POV: Aria
I hung up.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking. The phone clattered to the floor.
Your sister isn't your sister.
Dominic has known for five years.
We need to talk about what you really are.
The headache hit like a hammer to the brain.
I gasped, clutching my head. It felt like something was splitting open inside my head. Cracking. Breaking. Tearing apart walls that had been there my whole life.
"No, no, no—" I stumbled toward the bed but didn't make it. My knees hit the floor hard.
The pain exploded. White-hot. Blinding.
And then— I remember. — The convention center stage falls. Metal and wood and yelling. I try to run but there's nowhere to go. Something heavy hits my back. The world goes dark.
"Ms. Xu? Ms. Xu, can you hear me?"
I can't breathe. Can't move. Everything hurts.
"We're losing her. Raven, stay with us!"
But I'm already gone. —
The memories crashed through me like a huge wave. Thirty-five years of another life. Another world. Another name.
Raven Xu.
I was Raven Xu.
I made Eternal Nightmare. Silent Apartment 404. The Flesh Garden. Games so psychologically devastating that governments banned them. Games that knew fear at a level no one else had ever reached.
I'd been the best. The most controversial. The most feared name in horror games.
And I'd died.
Crushed under a collapsing stage at a gaming gathering in Tokyo. Age thirty-five. At the peak of my career.
Then I woke up as a baby. In this world. Where feelings had real power and monsters were real.
For twenty-three years, those thoughts had been locked away. Sealed behind walls I didn't even know existed.
Until tonight.
I pushed myself up, breathing. My image stared back from the black tablet screen. Same face. Same basic features. But my eyes were different now. They held the weight of fifty-eight years of life.
"I remember," I whispered. "I remember everything."
The events where fans dressed as characters from my games. The death threats from parents who blamed me for their kids' fears. The awards. The talks. The day I revealed Silent Apartment 404 and watched grown adults cry during the demo.
The rush of knowing I'd made something that could reach inside people's minds and twist.
In my old world, games were just fun. Stories told through conversation.
But here? Here, negative feelings were literal fuel. Spirit Warriors absorbed fear and anger to power their skills. The entire society ran on gathering emotional energy.
And they were doing it so wrong. So inefficiently.
Street performances that created weak, scattered fear. Basic combat training that caused minor anxiety. They were children playing with matches, totally unaware of the inferno I could create.
A laugh bubbled up. Started quiet, then grew louder.
Because suddenly, I knew.
This wasn't punishment. It wasn't the end.
It was a chance.
They'd stripped my license? Perfect. I didn't need their permits or their rules anymore.
They'd taken everything? Even better. I had nothing left to lose.
They'd pushed me into a corner and expected me to break?
They'd just armed the most dangerous person they'd ever meet.
I laughed harder. The sound echoed weird in my tiny flat. Probably seemed crazy.
Maybe I was crazy. Maybe dying twice did that to a person.
But I was also free.
I grabbed my tablet and started typing. My fingers flew across the cracked screen, muscle memory from two lives coming together.
Game creation wasn't just about graphics or mechanics. It was about psychology. Understanding what made people tick. What scared them at a basic level. What kept them awake at night.
In my old life, I'd spent years studying fear reactions. How the brain handled threat. How anticipation could be more terrifying than the real scare. How sound and silence could manipulate feelings better than any visual.
This world had Spirit Warriors who could sense emotional energy. Who took it for power.
But they'd never experienced true horror games. Never felt fear crafted especially to burrow into the deepest parts of the mind and stay there.
I could make that. Not just stories, but experiences that would produce concentrated terror unlike anything this world had seen.
And that fear would make me powerful.
Strong enough to find out what happened to Celeste. Strong enough to face Dominic and demand the truth. Strong enough to make everyone who'd wronged me understand exactly what they'd awakened.
My fingers stopped on the screen.
The voice on the phone. The words.
Your sister isn't your sister.
She's been draining you for seventeen years.
The real Celeste died when you were six.
I closed my eyes, focused on memories. Real memories, from before my past life woke.
Celeste at age three, holding my hand on the first day of school. Celeste at six, crying at Mom's funeral. Celeste at ten, winning her first Spirit Warrior tournament.
I'd been there for all of it. Raised her after Mom died. Protected her. Loved her.
But...
Now that I was looking—really looking—there were gaps. Moments that didn't quite fit. A three-year-old who never threw tantrums. A six-year-old who adjusted to Mom's death too quickly. A sister who always knew exactly what to say to make me feel weak.
And those eyes in the Council room. Too bright. Too hungry. Too wrong.
What if the voice was telling the truth?
What if my sister had been replaced seventeen years ago, and I'd been too blind to see it?
What if everything—every failure, every setback, every moment I'd felt strangely weak—was because something had been feeding on me for seventeen years?
My tablet buzzed. Another message. Same mystery number.
She's coming for you tonight. The Mimic doesn't leave open ends. You have three hours. Maybe less.
My blood went cold.
If you want to live, meet me at the Old Clock Tower in the Rust District. Come alone. Bring nothing. Trust no one.
Especially not the memories you just got back. They're not the gift you think they are.
I looked at that last line.
What did that mean?
Another message.
The Nightmare King didn't choose you randomly, Aria. You're not reborn. You're the cage. And tonight, when the Mimic comes, the lock breaks.
The tablet slipped from my shaking hands.
Nightmare King. Cage. Lock.
The words circled in my head, but they didn't make sense. I was Raven Xu, reborn in this world. That's what the memories showed.
Right?
A sound outside my door. Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate.
Then a voice. Sweet and comfortable and wrong.
"Aria? Are you home? I brought food. We should talk about what happened today."
Celeste's voice.
But I hadn't heard her come up the stairs. Hadn't heard the building door open.
She'd just... appeared.
"I know you're upset with me," Celeste continued through the door. "But I'm still your sister. I still love you. Let me in. Let me explain everything."
Her hand tried the handle. It rocked but held.
"Aria, please. Don't make this harder than it needs to be."
Something in her voice changed. Dropped lower. Lost the sweet tone.
"I've waited seventeen years. Fed so carefully. So patiently. But you had to remember, didn't you? You couldn't just stay weak and broken like you were meant to."
The doorknob rattled harder.
"Open this door, sister. We have so much to talk. Like why you're suddenly remembering a life that never existed. And what's really locked inside that pretty little head of yours."
The door started to crack.