The more time I spent with Rin, the less I understood her.
At first, I thought she was Mira,reborn, fragmented, confused. But now, standing across from her in the school library, I wasn't so sure. Her eyes looked straight through me, like she was always searching for something,or someone,just beyond reach.
She smiled, polite but distant. "You keep staring, Eliah."
"I'm just… thinking," I muttered, clutching the journal tighter to my chest.
"You're always thinking."
She walked away without waiting for a response. No softness. No lingering glance. No flicker of memory. Nothing like Mira.
And still, something pulled me to her,an invisible thread that refused to let me go.
That night, I asked the system again, "Is she Mira? Please just tell me."
The silence stretched, like it was calculating whether I was ready for the answer.
Then, finally, the voice returned.
"Rin is not the one your soul remembers."
My breath caught.
I sat up in bed, heart thudding. "Then who?"what."Mira. She lives still. In a world just outside this one… suspended between time. Her body breathes, but her soul waits."
"Waits for me?"
"Yes."
Tears stung my eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"You weren't ready. And she wasn't reachable. Not until now."
I curled in on myself, whispering through the ache in my chest. "Then what is Rin?"
A pause.
"Rin is… a tether. But she seeks what does not belong to her. And soon, she will remember what she was never meant to forget."
The room felt colder. My hand reached instinctively for the journal on the nightstand, flipping through its pages, searching for meaning in handwriting that still didn't feel like mine,but whose pain I knew intimately.
One line stood out, scrawled hastily across a page near the end:
"To return, one must let go. Even if it kills them."
The next day, I found Rin waiting by my locker.
"You're avoiding me," she said, folding her arms.
I blinked. "What are you talking about? You've been the one..."
"No," she cut me off, voice sharp. "Don't twist this. You've been acting weird since that day on the rooftop. And now, you're distant. Watching me like I'm some ghost."
I hesitated. "Maybe I am."
She stared. "What's that supposed to mean?"
I wanted to tell her everything,that I wasn't supposed to be here, that I had died in another life holding the hand of someone who wasn't her. But I couldn't. Not yet.
"I think… we're not who we think we are," I said instead.
She laughed, a short, bitter sound. "Wow. That's rich."
I turned to leave, but her voice stopped me.
"I've been dreaming of another place," she said quietly. "A city I've never been to. A name I don't remember. But when I wake up, I'm crying."
My heart clenched.
She didn't remember me. But something inside her was waking up.
And if the system was right,if she wasn't Mira, and she was tethered to something else—then whatever was inside her… it wasn't here for me.
That evening, I returned to the journal. Pages had changed.
New entries.
Ones I didn't write.
"She's using you. She knows where the crack is. And she'll step through it if you let her."
I flipped back. More handwriting. The same style. The same voice.
"The system isn't just guidance. It's a key. And keys can be stolen."
I asked the system, "Is Rin trying to use me to leave this world?"
"Her memories are unstable. But yes. She will seek the passage back."
"To where?"
"To her world. The one where she lost someone else."
Someone else?
Not me.
She wasn't here for me.
She never was.
By the end of the week, it became clear Rin wasn't just confused—she was searching. She lingered near terminals, school databases, old records in the library. Once, I caught her sketching a doorway, the edges jagged and dark.
"I think I found a way back," she whispered to herself, not knowing I was near.
I backed away before she saw me.
That night, the system was urgent.
"You must stop her. If she succeeds, your link to Mira will collapse."
"But she's not the enemy."
"No. But she is desperate. And desperation becomes danger."
I didn't sleep. I couldn't.
I dreamed of Mira again,her body floating in glass, unaging, untouched, eyes closed.
And I knew what I had to do.
The next morning, Rin confronted me.
"I saw your journal," she said. "You've been hiding things."
"You've been lying to me."
"I didn't ask for this either!" she snapped. "I'm trying to get home, Eliah. Just like you."
I swallowed hard. "But that's not your home."
She flinched.
I stepped closer, softer now. "You don't remember everything yet, do you?"
"No," she whispered.
I nodded. "Then let me remind you."
Her eyes widened as I held up the journal—and it shimmered in my hands, glowing faintly with the power of the system.
"Let me show you what we're both running from."
She hesitated, then placed her hand on the cover.
And the world around us cracked,just a little.
Enough for both of us to see the truth.