The Imperium Academy
Rebecca stood beside Alex, both of them leaning where students usually gathered, but neither of them cared about the noise around. Their conversation was quiet, heavy in a way that didn't need raised voices.
"So," Rebecca said, arms crossed, "all this time, Adam never mentioned he had a twin. Someone exactly like him."
Alex smiled faintly. "I wouldn't blame him."
Rebecca glanced at him. "Why?"
"He was angry," Alex said. "Not at you. Not even really at the world. At me."
Rebecca waited.
"We had just lost our father," Alex continued. "He was the only family we had. Adam wanted revenge. He wanted blood. He wanted the government to burn for what they did."
"And you didn't."
"I didn't," Alex said. "I walked away."
Rebecca scoffed softly. "That would drive him insane."
"It did," Alex said without denying it. "Watching the only person you have left choose peace when you're drowning in rage… it feels like betrayal."
He looked ahead.
"He stopped talking to me for a while. We drifted. Years passed. Then we slowly found our way back. Letters. Messages. Calls. Not often. Never deep."
Rebecca tilted her head. "And yet he never told me."
Alex shrugged. "Maybe he didn't see the point. Maybe he thought the past was better buried. Or maybe he was scared you'd ask questions he didn't want to answer."
Rebecca smirked. "Sounds like him."
She paused, then added, "Still funny though."
Alex looked at her.
"You walked away from revenge," Rebecca said, "and yet you're the one who ended up with it."
Alex chuckled. It wasn't a happy sound.
"What can I say," he said. "Life likes irony."
Rebecca studied him for a moment.
"You can bring people back," she said. "You did it for Elizabeth's father. You could do it for your own. Give him a new life. Why didn't you?"
Alex's smile returned. This one sharper.
"Who said I didn't?"
Rebecca blinked. "What?"
Alex turned to her fully. "I already did."
Her expression changed. "You're serious."
"Very."
Rebecca didn't interrupt. She could tell when someone was about to tell the truth.
"A few years back," Alex said, "was when I finally understood what Existence really meant."
---
It didn't happen all at once.
There was no dramatic moment. No voice in the sky.
Just clarity.
Alex sat alone, eyes closed, feeling everything that existed around him. Not seeing it. Feeling it. Every breath. Every thought. Every moment that had ever happened and ever would.
Existence wasn't creation.
It was allowance.
Everything that could be… was, because Existence said yes.
That was when he understood something else.
Death was not the end.
It was a boundary.
And boundaries could be crossed.
Alex reached backward.
Not through time as people understood it, but through continuity. Through the chain of being that linked moments together.
He searched for one presence.
His father.
He found the place where his father's existence stopped. The moment it was cut short. The violence. The unfairness.
Alex didn't reverse it.
He didn't rewrite the event.
He reached beyond it.
"Come back," Alex whispered.
Not as a man.
But as something more.
Existence answered.
His father opened his eyes in a world that wasn't Earth.
A quiet place. Empty. Waiting.
Alex stood before him, no longer just a son.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there," Alex said.
His father didn't speak at first. He only looked at him.
"You grew," he finally said.
Alex smiled.
"I made you something," Alex said. "A world. A clean one. No governments. No greed. No land disputes."
His father frowned. "And you?"
"I don't belong there anymore."
Alex placed a hand forward.
"You'll watch over it," he said. "Guide it. Protect it. Not as a king."
"What then?"
"A god," Alex said simply.
His father laughed. "You always liked big words."
Alex laughed too.
Then he left.
---
After that, Alex tried something else.
He searched for Adam.
He traced timelines. Forks. Possibilities.
He followed every path where Adam should have been.
And found nothing.
"No matter where I looked," Alex said quietly to Rebecca, "Adam wasn't there."
Rebecca frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean he vanished," Alex said. "Not dead. Not erased. Just… gone."
Rebecca's eyes narrowed. "That doesn't make sense."
"It didn't then," Alex said. "It does now."
He looked toward the sky.
"He didn't reincarnate like the rest of us," Alex said. "He fell."
Rebecca felt a chill.
"He slipped into the space before Existence could catch him," Alex continued. "That's why I couldn't find him."
Rebecca swallowed. "That's why he became what he is."
Alex nodded.
"He wasn't chosen," he said. "He arrived first."
They stood in silence for a moment.
Rebecca broke it.
"So all this time," she said, "you've been carrying that."
Alex smiled again. Softer this time.
"Someone had to."
Rebecca looked away.
"And Adam?" she asked.
Alex's smile faded.
"He doesn't know," Alex said. "Not all of it."
Rebecca exhaled. "Figures."
Alex glanced at her.
"When he finds out," Rebecca said, "he's going to be pissed."
Alex chuckled. "He always is."
They both fell quiet again.
"What are you talking about?"
They both turned.
Adam was standing there, hands in his pockets, watching them like he'd been there longer than they thought.
"Nothing," Rebecca said easily. "Just talking about old times."
Adam studied her for a second. Not her face. Something deeper. Then he smiled.
"You look different," he said. "Like you finally finished loading."
Rebecca rolled her eyes. "Don't start."
Adam chuckled, then shifted his gaze. "Speaking of old times," he said, tone light but sharp underneath, "what do you say we pay Lionhead a visit?"
Alex frowned slightly. Rebecca didn't.
"I know you've been itching to throw hands with him," Adam continued. "Let's stop pretending and make it happen."
Rebecca's lips curved into a slow smile.
"About time," she said.