The voice echoed softly, almost like an interrogation.
"But then why… do I still feel like two people trapped in the same body?"
A heavy silence followed, stretched and suspended between timelines.
Zhang Huan-An—no, perhaps it was Yu Yong-An—stood before the mirror, unable to tell who had spoken.
Was it himself? A residue?
Or a ghost never chosen?
"I remember your memories," he whispered, fingertips grazing the cold mirror.
"But they… don't belong to me. Not entirely."
From deep within, a voice emerged—not in words, but like a pulse echoing through his veins.
"Then tell me—whose life did you live during those 281 days?"
He gave no answer.
The reflection stared back at him—almost identical, yet not quite.
The posture was his, the scars too.
But the eyes… they carried a weight he had never known.
As if from a season of dreams, shattered and reassembled deep within time.
"Do you remember the rooftop? That rain?"
The voice pressed closer.
"That was my fear. My ending. And now, it's become yours."
He turned away.
Behind him, the room lay dim and still, the air thick with undisturbed dust.
Since his awakening, nothing here had changed—yet the world was no longer the same.
"They say fusion brings peace," he murmured.
"But this feels more like exile. I can't go back… and I can't move forward."
"Then—choose."
The voice returned. This time, not from within—but behind him.
He didn't look back.
He knew nothing would be there.
And yet, he heard it.
"Choose which one of you will remain."
He clenched his fists.
"Zhang Huan-An" and "Yu Yong-An"—names layered like truths,
Too real to abandon,
Too entangled to claim.
"What if I don't want to be either?"
He asked the air, voice hoarse.
"Then become—
the memory that survived the collapse."
The mirror cracked.
Not from pressure.
Not from sound.
But from time.
As the fissure split the reflection in two, he finally understood:
They had never truly been separate.
And now, they could never fully merge.
They could only—
Overlay.
Fracture.
Echo.
---
Reflections That Do Not Return
When the mirror shattered, time broke with it.
Cracks spread like a spider's web, and within each one—
A different version of himself emerged:
Some young, some aged.
Some cold and distant, others brimming with unshed tears.
"Are these… all me?"
His voice trembled in the still air—was he asking the mirror,
Or questioning the soul splintered before him?
A shard fell, its chime like a soft wind bell.
But it reflected not the room—
It reflected time:
A Friday dusk,
A Tuesday's echo,
The moment the cross appeared,
And the last turn of her figure.
"You didn't choose an identity,"
A voice spoke—gentle, calm.
Neither Yang An-Ting nor Li An-Qing,
And yet, it held the luminous tenderness of both.
"You chose the version of yourself—
that could survive."
He stared at the fragments.
Each one, a future with no return.
"And what if… I choose nothing?"
He asked, barely audible.
"Then you'll be trapped—
within this fracture,
until the next cycle calls you back."
Silence again.
Then he whispered:
"I don't want to wake up again…
if waking means forgetting her."
The mirror flickered.
Memories surfaced, playing on their own—
"You'll forget what I said,"
"But you'll remember the sky had dimmed…
and that I never left."
It was her voice—Li An-Qing.
The eternity hidden within Friday.
No ticking clock,
No urgency.
Only breath—
And something deeper still:
The echo of his own heartbeat,
splintering across time.
A single crack stretched across the floor,
As if time itself could no longer bear its own weight.
One wrong step,
And he'd fall into a past that no longer welcomed him.
He knelt and picked up a shard.
Its surface stirred memory—
Not his own, but sharp enough to wound.
"He said he'd come back… He promised."
It was Yang An-Ting's voice—
Young, certain, full of hope.
Another shard revealed Li An-Qing,
Standing at the end of an abandoned railway.
In her eyes, a timestamp flickered:
2025.2.19 // 28:01
She whispered—
"Memory isn't meant for forgetting.
It's meant—for choosing."
Something within him stirred—
First gentle,
Then forceful,
Almost irresistible.
A pull born of her voice,
Of her silence,
Of every name forgotten by time.
"Then… how do I choose?"
He asked not the mirror now,
But the entire world.
"Choice," the voice replied through the glass,
"was never the answer—
only the cost."
He opened his eyes.
The fractures now pushed him toward an edge—
An ending already written,
Yet never spoken.
---
You Remember Too Much
"You remember too much," the voice murmured,
"And you've forgotten even more than you realize.
So now, only one question remains:
Who will you remain for?"
"You've always remembered,"
Yang An-Ting's voice, soft yet unwavering.
"You just didn't want to admit it."
"And you've never truly let go,"
Li An-Qing's voice followed,
Like light after the rain.
"Because you know—
this was never yours to end."
He stood between the mirror and the fracture.
Behind him—wreckage of the past.
Before him—a nameless exit.
"If I can't become him…
and I can't just be myself…
what is left of me?"
"Memory," they said in unison.
Not names.
Not roles.
But something heavier—
A will strong enough to pierce time.
If names fade, let them.
If roles collapse, stop defining them.
"You don't need a name,"
Yang An-Ting whispered.
"Because now—you remember us."
"You only need to keep walking,"
Li An-Qing said next.
"Not for anyone. Not even for yourself."
The fractures began to close—
Not as an end,
But as a silent reformation.
Shattered timelines intertwined,
Forming a new path—
Free of judgment,
Free of labels,
Free of the need to look back.
It was—
The third way.
Not return.
Not repetition.
But—
A future with no name.