeling right now!"
"Then fine," Oban said with a flick of his tail, voice cold with finality. "Solve it yourself."
Before she could scream at him, his form vanished into smoke. The darkness swallowed her whole—and in the next heartbeat, Aria jolted back to reality.
She was lying somewhere damp, hidden, and unbearably dark… buried beneath the earth where no one could see her.