I just want to wake up,"
I whispered, the words heavy with the weight of a thousand repetitions.
"I want to wake from this loop. From this nightmare."
I glanced at him, my voice trembling.
"Do you know my memory?"
"I do," he replied. His voice was steady, a constant anchor in the void.
"I have always been with you."
I knew he would say that. I had always felt a presence—a shadow at the edge of my vision, a silent observer in the dark. Even when I was utterly alone, I knew something lived within me.
I looked up. Above us, my memories drifted like bioluminescent jellyfish, pulsing with a pure, soft light and swirling with pastel colors. They were beautiful. If they existed anywhere but here—outside this liminal space—I could have watched them forever. Not for the memories they held, but for the light itself.
I steeled my resolve. To return to my world, I had to choose. I had to touch one.
"I'm choosing," I announced.
I reached toward a flickering orb of pale blue that shone with the brilliance of a cut diamond. As my fingers stretched outward, I felt his gaze on me, unblinking and intense.
"Go on," he murmured.
"You can go back, if you can find it in you to love it once more. It is, after all, only your memory."
The moment my skin brushed the light, a flash erupted, violent and blinding. Through the white-hot glare, I saw him rushing toward me, his hand outstretched in a desperate reach. Without a second thought, I seized it.
A wave of profound relief washed over his face.
"You know…" He started to speak, but the words died in his throat.
We spun together, locked in a centrifugal wind, weightless as if drifting through the heart of a cloud. The world was nothing but rushing air and his grip on my hand.
"I'm so scared," I confessed, the wind whipping my hair across my face.
"I don't want it to end the way it did before."
"I will be with you this time," he promised, his grip tightening until it almost hurt.
"I won't let go."
The rushing air slowed. The blinding light faded into the grey morning of a familiar skyline. The spinning stopped, and my feet hit solid ground.
I was back..... One year early. Back in K-City.