Kairo followed her in silence.
He wasn't sure why.
The message from his other self still rang in his ears — "Don't trust her."
And yet… here he was. Following the girl who didn't exist, through a corridor that didn't belong in this version of the tower.
Undefined.A bug in the system.What does that make me?
They passed through a door that wasn't there a second ago.
Beyond it: a garden.
Not a real one. Not a Core-grown preserve.
This one was made of glass and decay — vines of exposed cable twisting up shattered data pylons, petals of raw light flickering like holograms on the edge of collapse.
At its center:
A single flower.
It pulsed gently with red, white, and black — colors that didn't obey the Layer's visual code.
Kairo stopped walking.
His chest tightened.
It was the same flower from the alley.
Astra watched him from the edge of the room.
She didn't speak.
Just waited.
Kairo stepped forward, slowly.
The closer he got, the more he felt the hum beneath his skin. A subtle vibration… like a memory that hadn't happened yet.
"It's alive," he whispered.
Astra finally spoke.
"It's not. It's remembered."
He turned to her.
She approached — slow, careful, as if afraid the world might shatter beneath their feet.
"It's called a Fracture Bloom," she said."It grows in the moments between death and overwrite."
Kairo stared.
"Between?"
She nodded.
"It only appears when a timeline dies but the memory doesn't."
The flower shifted — pulsing now with a soft static, like a heartbeat breaking into pixels.
Kairo knelt down beside it.
"Is this… mine?"
"No," Astra said. "It's ours."
He looked up, confused.
She crouched beside him, resting her hand just above the petals — not touching. Never touching.
"This is where we met. A different time. A different version.""You died here. I remembered."
"And somehow… the flower remembered too."
Kairo looked at her.
"So how many of these are there?"
She closed her eyes.
"I've seen five."
They sat in silence for a while.
The tower around them groaned — not from weight, but from memory resonance. A soft distortion passed over the air like a sigh.
"I don't get it," Kairo said. "Why would a flower grow from… death?"
Astra's voice was quieter now.
"Because resonance doesn't die. It loops."
"These blooms are proof that something happened. That someone mattered — even if the system forgets."
"They're glitches the Core can't erase."
Kairo's fingers hovered just over the petals.
They flickered.
And then—flashed.
A vision slammed into his mind:
A version of him, running through this tower
Bleeding, glitching
Astra, screaming something he couldn't hear
A hand reaching for hers
A Reaper's blade through his chest
The world collapsing into light—
Then gone.
Kairo gasped and fell back.
Astra caught him.
"It remembered you," she said softly.
He panted, chest rising and falling.
"I… I was here. I died here."
"You did."
"But I'm still here."
"You are."
They didn't move for a long moment.
Then Kairo asked:
"Do you think… I'm just another failed version?"
Astra didn't answer at first.
Then she stood.
Looked down at him.
Eyes soft.
"I think you're the one who left a flower behind."
She turned to leave.
Kairo looked back at the bloom — now dim again, just pulsing softly like before.
He stood.Wiped the dust from his jacket.And followed her.
As the door closed behind them, the flower pulsed once more.
And this time…its petals bent slightly toward the place he'd sat.