Nyelle couldn’t tell which hand she was holding.
One was small, its fingers cold and trembling. The other was almost the same size, but its grip felt strangely familiar, as though she had held it many times before and only recently forgotten how.
She tried to separate them by touch. The first hand had a rough patch near the thumb. The second was smoother, although something beneath its skin seemed to shift whenever she moved her fingers.
"Don’t move," Veyric said.
His voice came from somewhere ahead of her.
Nyelle wanted to turn towards it, but neither hand loosened. She could hear something scraping across the floor, followed by the quiet breathing of someone standing very close.
"Which one is you?" she whispered.
Neither answered.
Then the child on her left spoke.
"I’m the one you came for."
The child on her right gave a small, wounded laugh.
"You said that last time."
Nyelle stopped breathing for a moment. She knew that voice, or at least she knew the feeling it left behind. There was something painfully familiar about the way the child had said it, as though the words had been repeated so often that they no longer needed to be spoken loudly.
She tried to pull away.
The hands tightened simultaneously.
"Veyric!"
"I’m here."
His voice sounded closer now. Something brushed against her shoulder, and she felt him reach towards her, though he didn’t touch her.
"Don’t grab either hand," he warned. "Just tell me what you’re feeling."
"Two children."
"Anything else?"
Nyelle closed her eyes. It was difficult to concentrate with both figures holding her, especially when she could feel them waiting for her to make a choice.
"One of them is shaking."
"Which one?"
"The left."
A pause followed.
Then the child on her right whispered, "That’s how you knew last time."
Nyelle’s eyes opened.
"What?"
"You always chose the one who was afraid."
The small figure spoke from somewhere in the darkness.
"Nyelle, let go."
"I can’t."
"You can. They’re using your memory to hold you."
"I don’t know which one is real."
"That’s not what I asked."
The reply irritated her, partly because she understood what the figure meant and partly because she couldn’t do what it was asking. She had spent so much time trying to remember what happened that she had stopped trusting the memories she did have.
A sudden blue light illuminated the chamber.
Veyric stood several steps away, his right hand extended. The blue line beneath his skin had spread across his wrist, but its glow was weak. Their mother stood behind him, holding the metal phone, while the small figure watched Nyelle’s hands.
Eren was nowhere to be seen.
"Where is he?" Veyric asked.
"I don’t know," their mother replied.
She had been looking towards the dark passage when she answered. Now she turned her attention to Nyelle, and the worry on her face was difficult to miss.
The phone flickered.
[WITNESS RECORD: ACTIVE.]
[PHYSICAL CONTACT: TWO SUBJECTS.]
[SUBJECT IDENTIFICATION: UNRESOLVED.]
[WARNING: MEMORY-BASED SELECTION IN PROGRESS.]
Veyric read the final line twice.
"Don’t listen to what either of them says. Tell me what you remember about the hands."
Nyelle swallowed.
"The one on my left feels familiar."
"And the other?"
"It feels like someone I should know."
"That’s not an answer."
"It’s the only one I have."
The child on her left pulled gently.
"Come with me."
The one on her right didn’t move.
Instead, it said, "You don’t have to come back for me."
Nyelle looked down at their joined hands.
"Why would you say that?"
"Because you already did."
Something changed in her expression. Veyric noticed it immediately.
"What does that mean?" he asked.
The child didn’t answer.
The blue light flickered, and the small figure took a step towards Nyelle. It wasn’t looking at either child’s face. Its attention remained fixed on the places where their fingers met hers.
"I think the chamber has restored two memories," it said, "but it hasn’t restored them in the right order."
Veyric turned towards it. "Explain."
"The first time Nyelle opened the door, she took someone’s hand. The second memory is showing us the moment someone else reached for her."
Their mother moved closer.
"That’s not possible. There was only one opening."
"Then why are there two hands?" the figure asked.
She looked at the children, but neither offered her an answer.
Veyric took another step forward, careful not to cross the faint line of blue light spreading across the floor.
"Which one of you was behind the door?"
The child on the left answered immediately.
"Me."
The child on the right remained silent.
Veyric looked towards Nyelle. "Ask the other one."
She hesitated. Something about the silence bothered her more than the immediate answer from the left.
"Were you behind the door?"
The right hand tightened.
"I was holding it open."
The answer seemed to change the air around them.
The small figure stepped backwards.
Veyric noticed.
"You know something."
"I remember the door."
"Who was holding it?"
The figure looked at Nyelle.
"She was."
Nyelle shook her head. "I wasn’t."
"You were holding the door from the outside."
"Then who was holding it from the inside?"
The figure’s eyes moved towards the darkness.
"Me."
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Nyelle stared at it. She wanted to ask what it meant, but the question had already formed in her mind. If the figure had been inside the room, and she had been outside, then someone else had been standing between them.
The child on her right spoke again.
"You told me to stay."
Nyelle’s fingers loosened.
"I never—"
"You said you would come back after you found him."
A memory surfaced, not quite complete but clear enough to hurt.
A white corridor. A door with a narrow glass panel. A little boy sitting against the wall, his knees drawn to his chest. Nyelle standing on the other side, one hand pressed against the glass.
She remembered crying.
She remembered promising.
But she couldn’t remember whether the boy had been inside or outside.
"I came back," she whispered.
