The wind howled as the group gathered at the train yard on the city's edge—abandoned since the first fracture outbreak. Tylor stood apart, staring at the rusted rails, eyes haunted. This place… it echoed with memory.
"This is where I last saw her," he said quietly. "Before she vanished. Before the balloon, before the time machine."
Amaira moved closer. "You mean me?"
He nodded. "In the original timeline, I remember chasing you. But something… stopped me. I heard a voice—my father's. He was there. He took you."
Kayla, hand clutching her pendant, whispered, "This place hums with fracture residue. Like time's trying to overwrite itself here."
Elias scanned the surroundings. "No Collective signals. But the spiral's pulling. You feel it?"
Tylor stepped onto the platform. Beneath a collapsed bench was a cracked stone disk, engraved with the same helix-hourglass symbol. The locket around his neck pulsed brightly. He knelt and touched the disk.
Suddenly, the world shifted.
For a split second, everything flickered—gray skies turned crimson, the train yard replaced by a wasteland version of itself. And in the distance, two figures played by the tracks: a young Tylor and Amaira.
Tylor stared, breath stolen. "It's… us."
Kayla held him steady. "A memory fracture. The second lock is hidden inside your regret."
The locket grew warm in his hand. The moment intensified: young Amaira reached for her balloon. It slipped. She cried out. Young Tylor hesitated, turned… and froze.
A shadow emerged behind him—Daniel.
"No," Tylor muttered. "He's here."
Older Daniel, dressed in the dark coat he wore in 2045, appeared in the flicker-memory. He reached out, grabbed Amaira, and vanished into a ripple of time. Young Tylor screamed.
The memory ended.
Back in the real world, Tylor fell to his knees. Amaira caught him. "I remember now," he whispered. "Dad wasn't controlled. He chose to take her."
Daniel, standing behind them, looked hollow. "I didn't have a choice. Not then. Not the way you think."
The cracked stone disk split open. Inside, a second spiral key glowed blue. The Regret Key.
As Tylor touched it, two things happened.
The oak tree in their backyard flared with light—roots snaking deeper, spiraling toward something underground.
And a fracture opened in the air beside them—silent, vertical, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Through it, a voice echoed.
"Archivist access granted. Vault coordinates unlocked."
Amaira turned to Kayla. "We're not just fixing time anymore."
Kayla nodded. "We're about to uncover it."