Lucy opened her eyes, but she wasn't in the ruin anymore.
She was standing in a field of stars. Not under them—among them. Floating stones drifted by like silent birds, glowing slightly in deep indigo hues. Her feet weren't touching anything solid, yet she wasn't falling. It was as if the universe had forgotten gravity existed.
She breathed in slowly. The air here was soft. Thick with something unexplainable. Memory? Emotion?
She turned around. There was no sign of the others. No fire. No forest. No walls. Just stars, stretching endlessly. And in the middle of it all stood a door.
Tall. Ancient. Wooden. A golden handle, shaped like an infinity loop. It pulsed faintly, as if it knew she was watching.
Lucy walked toward it. Every step felt like it took both a second and a lifetime. The closer she got, the more distant everything behind her became. When she reached it, her hand hesitated inches from the handle.
A voice spoke. Soft. Familiar. But not real.
Almost ready, aren't you?
She didn't flinch. Somehow, she'd expected it.
Who are you? she asked aloud, but her voice didn't echo.
The voice didn't answer. Instead, the door creaked—just a little. A thin sliver of black mist leaked through the opening.
She stepped back.
A single word floated through her thoughts, not spoken, but etched like lightning into her mind: remember.
Then everything shattered.
She woke up gasping.
The fire had burned out. Kitty was asleep beside her, arm loosely draped over Lucy's. Everyone else lay around the ruin in quiet exhaustion.
Lucy sat up, holding her head. It wasn't a dream. Not the usual kind. Something had touched her while she was unconscious. Something that had waited a long time.
She looked down at her hand.
There was a black mark. Faint. Like an ink blotch or a fragment of a symbol. She rubbed at it, but it didn't come off.
The door. The stars. The whisper.
She didn't know what it meant—but she knew it meant something.
The group moved out early that morning. No one spoke much. Susan checked their bearings with a glyph compass, noting that the forest had shifted again. Frank was quieter than usual, and Peter kept glancing behind them, as if he expected something to follow.
Tom walked beside Lucy for a while. He hadn't said anything directly about what the faceless figure from the pillar had said. Neither had she. But now, he looked over and said, "You okay?"
Lucy hesitated, then nodded. "Just tired."
"You looked pale when you woke up."
"I'm fine, Tom. Really."
He didn't push further. He just gave her a small nod and walked ahead.
Lucy didn't know why, but that made her chest ache more than anything else.
As they trekked deeper into the woods, the trees began to change. Not just shape—but age. Some were fossilized. Stone versions of their old selves. Others were hollow and glassy, like they had been flash-frozen by time itself. No birds sang. No animals moved. Only the sound of boots on fractured dirt and the occasional whisper of glyph energy humming from Susan's bag.
They reached a clearing by midday.
But this one wasn't natural.
It was a perfect circle, etched with deep runes that glowed even in daylight. In the center stood a structure—round, metallic, half-buried. Like a dome made of silver bone. Glyphs etched across it pulsed slowly, and air shimmered around it like heat rising off stone.
Jack stepped toward it and frowned. "Looks like a vault."
"It's not," Susan said quietly. "It's a memory engine."
Frank raised an eyebrow. "A what?"
Susan walked forward, her hand tracing a symbol on her lens. "It's old tech. Ancient glyph-coding systems meant to preserve or destroy memories. This one's active. Barely."
Peter looked uncomfortable. "Preserve or destroy?"
"Depends on the command it was given," she said. "And who gave it."
Tom approached the structure and placed a hand against it.
Nothing happened.
Then Lucy stepped forward.
The moment her fingers touched the surface, it lit up.
The glyphs along its edge burned red, then silver, then faded to violet. A hum rose from the ground beneath them.
Susan jumped back. "It's responding to her!"
Lucy's mouth went dry. "I didn't do anything."
Then the voice returned. Not aloud. Not around them.
Inside her.
Almost ready, aren't you?
Her eyes snapped wide. She stepped back quickly.
"What happened?" Kitty asked.
"I heard it again," Lucy said. "The same voice. From the dream."
Frank was already drawing his sword. "Back away from it."
"No—wait," Lucy said. "I don't think it's hostile. I think it's... showing me something."
Tom frowned. "Like what?"
Lucy closed her eyes. The voice was silent now. But she could feel it again. Not in words. In pressure.
Like being pulled gently toward a cliff she couldn't see.
The dome shifted.
A seam opened along its middle, unfolding like petals, revealing a smooth, black surface beneath—glass-like, polished, and swirling with mist.
Inside it—images flickered.
Not projections. Not memories.
Possibilities.
She saw herself standing on a hill, surrounded by flames.
She saw herself holding Kitty's hand, crying.
She saw herself walking alone through a dead city.
She saw herself standing above Frank—his sword shattered, his eyes hollow.
She saw herself standing before a throne made of fractured glyphs.
She stepped back, gasping. The dome closed instantly.
"What did you see?" Tom asked.
"I don't know," she said. "Things that haven't happened. Things that might."
Kitty looked worried. "You sure you're okay?"
Lucy nodded, but her knees felt weak.
That night, when they set camp again, Lucy sat apart from the others. She stared at the stars, but they didn't feel like the ones she remembered. The mark on her hand had faded, but the pressure in her chest hadn't.
She whispered, "Why me?"
The voice didn't answer this time.
But she knew it was still listening.
And deep in the black space between stars, a figure opened its eyes.
Smiling.