1. Lyra in the Empty Garden
The medical wing was too quiet.
Lyra stood beside the observation window overlooking Garden Sector C, watching the late-night lights shimmer over the training courtyards. Normally, that sight eased her breathing.
Not tonight.
Cael hadn't woken in sixteen hours.
The Resonance backlash had fried half the pulse-sensors in the simulation ring. He'd dropped like a marionette with cut strings—no warning, no cry, just the terrifying silence of someone whose mind was somewhere else entirely.
Someone whose memories weren't done with him.
Lyra pressed a palm to her chest where her Pulseband rested. The twin-ring symbol glowed faintly—not enough to burn, but enough to whisper.
We're linked again. And he's slipping away.
The door behind her slid open.
"Vance."
Jax stepped inside, coat half buttoned, hair still damp from a rushed shower. His usual smirk was absent.
"How's he doing?"
Lyra didn't trust her voice. "Stable."
Jax studied her face. "You're doing the heavy breathing thing. The one that means something cosmic and awful is happening."
"Nothing cosmic," she said tightly. "Just… something awful."
"Look," Jax said, lowering his voice, "I've seen Cael unconscious a dozen times. He's too stubborn to die. Hell, he once woke up from a three-story fall just to complain about cafeteria noodles."
Lyra didn't smile.
"He didn't collapse from an injury this time," she whispered. "It was a memory strike."
Jax blinked. "…A what?"
"Something inside the Breach is calling to him again."
That shut him up.
Because every one of them knew: Cael's mind hadn't fully come back from that breach. Something had reattached itself. Something old, something not fully Cael.
Lyra turned toward the hallway.
"I'm going in."
Jax blocked the door with an arm. "Lyra. His resonance is unstable. Touch the link and you risk being dragged under."
"Good," she said. "Let it drag me. At least he won't be alone."
Jax stared at her for a long moment.
Then exhaled and stepped aside.
"Fine. But if the Garden explodes, I'm telling the Commander it was your idea."
---
2. Inside the Mind That Forgot
Lyra entered Cael's room.
He lay motionless on the bed, white blankets rising subtly with each breath. Electrodes mapped faint resonance threads across the screen: unstable waveform peaks, rapid oscillations, patterns that shouldn't be possible for a human.
Lyra dragged a chair to his side. Sat. Closed her eyes.
Pulseband sync—manual override.
A faint chime.
Then something gripped her chest like cold hands.
The world around her dissolved.
---
3. The Memory Labyrinth
(POV shift → Cael)
Cael opened his eyes to fog.
A long hallway stretched into infinity—a corridor of fractured metal, hanging wires, and hovering shards of glass that reflected moments he couldn't fully see.
His memories.
Or… what was left of them.
He exhaled. "Not again."
The air hummed.
A voice answered—his voice, but not.
"You keep returning here because you still refuse to look."
Cael turned.
His Echo leaned against a broken pillar, arms crossed, expression unreadable. Same face. Same stance. But eyes brighter—too bright. Almost celestial.
"You dragged me in," Cael said.
"No," the Echo replied. "She did."
Golden light flickered behind Cael.
He spun around—and his breath hitched.
"Lyra?"
Her projection—not her body—stood at the far end of the corridor, faint and translucent, struggling to remain.
She looked stunned. And scared.
"Cael… what is this place?"
"You shouldn't be here," he said, taking a step toward her.
The Echo grabbed his shoulder.
"If she walks into the wrong memory shard, she'll be erased. Your link reactivated too early. She's exposed."
"Then help me get her out!"
The Echo's expression twisted—not annoyance. Something closer to grief.
"I can't. Because she's walking toward the one memory you buried deeper than all the others."
Cael froze.
"What memory?"
The Echo's voice softened.
"The day you met her."
---
4. The Door Cael Never Opens
Lyra was being pulled.
Not physically—but the link tugged at her like a magnet, drawing her down the corridor toward a shimmering shard the size of a doorway.
Cael ran.
"Lyra—don't touch that!"
She stopped inches before her fingers brushed the surface.
Inside the shard, blurred figures moved—sounds, colors, half-formed impressions. Nothing recognizable except—
A train station.
Snow.
A young boy standing alone.
Lyra stared at it, whispering:
"…I've seen this."
Cael's pulse hammered. "Lyra, please—step back."
"No," she said. "This… this feels familiar."
The Echo appeared beside Lyra, arms folded.
"She's not wrong."
Cael glared. "Stay away from her."
