Chapter 16: One Step from Forever

The sky above them blinked with artificial stars.

They had found shelter in an abandoned train station on the outskirts of the city—far from the labs, the scientists, the world that once called him “subject.”

Now, in the stillness of night, it felt like the whole universe had paused to let them breathe.

___ lay beside her on a worn blanket, staring up through a shattered glass dome. Her head rested against his shoulder, her hand quietly gripping his sleeve.

“Have you ever seen real stars?” she asked, voice low.

“No,” he said. “Only simulations. Screens. Charts. Numbers.”

She smiled sadly. “Me too.”

A silence settled over them—not awkward, not empty, but full of something unspoken. The kind of silence that only happens when two people know time is running out.

“They’ll catch up to us,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“And when they do… we won’t get another chance.”

He didn’t answer.

She sat up slowly and turned to face him, her expression unreadable in the moonlight.

“If something happens—if we get separated—go to the observatory. You remember it, right?”

“The one where the ceiling glitches?” he said, almost smiling. “Where the stars flicker.”

She nodded. “I’ll wait there. As long as it takes.”

He looked at her for a long time. Her eyes were clear. Calm. Like she had already accepted what was coming.

And for the first time, he felt something rise in his chest—not fear, not logic, but the ache of something terrifying.

Love.

“I’ll be there,” he said.

She leaned in, pressed her forehead to his. “Promise me.”

“I promise.”

⸻

But in the morning, she was gone.

No sound, no sign of struggle.

Just the blanket folded beside him, and a small hand-drawn star map tucked under a broken brick—marked with coordinates.

The observatory.

He ran until his legs gave out.

But part of him already knew.