Chapter 38 — Before the World Broke

  Elira didn’t think about the past very often.

  Not because she didn’t remember.

  Because remembering felt… strange.

  The world before the gates almost didn’t seem real anymore. Like a life someone else had lived, not her.

  She was helping rebuild fishing docks in a small coastal town when the memories surfaced again.

  Salt air.

  Wet wood.

  Rope pulled tight across splintered beams.

  Ordinary things.

  The kind that used to make up entire days.

  She had been ordinary once.

  Completely ordinary.

  School mornings she didn’t want to wake up for.

  Late homework.

  Laughing with friends over nothing important.

  Complaining about exams like they were the end of the world.

  Dreaming about travel.

  About a future that had nothing to do with survival.

  Nothing heroic.

  Nothing heavy.

  Just life.

  And Xior had been there.

  They weren’t close. Not really.

  He was quiet. Reserved. Always watching more than speaking.

  Other students called him strange.

  Some called him arrogant.

  She had always thought he was just shy.

  He sat near the window in class. Same seat every day. Always reading something that looked far too complicated for their age — economics, engineering, systems theory.

  They talked sometimes.

  Group projects. Shared classes. Casual conversations that never went very deep.

  He was polite.

  Direct.

  Never rude.

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  But never warm either.

  Once she had asked him why he studied so much.

  He looked at her for a long moment before answering.

  “Because systems fail when people don’t understand them.”

  She laughed.

  “That sounds depressing.”

  “It’s realistic,” he said.

  She hadn’t understood then.

  Not really.

  William had been different.

  Older. Confident. Already carrying himself like someone people listened to.

  Teachers trusted him. Students followed him. If something went wrong, he was usually the first to step forward and try to fix it — even when no one asked.

  He noticed problems.

  And he cared.

  Tancred hadn’t been part of that world.

  She met him later.

  After everything broke.

  The day the gates appeared changed everything.

  Sirens. Smoke. Panic. No one understood what was happening. Creatures emerging where nothing had existed before. Buildings collapsing. People running without direction.

  She remembered one moment clearly.

  A street filled with dust.

  A child trapped under a slab of concrete.

  People trying to lift it. Failing.

  She tried too.

  Hands shaking. Heart racing.

  And something inside her… shifted.

  Not emotionally.

  Physically.

  Reality bent.

  Space folded.

  The debris moved.

  The child lived.

  She collapsed seconds later.

  When she woke up—

  Xior was there.

  Not shocked.

  Not surprised.

  Just watching.

  “You’re alive,” he said.

  It sounded like confirmation. Not relief.

  Later she learned he had awakened earlier than most.

  Much earlier.

  Hidden it. Studied it. Prepared.

  Of course he had.

  William arrived days later with emergency teams already forming.

  Already organizing.

  Already leading.

  Already becoming the person he would always be.

  That was the beginning.

  Three paths diverging from the same point.

  Now, years later, Elira sat on the edge of the dock, watching waves roll toward the shore.

  “So much changed,” she murmured.

  Back then she had thought awakening meant becoming stronger.

  More capable.

  More useful.

  She hadn’t realized it also meant becoming necessary.

  And necessity was heavy.

  Another memory surfaced.

  A school festival.

  Music playing too loud. Strings of lights overhead. People laughing, running between food stalls and games.

  She had seen Xior standing near the edge of the crowd, alone, watching everything.

  Even then.

  Calculating.

  She walked over.

  “You should join,” she said.

  He shook his head.

  “I’m fine here.”

  “You’re always fine,” she teased.

  “Yes.”

  She studied him for a moment.

  “You don’t like crowds?”

  “I like patterns,” he replied.

  “That’s a weird answer.”

  “Yes.”

  She laughed.

  Simple.

  Carefree.

  She wondered if he remembered that moment.

  Far away, in Abyss, Xior stood on a balcony overlooking the city.

  He remembered it perfectly.

  Elira laughing. Pulling him toward the noise and light.

  For a moment back then—

  He had almost gone.

  Almost stepped forward.

  Almost let himself be normal.

  Then he had considered the probabilities.

  And stepped back.

  Now he looked over the city he had built.

  Stable.

  Ordered.

  Predictable.

  Necessary.

  Sometimes he wondered what would have happened if the world had never ended.

  If gates had never appeared.

  If responsibility had never hardened him.

  Would they have stayed acquaintances?

  Friends?

  Something more?

  He dismissed the thought.

  Irrelevant.

  On the dock, Elira stood and stretched.

  The past wasn’t something she could return to.

  But it explained things.

  Why she trusted him.

  Why she trusted William.

  Why Tancred felt like family.

  They were all connected before power.

  Before politics.

  Before survival became ideology.

  She smiled faintly.

  “We were just kids,” she whispered.

  The ocean kept moving.

  The world kept changing.

  And somewhere between memory and reality—

  The people they used to be still existed.

  Quiet.

  Unreachable.

  But real.