"I'm trying to protect you, idiot," the Echo snapped. "If she sees what's inside, the link will complete. All of it. The memories you sealed will break open."
Lyra turned slowly toward Cael.
"Sealed… by who?"
Cael's throat tightened.
"I did."
The fog around them trembled.
Lyra held his gaze. "What did you hide from me?"
Cael's breath shook.
"That memory… it's the real beginning. Before Garden. Before the Corps. Before any of this. I didn't want it to affect how you saw me."
"Cael," Lyra whispered, "we've fought monsters together. We survived the Breach. Tell me."
Cael closed his eyes.
"It's the day I saved you."
Her breath hitched.
"…What?"
"And the day you saved me."
Lyra reached for his hand.
"Show me."
Before Cael could stop it—
The shard exploded with light.
Lyra was pulled inside.
He lunged after her—
—and the world shattered.
---
5. The First Meeting (Unburied)
Snow fell like ash.
Cael blinked, disoriented, standing in the middle of a frozen train platform. The world restored itself with painful clarity, every detail sharper than reality.
This memory wasn't fragmented.
It was perfect.
A cold wind cut across the station.
And there—sitting alone on a bench—was a girl with a small suitcase, hugging her knees. Younger. Frailer. Wearing a coat too thin for the weather.
Lyra.
Maybe ten years old.
Her pulseband unlit. Her eyes red from crying.
"Mother said she'd be back… She said…" the little Lyra whispered into the air.
Cael felt his chest tighten like a fist.
He knew what came next.
A boy—himself, younger by the same number of years—approached her quietly.
"Are you lost?"
Lyra flinched, wiping her eyes quickly. "No. I'm just… waiting."
"You're lying," young Cael said bluntly. "You're freezing."
She glared. "I'm fine."
"You're not."
He sat beside her, pulling off his scarf and wrapping it around her neck.
Lyra blinked, surprised.
"You don't even know me."
"You don't need to know someone to help them."
Present Cael watched, unable to breathe.
Lyra—current Lyra—stood beside him, tears slipping silently down her cheeks as she watched her younger self.
"That was you…?" she whispered. "All this time? The boy I dreamed about—the boy who gave me warmth when the world felt too cold…"
Cael nodded, voice cracking.
"You forgot me. And later… I forgot you."
The memory continued.
Young Lyra asked timidly:
"What's your name?"
Young Cael smiled.
"Cael Drayen."
"And… why did you help me?"
He shrugged.
"You looked like you needed a friend."
Young Lyra's lower lip wobbled. "Then… can I stay with you until my mom comes back?"
Young Cael didn't hesitate.
"Yeah. I won't leave."
The moment froze—crystallized—then dissolved into white.
---
6. The Link Locking In
Back in the void corridor, Lyra stared at Cael, overwhelmed.
"You were my first friend," she whispered. "The reason I made it through that night. The reason I joined Garden. I thought—" She clutched her chest. "I thought that memory was something my mind created so I wouldn't feel alone."
"It wasn't," Cael said softly. "It was real."
"Why did you seal it away?"
Cael swallowed hard.
"Because after the Breach… remembering you hurt. I couldn't keep going if I didn't bury some parts of myself."
Lyra stepped forward.
"And now?"
Cael's eyes met hers—steady, raw, open.
"I don't want to seal anything anymore."
Their Pulsebands ignited—brilliant intertwined rings blazing with golden resonance. The corridor shook.
The Echo stepped back, wincing.
"Oh great. Fantastic. The link is finalizing. I'm going to be stuck with all of your combined emotional baggage."
Lyra ignored him.
She reached up. Placed a hand against Cael's cheek.
"Then remember everything," she whispered.
"With me."
The resonance surged—
White light engulfed them—
—
---
7. Back in the Real World
Lyra gasped awake.
Cael sat upright at the same moment, exhaling sharply, eyes wide and alive for the first time since he collapsed.
Their Pulsebands glowed in unison—steady, synchronized, perfect.
Lyra grabbed his hand before he could speak.
"You remembered."
Cael squeezed back.
"And I'm not forgetting again."
The room hummed.
Outside, the sky-scar flickered with new colors—violet threading through the silver light as if reacting to their reunion.
Something had changed.
Something enormous.
Lyra leaned her forehead against his.
"Welcome back."
Cael smiled faintly.
"Lyra… we need to talk. Because if I'm remembering, then the Breach is remembering too."
Her breath caught.
"And it's coming for us."
---
End of Chapter 109