Rotham stepped into the corridor of light.
The mirrored world behind him faded—quiet at last—but the path ahead was lined with flickering fragments of childhood: a broken toy drone, worn storybooks, and the glint of a hollow pendant that once hung around his mother's neck.
At the end of the corridor, standing beneath a canopy of shifting stars, was her.
She looked exactly as he remembered—soft eyes, warm smile—but her form glitched faintly, as if constructed from memory and not matter.
"You aren't real," Rotham whispered.
She tilted her head.
"I'm what's left of her. A loop caught in the Seed's final imprint. When the station collapsed, it tried to save what mattered to you most. That was… me."
He wanted to run to her. Wanted to scream. But he stood frozen.
"Why now?" he asked.
"Because your soul cracked," she replied. "And the Labyrinth responds to wounds unspoken."
She reached out—not touching, but close.
"You never forgave yourself for leaving me behind on Adra-9."
His breath caught.
"I couldn't save you."
"But you never stopped trying."
The stars above shifted, revealing echoes of every moment he risked everything—for Selin, for the Nexus, for freedom. Yet beneath each image was that core pain: the boy who grew up thinking power would bring her back.
"You became a guardian of possibility," she said gently. "But even possibility needs closure."
Her form began to fade, pixel by pixel.
Rotham stepped forward.
"Wait. I still have questions—"
"And I've given you the most important answer," she said. "You don't need to become someone else to be worthy. You already are."
The corridor shattered into light.
And Rotham stood in a quiet void.
But this time… he wasn't alone inside.