[Scene 1 – Rin | Memory Vault, Lower Tower]
She didn't remember walking.
She only remembered the door.
The one no one had ever told her to avoid — because no one had remembered it existed in the first place.
It didn't creak. It breathed.
And when she stepped inside, the room blinked.
Rin (thought):
"Why does it feel like it's looking back?"
The Memory Vault was quiet. A round chamber lit by hundreds of faintly glowing glass cylinders suspended in the air. Some shimmered silver, others a soft red. One pulsed — golden and wrong.
She touched it.
And it was her.
But not this version.
Not Rin the student.
Not Rin the researcher.
This was Rin from before the name.
[Scene 2 – Aro | Garden Quadrant, Dusk]
Aro:
"She's remembering."
Selene stood beside him, arms folded, eyes distant.
Selene:
"You felt it too."
Iris (half-whisper):
"Like a room that shouldn't exist just… exhaled."
Alin didn't speak. She was still staring at the tree's reflection in the pond — waiting, maybe, for it to ripple.
[Scene 3 – Rin | The Box Within the Vault]
Inside the golden thread-mist, a figure turned.
Weaver.
Not in full form. A fragment. A shiver of a smile with too many meanings.
Weaver (softly):
"You found it too early."
Rin:
"Was I supposed to wait?"
Weaver (glancing at the cylinder):
"No. You never were good at waiting. That's why he—"
The figure glitched. Resealed. The golden mist recoiled.
Weaver (distorted):
"Remember carefully."
And then silence. The memory rewound. But Rin remembered it not rewinding. A paradox embedded in her mind like a splinter.
[Scene 4 – Aro | Garden Quadrant, Now]
Aro (abruptly):
"Threadwriter."
They all turned to him.
Iris:
"What did you just say?"
Aro (slowly):
"I don't know. But I remember writing that name in a margin once. In a dream I thought was mine."
Selene frowned.
Selene:
"I've heard that name. Or something close. My tutor once whispered it in his sleep — then begged me not to ask."
Alin finally stood.
Alin:
"He's real, isn't he?"
[Scene 5 – Rin | Falling Forward]
The room shook.
A ripple shot through the cylinders and into her, as if the Vault itself had chosen to remember her back.
And then—
Voice (not Weaver):
"You remember too well."
A different voice. Not cruel. But scared.
A child's voice. Or a developer's ghost.
Voice:
"If you keep going, they'll follow you in."
She turned—
—and the room was gone.
[Scene 6 – Garden | Echoing Across the Divide]
Aro inhaled sharply. Something shimmered behind his eyes — a gold flicker.
Aro (without realizing):
"Some part of me was still there."
Selene stepped toward him.
Selene:
"Who said that?"
Aro (looking up):
"I think… she did."
Rin, kneeling in a blank white room.
Aro, standing in the garden under the full moon.
Across space. Across memory.
Both remembering the same story.
Just not the same way.