One year later.
The White Void is filled with music— Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467 – Andante.
Above the shelves, the sky glows with a soft, living yellow. Lightning filaments crawl across the ceiling, then descend like silk threads into the water.
Sarah runs barefoot across the shallow surface. Each step leaves a bright skein of yellow electricity that spiderwebs outward, fades, and curls back into the sky.
Her scars are gone. Old cuts healed to nothing. Her missing arm has returned—translucent, faceted yellow, alive with a faint current.
Shreen appears beside a ladder—a tall column of light resolving into a vaguely humanoid shape. His eyes are luminous hollows; his voice hums beneath the melody.
“This treatment should heal your arm quickly. Your mental trauma is another story.”
He dissolves into a bookcase.
“Have you told Arthur yet?”
Sarah slows. The yellow glow in her arm dims.
“No… I don’t know how to.”
She stops completely, hands resting on her lower back, staring into open air.
“The worst part is, I know it isn’t his fault.”
Her breath evens.
“Arthur wants to hold me. Just to feel normal. But every time he comes near…”
She swallows.
“All I see is the hatred.”
Shreen’s voice becomes a whisper at her ear.
“If you want to heal, you’ll need to talk to him about what happened.”
She nods.
“You’re right.”
A pause.
“I’ll tell him later. I promise.”
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The concerto lingers.
Shreen lifts a hand. The sky lowers its voltage. The shelves settle. The water smooths to glass.
---
In the real, Arthur shops in a small market—a bright arcade of stalls beneath white tensile canopies. Fans whir. Children weave through legs. Vendors call over the steady murmur.
Arthur moves through the crowd with a cloth bag and patient eyes.
He stops at a fruit stall where pale green orbs glow faintly with bioluminescence.
“Migoato fruit,” he says. “I’ll take one.”
The vendor—a small woman with weathered hands and a quick smile—selects a ripe orb, splits it cleanly, and offers a wedge.
“Sweet. Like melon. I think you’ll like it.”
Arthur bites. Juice runs over his knuckles. He pays, nods, and moves on as the crowd closes behind him.
“Have a good day.”
Sarah’s voice brushes his ear from the Void.
“Love you.”
In the Void, she brings up the control menu. Notes fade beneath her fingers. The concerto recedes to memory.
“Love you too,” Arthur murmurs, barely audible.
---
Later that night, Arthur returns to his apartment—a small, clean rental in Vale City.
A wall opens to turbines turning beyond distant forest.
A worktable is crowded with components: coils, microfabricators, converter boards, a scavenged comm array. On a side shelf, a single potted cutting leans toward the light.
Arthur drops his bag, wipes his hands on a towel, and bends over a gutted comm unit spliced into an external antenna coupler.
He dims the lights.
Then collapses into bed.
When he opens his eyes, he’s in the Void.
It looks like the road in front of his and Sarah’s home from long ago.
Sarah stands in a field, throwing a stick for Rex.
Arthur joins her.
“Spent the day tracking Daevos’s personal ship. You’d think that kind of thing would be hard to find.”
He smiles faintly.
“A few credits. The right questions. And apparently my old military clearance codes still work.”
He tosses the stick again.
“The Leviathan. Of course that’s what he named it.”
A half-laugh dies in his throat.
“It’s not even that big a ship. But he stays busy.”
Sarah watches him, then throws the stick again.
Arthur brushes his hands through the tall grass.
“What were you up to?”
“Nothing really,” she says. “Just running with Shreen.”
She starts walking; he follows.
“How’s your arm?”
“It’s better.”
Something else lingers in her voice.
Arthur gives the silence room.
“What’s on your mind?”
The pause stretches too long.
They reach the road between orchard and field. Apples hang like small suns. Wind ripples the grass. In the distance, Rex barks once—memory stitched into sound.
Sarah stops. Arthur does too, leaving space between them.
“So… you know how I’ve been,” she says quietly. “How distant.”
“Yeah,” Arthur says.
They walk again—him on the inside of the road, her by the orchard. A careful distance.
“The reason I pull away,” she continues, “isn’t because you failed to protect me.”
She stops. The wind stills. The apples hang unmoving.
Arthur turns toward her.
“If you’re not ready, I understand.”
He kicks a stone as he walks.
“I’ve kept things too. Things that would unravel me if I said them aloud.”
She crosses the road and takes his hand, stopping him.
“I know.”
“But I can’t hold this in,” she says. “I have to say it out loud to heal.”
She swallows.
“When Daevos hurt me. When he tortured me. When he cut off my hand… when he—”
Her voice breaks.
The orchard dims. The sky lowers.
“When he did those things,” she continues softly, “he wore your face.”
Arthur freezes. The road narrows beneath him.
She squeezes his hand, forcing him to meet her eyes.
“At first I thought it was you. I was terrified. I didn’t know what to do.”
They sit in the moment, neither rushing to fill it.
“It wasn’t until you were tied beside me,” she says, “that I knew—or hoped—it wasn’t another game.”
Arthur breathes like he’s learning how again.
“I don’t know what to say,” he whispers.
“I love you. I would never hurt you.”
A beat.
“Ever.”
Sarah steps closer, steadier now.
“You don’t have to say anything. Shreen’s nearly healed my code. The rest just takes time.”
She kisses him—light, certain.
“You have to know I don’t blame you. Not for any of it. The only one to blame is Daevos.”
She rests her forehead against his chest.
“Arthur… you are a good man. You don’t have to be perfect.”
The road brightens. Wind returns. Apples sway.
Arthur slips out of the Void—resolve and determination settling into his face.
“I’m going to kill him.”
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