he café was quiet.
Too quiet for Aveline's liking.
Clara was already seated when she arrived—hands folded, chin tilted, eyes sharp with suspicion and something else Aveline couldn't quite name: recognition.
Like two ghosts remembering the same haunting.
The Confrontation
Clara didn't waste time.
"I know you're not who you pretend to be."
Aveline blinked. "Excuse me?"
"I remember a fire that never happened. A child who never existed. And a man—Lucien—dying in my arms. None of it ever was, and yet it is."
Aveline gripped her coffee cup harder.
"I think," Clara said softly, "you're the reason time is unraveling. I've felt it. So have others. And soon—he will too."
Aveline's voice came out like wind through broken glass. "What do you want from me?"
Clara leaned forward. "The truth. All of it."
Lucien's Doubts
Lucien sat alone on the edge of his bed, the city skyline blurring beyond the window.
Ever since Jules confronted him, everything felt… wrong.
He remembered falling in love with Aveline—but now he wasn't sure when it started. Had it always been her? Had he met her before that gallery show five years ago? Or had she placed herself there?
He rubbed his temples.
Had his life become a performance he never auditioned for?
He didn't know anymore.
And that terrified him.
Jules in the Journal
Jules had read the journal cover to cover. Twice. There were entire entries about a version of him that bled, wept, fought for Aveline's affection.
He hadn't been just a friend—he'd been her savior. Her constant.
The man who held her up when Lucien broke her.
And now? Now he was a stranger with his own memories overwritten.
He looked into the mirror and asked, "Who am I without her?"
But the mirror had no answer.
Aveline's Breaking Point
When Aveline returned home from the café, she was pale.
Lucien was in the living room, staring at the photo frame she thought she'd hidden—a picture of them from the first timeline, edges burned.
"Where was this taken?" he asked quietly.
Her throat clenched. "You don't want to know."
"I think I do."
"You were dying," she whispered. "And I broke the world to stop it."
Lucien turned to her, eyes full of something fragile. "What if I was meant to die?"
"No," she snapped. "Not you. Never you."
"But what if saving me broke everyone else?"
She couldn't answer that.
Clara's Nightmare
Clara woke screaming.
This time, the dream had changed.
She wasn't just witnessing the end—she was causing it.
She stood in the reflection of a shattered world, screaming at a weeping Aveline.
"You took my future. You made it yours."
"I had to. He was mine!"
And then—
A clock tower collapsing into fire and light.
She gasped awake.
This wasn't a dream.
It was a warning.