Tick.
Tick.
The weight of the ticking didn't come from the clock anymore.
It came from inside him.
The sound crawled through his veins, dragged itself up his spine like a whisper that knew his name.
Hale squeezed Ivy's hand tighter.
Her warmth flickered.
Not like fading heat
more like a dying signal.
Like she was being swallowed by a bad dream.
"Don't let go," he whispered again.
He took a step forward.
But Ivy didn't.
When Hale pulled
his hand slipped through hers.
No resistance.
No grip.
Just smoke.
He stumbled, then turned back.
And Ivy...
was fading.
Her face blurred into colors.
Her outline broke apart like mist dissolving into cold air.
Only her eyes stayed a second longer.
Wide.
Afraid.
Not of what was happening
but of what she already knew was coming.
And then
she was gone.
Not erased.
Not taken.
Just...
forgotten by the air itself.
Hale turned back toward the Door.
It stood taller now.
Older.
Wrong.
The wood didn't creak.
It breathed.
Like it was alive.
Like it had waited years for him to reach it.
Like it was scared of what came next.
Hale hesitated.
But the ticking in his chest
tick... tick...
—it didn't.
He stepped forward.
Pressed his hand to the wood.
The chill bit into his skin immediately.
The mark on his chest burned in response
not in warning, but in recognition.
Like the mark had been waiting for this door longer than Hale had known the door even existed.
"I don't care what's behind you," Hale muttered through clenched teeth.
He turned the handle.
And pulled.
It wasn't darkness that swallowed him.
It was memory.
Not his memories
but millions he'd never lived.
They flooded his mind in jagged fragments.
Flashes.
Unfinished screams.
A city on fire.
A hand reaching out from under rubble.
Ivy crying in a world that didn't remember her name.
And everywhere
Mirrors.
But no glass.
Reflections without light.
Places that showed you who you could've been—
but never were.
And at the center of it all
on a twisted, broken throne made from forgotten timelines—
sat ALP.
Waiting.
A smile so wide it almost tore his face apart.
Like he'd been waiting centuries
for Hale
to make this mistake.