The child answered, "You came back with someone else."
The hand on her left suddenly released her.
Nyelle barely had time to react before the other child pulled her forward. Her feet slid across the floor, and the darkness beneath them shifted like something disturbed beneath water.
Veyric lunged.
His fingers caught her wrist just as a white circle opened beneath her feet. The blue line in his palm flashed, and the circle stopped expanding.
Pain travelled up his arm. He almost lost his grip, but Nyelle caught his sleeve with her free hand.
"Let her go!" he shouted.
The child holding Nyelle’s hand turned towards him.
For the first time, its face became visible.
It was a little boy, perhaps six years old, with dark hair falling over his forehead and a thin scar beneath his chin.
Veyric recognized the scar.
Not from his own face, but from the broken memory of a child lying on a narrow hospital bed.
"Eren?" he whispered.
The boy shook his head.
"That’s the name they gave the one who stayed."
Veyric tightened his grip on Nyelle.
"Then who are you?"
The boy studied him. There was no fear in his expression, only the exhausted patience of someone who had waited too long for a question.
"I’m the one who waited for you to remember."
The white circle pulsed.
Their mother raised the phone, almost dropping it when the screen changed.
[THIRD SUBJECT: PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION DETECTED.]
[MEMORY ANCHOR: NYELLE.]
[RECALL TARGET: VEYRIC.]
[RECALL DIRECTION: REVERSED.]
Their mother stared at the message.
"It’s trying to recall Veyric through Nyelle."
The small figure moved towards the circle.
"That’s not a recall."
"What is it?" Veyric demanded.
The figure looked at him.
"It’s trying to put you back where you were."
The floor shifted beneath them.
Veyric felt something pull at his chest, stronger than before. The blue line in his palm stretched towards the little boy, while the white marking around the boy’s wrist extended towards Nyelle.
The two markings met.
A memory struck Veyric so suddenly that his knees nearly gave way.
He was a child again.
He stood in the corridor, crying and pounding against a glass door. His hands were smaller, his voice unfamiliar, but the frustration was unmistakable. On the other side, Nyelle held another boy’s hand.
The boy looked exactly like him.
Nyelle was saying something, but the glass swallowed her voice. He could see her mouth moving. He could see the other boy looking at her, waiting for her to lead him away.
Then someone behind Veyric whispered:
You can leave now. She brought the right one back.
Young Veyric turned.
A woman in a white coat stood behind him.
Her face was their mother’s.
But her eyes were not.
"Come with me," she said.
Young Veyric shook his head.
"Not without him."
The woman crouched in front of him. Her expression softened, but there was something unsettling about the way she watched him, as though she already knew what he would say before he opened his mouth.
"He isn’t yours to take."
"He’s my brother."
The woman smiled sadly.
"No, Veyric. That’s why you have to forget."
The memory shattered.
Veyric returned to the chamber with a gasp. His arm was still locked around Nyelle’s wrist, and his palm burned where the blue line had connected with the white marking.
The little boy was staring at him.
"You remember now."
Veyric couldn’t answer immediately.
Nyelle looked between them. "What did you see?"
He glanced at the boy, then at their mother.
"I saw someone who looked like Mother."
Their mother took a step forward.
"Where?"
"In the corridor. She told me to forget."
The woman shook her head. "I never said that."
"I know."
Veyric looked at her face again. He had seen the woman clearly enough in the memory, but the details were already slipping away. He could still remember her eyes, though. That was the part he couldn’t reconcile with the mother standing beside him.
"Because it wasn’t you."
Their mother went still.
The small figure slowly approached them.
"I remember her."
Their mother turned towards it.
"Who was she?"
The figure’s expression tightened. For the first time since the chamber had opened, it seemed genuinely reluctant to speak.
"The woman who came after you."
A low mechanical sound echoed through the chamber.
The phone displayed another message.
[EXTERNAL AUTHORITY DETECTED.]
[WITNESS PRIVILEGE: REVOKED.]
[RECALL PROCESS: INTERRUPTED.]
[NEW INSTRUCTION RECEIVED.]
Their mother tried to touch the screen, but it went dark beneath her fingers.
"What’s happening?"
The small figure stepped away from the white circle.
"Something has noticed the connection."
"Who?" Veyric asked.
The figure didn’t answer.
The phone lit again.
[RETURN THE ORIGINAL TO HIS POSITION.]
The white circle beneath Veyric opened.
Something reached up from inside it.
Not a hand.
A small metal object, shaped like a key, with three markings carved into its surface. It rose slowly, turning once before stopping just above the floor.
The little boy immediately released Nyelle.
"Don’t let him take that."
Veyric stared at the key.
"Who?"
The boy looked towards the ceiling.
"The one who closed the door."
A voice answered from above them.
"That’s enough, Eren."
Everyone looked up.
A figure stood on a narrow platform that hadn’t been there before. None of them had heard it appear, and the platform seemed to extend out of the darkness rather than belong to the chamber.
It wore a white coat.
Its face was hidden, but its voice was unmistakable.
It sounded exactly like their mother.
The woman standing beside Veyric made a small, broken sound.
For a moment, she simply stared. Then she began to cry.
"That’s the one," she whispered.
Veyric turned towards her.
"Mother?"
She couldn’t look away from the figure above them.
"That’s the person I was following."