The Architect´s Choice

Aria ran.

The corridors of the tower stretched endlessly before her, a labyrinth of metal and glass, their edges illuminated by the cold, sterile glow of overhead lights. Her boots pounded against the floor, each step fueled by desperation, by rage, by something primal clawing its way to the surface. The alarms screamed overhead, a mechanical wail that barely registered over the pounding of her pulse.

Neon was somewhere in here. Somewhere...

Behind her, the echoes of battle still raged. The Architect’s soldiers, relentless and unyielding, had thrown everything they had at them. But they hadn’t been enough.

Not to stop her.She had cut through them like a blade, her mind a blur of movement, of instinct. The fight still clung to her like static, the sensation of steel, of dodging gunfire and countering strikes with deadly precision.

None of it mattered now, though. What mattered was ahead.

Her people were fighting back there to provide her with this chance. This *was* her only chance.

The hall loomed before her—massive, cathedral-like, its towering ceiling lost in shadow. The doors had been thrown open, a gaping maw leading into darkness. Aria skidded to a halt at the threshold, breath heaving, sweat lining her brow.

And then she saw them.

Neon.

He lay crumpled on the cold, polished floor beside another person she recognized as Sakura. None of them were moving. Motionless.

Aria’s breath hitched in her throat. The world lurched sideways.

For a moment, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t think.

No. No, no, no.

Her feet were moving before she realized it, her body propelling her forward as a scream tore from her lips and echoed throughout the thick walls of the hall.

“Neon!”

She fell to her knees beside him, hands shaking as she reached out. His face was slack, his dark hair mixing with the blackened floor. His body was still.

Panic coiled in her chest, suffocating.

Her hands hovered over him, hesitating—afraid, terrified of what she might find. She pressed two trembling fingers to his throat, searching for a pulse.

Nothing? No, it couldn´t be.

She choked on a breath.

No.

No, he couldn’t be—

With a strangled sob, she shifted, pressing her ear gently against his chest over his clothes, listening desperately.

Silence.

And then—

Ba-dump.A heartbeat. Faint. Weak. But there. Then another one.

Her breath shuddered out of her.

Relief slammed into her like a tidal wave, so overwhelming that for a moment, she could do nothing but clutch at his jacket, forehead pressed to his chest as she gasped for air.He was alive.

Tears burned at the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. Not yet.

She pulled back slightly, brushing a hand against his cheek, fingers barely touching the skin as if afraid he might break beneath her touch.

“Neon,” she whispered, voice raw. “Wake up. Please.”

Nothing.

Her gaze darted to Sakura, lying a few feet away. The woman’s body was limp, her long hair fanned out like a halo. Her face was pale, too pale, but her chest still rose and fell with shallow breaths.

What the hell had happened here?

Aria’s eyes flickered around the hall.

It was massive—ornate and ancient, as if built by hands long since turned to dust. The walls shimmered with strange symbols, pulsing faintly with an energy she didn’t recognize. The air was thick, charged, like the aftermath of a storm.

And then she noticed the machine.

It loomed in the background, a monolith of steel and circuitry, humming with a sickly violet glow. Something about it made her skin crawl, like it wasn’t supposed to exist in this world.A fresh wave of fury burned through her veins. The Architect had done this.

Her hands clenched into fists, nails biting into her palms. She wasn’t going to let it end like this.

Taking a steadying breath, she turned back to Neon, her fingers finding his wrist, squeezing.“Come back,” she murmured, voice softer now. “Come back to me.”

Even though he didn´t react, she could be certain that Neon was alive. And that meant the fight wasn’t over.

Not by a long shot.

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The sky inside Neon’s dream felt both open and suffocating, like he could fall forever if he took a wrong step. The air was still, thick with something unseen. Memory. Regret. Time frozen in a space that didn’t belong to any world.

And there, standing across from him, was Sakura.

Her hair fell past her shoulders, moving as if caught in an unseen current. Her face was unreadable, eyes distant but steady, fixed on something beyond him. He had so many questions he didn’t know which to ask first. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, his pulse erratic.

“The Architect,” he said finally. “Who is he?”

Sakura blinked, a slow, deliberate movement. “Peter.”

Neon’s breath caught in his throat.

She exhaled softly, folding her arms, as if the weight of those memories pressed against her bones. “He was one of the scientists you just saw,” she said. “And he was my lover. We lived a life together before all of this. Before the world became what it is now.”

Neon’s mind reeled. A scientist. Not a god. Not some unknowable entity pulling strings from the shadows. Just a man. He swallowed. “He created all of this?”

