Chapter 11: Don't Look Too Long
They walked side by side. But never close enough to touch.
Between them stretched a silence too deliberate to be accidental. Not heavy. Not angry. Just… charged. Like the air before a storm.
Aria carried the weight of her newly filled storage like a secret she hadn't asked for. It pulsed quietly at her side — a growing space that responded only to her. It hadn't said a word, hadn't made a sound, but she could feel it expanding each time she reached into it. Like a lung learning to breathe on its own. Like something alive.
Selene walked with purpose but not urgency, her blade tucked under one arm, jacket slung over one shoulder. She didn't check behind her. She didn't offer conversation. Her presence was steady, calculated, and deeply human in a way Aria couldn't figure out. That scared her. More than the shadows that moved wrong. More than the sky that folded in half at midnight. Selene made the world feel smaller. Closer. Like maybe it was meant for only two people, and everyone else was just residue.
They reached the edge of town as the sun began to fold into the earth, casting long shadows and gilding broken rooftops in gold. The sky above them bled violet and amber. Storefronts leaned against one another like drunk ghosts. A traffic light blinked yellow without rhythm, as if it had forgotten how patterns worked.
Aria stepped over a cracked sidewalk, her boot scuffing the edge of a broken "Children at Play" sign.
"Selene," she said suddenly, her voice more like a thought spoken aloud. "How do you know so much?"
Selene's eyes didn't leave the road. "I survived longer."
"That's not an answer."
"No," Selene said, not unkindly. "It's not."
She didn't explain.
Aria didn't know what she wanted from her. She just wanted something. A thread. A knot. A reason. Something to hold onto while the rest of the world refused to stay still.
She walked faster, catching up to Selene's pace, frustration rising like steam from a boiling pot. "You said I died. That I sacrificed myself. Why would I do that? I'm not brave."
Selene stopped mid - step.
She turned, just slightly, the soft gold light carving a shadow from her cheekbone down to her jaw. "You are."
"You don't even know me."
Selene looked at her then. Really looked. And in that moment, Aria felt the heat drain from her chest like someone had pulled the plug on a fever.
"I do," Selene said.
The words clung to the air like condensation, invisible but heavy.
Aria stopped walking. She stood still in the center of the ruined road, unsure if she was supposed to argue or believe her. Her hand curled into the strap of her bag, knuckles whitening.
"Then why don't I know you?" she asked, quieter now. "Why don't I remember?"
Selene paused a few steps ahead. The sun dipped behind a billboard half - eaten by rust. She didn't face her fully. Just enough for Aria to see the shape of her profile. The line of her spine.
"Because you haven't remembered me yet."
Something cracked in Aria's chest. A small thing. But not unimportant.
"…Do I want to?" she whispered.
Selene took a breath. It wasn't shaky. But it was deliberate.
"I hope so," she said.
And for the first time since they met, Selene sounded afraid.
They didn't speak again until long after the sun disappeared. The sky bruised itself across the horizon, painting clouds with deep plum and ink. They found shelter on the roof of an old insurance office, the faded company logo peeling beneath a fresh coat of rust. Vines crawled up the brick like veins seeking warmth.
Aria used a piece of metal piping to wedge the rooftop hatch shut from the inside. The building groaned when she touched it, like something had been waiting for movement.
She didn't ask if they were safe. She knew better now.
The rooftop was wide, scattered with discarded chairs and broken satellite dishes. Someone had tried to grow herbs in old soda bottles once. Now the bottles lay shattered, roots curled dry in the dirt like fingers trying to remember how to hold.
Selene sat with her back to the wall, blade resting across her lap. She didn't speak. Didn't fidget. Just watched the city's edge.
Aria spread out a stolen blanket and curled onto her side. The air bit through her sleeves, wind whispering over the rooftop in sharp little sighs. She watched the stars above. There were too many. And they were too bright. Like the sky had forgotten how to regulate its own heartbeat.
"Feels like I'm dreaming someone else's life," Aria whispered. "Like I'm standing where she stood… saying what she might've said… but I don't know who she is."
Selene didn't respond at first.
But then — barely louder than the wind —
"She loved too much."
Aria turned her face. "What?"
Selene's eyes were still fixed on the edge of the rooftop. Her fingers traced the handle of her blade, slow and careful. Like it was a prayer. Or a promise.
"She gave everything," Selene said. "Over and over. Even when it broke her. Especially then."
Aria swallowed. Her throat felt like it was lined with sand.
"And you?" she asked. "What did you give?"
Selene didn't answer.
But her jaw tightened. And in the starlight, Aria thought she saw it — the smallest tremor in the hands of a girl who never shook.
They both fell silent again.
Somewhere far below, metal groaned. A car alarm started and never stopped. A cat screamed without sound. The city shifted, but never moved. Like it was waiting to exhale.
Aria turned over, facing away now. The blanket barely kept out the cold, but she didn't mind. The chill was real. And real things mattered.
Behind her, Selene didn't sleep.
Aria closed her eyes.
And tried to remember the girl she used to be.
Not the one who stored entire markets inside her chest. Not the one who ran from freezing skies and men with broken smiles. The one who had a name she recognized. A laugh she didn't second - guess. Hands that weren't afraid to touch someone else's.
But memory was slippery. Half - frozen. Always just outside reach.
She saw flashes instead.
A hallway full of mirrors.
A garden that grew in the dark.
Selene's hand in hers, burning hot.
The moon with her face.
And something she shouldn't have seen —
a face in the window.
Not outside.
Inside.
Looking out.
She jerked awake with a start.
Her breath visible.
The stars had rearranged themselves.
One blinked red.
And didn't stop.
She stared back at it too long.
And it smiled.