The soft click of the light switch echoed in the quiet apartment.
Elizabeth sighed, the weight of the day dragging on her shoulders as she slipped off her boots and made her way to the couch. She sank into it, rubbing her temples. The silence around her only made the thoughts louder.
"Who would've thought one mission could stir up so much?" she muttered to herself.
She leaned back, eyes drifting toward the ceiling, mind racing despite her exhaustion.
"Monsters backing up fellow monsters... That's unnatural," she murmured. "Especially for creatures bound by predator-prey instincts."
She exhaled slowly.
"And then there's the core..." Her brows furrowed. "That energy signature - it wasn't just familiar. It was patterned. Almost identical to the ones Ability Users give off."
A darker thought tugged at her.
"What if monster cores aren't just trophies or fuel for evolution? What if... they're the very reason we evolve at all?"
The thought lingered in the silence like smoke in still air.
Her jaw tightened as she sat upright, the pieces refusing to fit.
"Or worse..." she whispered, her voice barely audible, "what if AUAF already knows all of this?"
She turned her gaze toward the photo on the shelf, a younger version of Samuel beside her, both smiling after a successful mission. Her fingers curled into a fist.
"...No," she muttered, eyes narrowing. "Not us. They're hiding it from him."
"Why..." she whispered, the word lingering like a ghost on her lips.
Her eyes stayed locked on the photo, on him. The same Samuel who always shrugged things off, who laughed in the face of danger, who acted like the world's weight never touched him - but who still carried scars she was never allowed to ask about.
"Why him?" she said, a little louder this time.
Was it because of his rank? His ability? No... plenty of SSS-rank users existed. But Samuel was different. His ability - Phase Break - wasn't just powerful. It was unpredictable. Untouched by conventional theory. Even HQ never had a solid explanation for how it worked.
Not fully.
And Samuel? He never pressed for answers. Either because he didn't care... or because deep down, he already knew something was wrong.
Elizabeth ran a hand through her hair, frustration mounting. Laying on the bed as she closed her eyes to get some rest from all the events unfolding this particular day.
_
Elizabeth lay on the bed, her arm draped over her eyes, trying to force the weight of the day out of her head. But exhaustion offered no peace only the kind of silence that invited old memories in.
And like a creeping shadow, it came.
A chill ran down her spine.
Then—
The scent hit her first.
Copper. Smoke. Something burning.
Her eyes shot open, but she wasn't in her apartment anymore.
She was eight again.
Standing barefoot on the cold tile of her childhood home.
It was too quiet.
Too still.
The air felt wrong.
Her small hands trembled as she walked past the hallway, the dim afternoon light casting long, warped shadows across the floor. She remembered this. Every single second of it. But this time, something was different.
She couldn't stop it.
The door to the living room creaked open.
And there they were.
Her parents lifeless. Motionless. Eyes wide with terror.
Their bodies torn and twisted like broken dolls.
She screamed.
She remembered screaming.
But this time… no sound came out.
Suddenly, the world fractured like glass rippling with unseen force.
Everything rewound.
She blinked and they were alive again.
Smiling. Sitting on the couch. Her mother reaching for her father's hand.
Then—
Blood.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Elizabeth dropped to her knees, hands clutching her head, her vision splitting between timelines. Each rewind grew sharper, more painful. The moments refused to settle. Every time she saw, it became real. Not memory — but relived experience.
A curse masquerading as an ability.
Retrospect Vision.
It had awakened that day.
But it didn't just show her the past.
It forced her to feel it.
To live it, trapped in the fragments of what once was, helpless to change any of it.
She remembered collapsing. She remembered blood on her hands that wasn't hers. She remembered the agents who found her hours later, curled on the floor, eyes vacant, lips muttering the same sentence over and over:
"Make it stop… please… I don't want to see it anymore…"
---
Back in the present, Elizabeth jolted upright in bed, sweat dripping down her brow. Her breath came in shallow gasps, heart pounding like a war drum in her chest.
She stared at her hands, still trembling.
All these years later, and the visions still found her.
Still broke her in the quiet.
She wiped her eyes, composing herself, but deep down she knew—
She would never be free from what she saw.
Not then.
Not now.
And not with what was coming.