They stepped into the storm.
The corridor twisted around them like a serpent, walls pulsing with every heartbeat. Time bled in the air—moments from different lives flickered past their skin like static.
Auren gritted her teeth. “It’s getting stronger.”
Riven nodded, his voice tight. “This part of the Rift isn’t meant to be stable.”
Suddenly, the path beneath them cracked. A scream—someone’s, maybe theirs—echoed into the endless dark as they fell.
And then—
Silence.
They landed hard. Not on a floor—but in mid-air. Floating.
Before them: a sky with no stars.
Just a massive shape, pulsing slowly like a beating heart. It was mechanical… organic… something in-between.
The Heart of the Rift.
It wasn’t a machine, or a place.
It was alive.
Auren floated forward, drawn toward it. “This is the source. Where everything began.”
Riven’s voice shook. “Or where everything ends.”
A pulse rippled from the Heart.
Suddenly, memories invaded them. Not their own.
An entire civilization. Advanced beyond comprehension. They’d built the Rift. To escape extinction. To rewrite their fate.
But the experiment backfired.
Instead of creating a safe haven, they shattered their entire existence across time.
They had one last chance—to seal the Rift and store their essence in memory fragments. Shards.
“They became the guardians,” Auren whispered. “They fractured themselves.”
“And they want us to finish what they couldn’t.”
---
A portal opened behind them.
But not one they created.
Through it stepped a figure in black—robes of smoke, face hidden by shifting masks.
The Riftwraith.
Voice like a storm:
> “You carry the shards. The pieces of them. And yet… you walk toward oblivion.”
Riven stepped in front of Auren, blade drawn. “You’re too late.”
The Riftwraith laughed. “No. You are. The Heart isn’t a solution. It’s a choice. Reset… or consume.”
Auren raised the shard in her hand. “We’ve come this far. We choose to restore what was broken.”
The Riftwraith’s form shimmered—twisting into hundreds of forms at once. “Then you choose war.”
---
The battle ignited.
Swords of light. Time freezing, bending. Explosions of memory shrapnel.
Auren danced between echoes—versions of herself helping her in flashes.
Riven split timelines—outsmarting the Wraith by fighting in multiple moments at once.
The Heart pulsed harder—responding to the will of its chosen.
Then, together, they thrust their shard into the core.
A scream echoed across all time.
And the Heart… began to heal.
---
Elsewhere
The shadowed throne shattered.
The silver-eyed scientist watched her world unravel, and whispered a single word:
> “Rewritten.”
---
Back in real time
Riven and Auren collapsed in the now-silent chamber.
The Heart had stopped pulsing.
The Rift had closed.
And above them—stars returned to the sky.
---
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