Sakura nodded. “At the very end. When everything was falling apart, when the world was about to be swallowed by war, he used the machine. Froze time. Recreated everything as he wanted it to be.” She looked up, as if staring past the sky itself. “He made the nations of Nyxia and Militia. He made sure they would always fight. That their war would never end. That their war would be the fuel that kept this world alive.”

Neon felt a sharp, twisting pressure in his chest.

“He did all that… just to make people fight?”

“No,” Sakura whispered. “He did it so we could live forever.”

Neon stared at her.

“That’s what he wanted,” she went on. “To be with me. Always.” Her voice was quiet, almost fragile. “That was his answer. A world that never moves forward. A war that never ends. Because as long as it continued, as long as the cycle kept repeating, then we would never have to say goodbye.” She lowered her gaze back to Neon, her expression unreadable.

“He loved me. But he feared losing me more.”

The words sat heavy in the air between them.

Neon felt something dark coil in his stomach, something bitter and raw. “Then why us?” he asked, voice sharp, almost accusing. “Why me and Aria? Why now? You had all this time—why didn’t you pick someone else?”

Sakura was silent for a long moment. Then she sighed, a sound that carried centuries of weight. “Because I saw myself in you,” she said. “In both of you.”

Neon flinched.

She smiled, but there was something sad about it. “You and Aria don’t belong anywhere, do you?” she murmured. “You never have. You fight against everything. Against what people expect of you. Against what you expect of yourself. You two are always clashing, always struggling, like two forces that should never exist in the same space.”

She tilted her head. “Just like Peter and me. That´s what made me finally realize that I never wanted me and him to be this way.”

Neon’s throat felt tight. He thought about Aria. About their fights, their silences, the way they could never seem to pull apart no matter how hard they tried. He thought about the way she looked at him sometimes.

“You reminded me of something I lost,” Sakura continued. “Something I wanted. A life that could have been. If we had lived normally. If we had grown old together instead of chasing eternity.” Her fingers curled into her palms. “This eternal life we share together, it was never my choice.”

Neon frowned.

She turned away, staring into the distance. “The experiment failed,” she said, voice flat. “Peter made the decision for both of us. He took the choice away from me.” A sharp exhale. “And then, for years, I just… watched.”

She glanced back at him and continued. “Then you came. Both of you. Struggling. Fighting. Trying so hard at every turn. You’ve touched so many lives. And I kept wondering—if I had been given a choice, would I have chosen something different?”

Neon exhaled, slow and steady. His mind spun, trying to grasp what she was saying.“That’s why you brought me and Aria together,” he said, realization sinking in. “That’s why you made us work together, forced us to settle our differences.”Sakura didn’t deny it.

“You wanted to see if we would take a different path,” Neon murmured.

“Yes.”

She looked at him then, and there was something raw in her gaze. Something almost pleading.

“I wanted to see if I could place my hopes in you.”Neon swallowed. His fingers twitched. He thought about Aria. About the moments they had shared. About the way their lives had been twisted into something they had no control over.His jaw clenched.

“And what about Aria’s father?” he demanded suddenly. “You said he was dead. But he’s not, is he?”

Sakura’s expression darkened.

“…No.”

Neon felt the ground beneath him tilt.“I saved him,” Sakura said, voice quiet. “Moments before his death. I brought him back… as one of the soldiers under me. He understood me, and he decided to help me.”

Neon’s breath came fast, uneven. His mind raced.

“He never died?” he whispered.

Sakura shook her head. “No.”

And just like that, something in Neon snapped into place.

The Architect didn’t control life itself. He wasn’t some all-powerful being who could bring the dead back. He had to find different ways.

“He couldn’t control life,” Neon murmured. “So he built a world that was the perfect embodiment of eternity.”

Sakura nodded. “A world fueled by hate, not love,” she whispered.

Neon felt something cold slide down his spine. She had wanted something different. But Peter had made his choice.

And now they were all trapped inside it. Over time, she had grown tired of it.

Neon inhaled sharply. He thought about Aria. About everything she had fought for. About how she had believed she was alone all this time. About the war that had shaped them.

He clenched his fists.

“You think we can break this cycle,” he said.

Sakura met his gaze. She nodded.

Silence stretched between them.

And then—

The sky around them flickered, like a glitch in a system.

Neon exhaled, shoulders tense.

“…What if we do?” he asked. “What if we break it?”

Sakura’s lips parted slightly. A flicker of something crossed her face. Hope. Fear. He wasn’t sure.

But then she smiled.

A real smile.

And for the first time, Neon thought—

Maybe they weren’t too late.

The scene gradually dissolved again, with Neon finding himself in a familiar nightmare as he looked around him.

The day everything had changed.