WARNING: THIS CHAPTER HAS THEMES OF SUICIDE. THOUGH THIS CHAPTER IS IMPORTANT TO THE PLOT, IF THE CONTENT IS UPSETTING, FEEL FREE TO SKIP!

---

In the end, nothing made sense.

It brought her back to square one.

In the briefing room, Nova wiped the last of her tears away and confusion took its place.

You've beheld the truth.

The disembodied thought beckoned her. Behind her, Thuni and Ulin said nothing further. At the door, Izerva fidgeted in distress. Nova frowned and fought to recall the previous moments before the loop. No... No! This doesn't make sense! Did I undo all that work? Is it back? Did I rerelease the D.S Butterfly?

Stars, Neo!

Nova twisted to check on him.

In his trembling hands, a half-finished pixel butterfly fluttered pitifully in his palm. What have I changed? Nova winced when his datascroll glitched and echoed out the incomprehension of time. What have I done?

"Researcher Teimea, you have the stage," Admiral Mythrai said on loop.

Nova expected the butterfly to flutter into her hands, but she frowned at its struggle to transcend space time. Neo stared down at it.

"Teimea?" Admiral Mythrai asked.

Neo lifted his head with a small breath she stole from him. Nova clung onto the sides of her chair to head for him, to stop him when he got out of his.

Time stopped.

I can't move. Why can't I move?

The universe glitched with every step he made down to the podium, shambling like a zombie to time itself. Ice crept down her spine when he hauled himself onto the stage of his constant demise. Everyone froze, with her and Neo in a bubble of reality.

"Neo?" Nova tried to wrench herself free, but unseen leashes kept her in her seat.

He swayed on his feet and shook his head. Pain carved into his face as he looked straight at her. Grey swirls reflected the nebula. It all fell silent, and stars flickered on the screens.

No one else noticed. No one else moved, frozen in time.

"I was wrong," he whispered, soft and shut his eyes tight. "It was just our hearts reflecting off it." He swayed in an unseen wind, another shuddered breath leaving his lips. "No, what it is is much harder to define." He opened them once more, and the nebula remained. "I got lost in the expanse of the universe — in myself. All I see are the lost stars within the stream of space and time."

Nova fought. "Neo, what do you mean?"

He brought both hands to his head and torment cracked his face with a sharp, singular laugh. "You actually did it. You killed me," he gasped. "And it killed me so many times." He stumbled when the universe flashed with the glitch in time. "Over and over."

Misty tendrils trapped her against her seat, but she fought the hold. "I'm sorry! I wish I had another way! I didn't want to, Neo. I wanted to find another way before you subject yourself to that."

He dragged his fingers down his cheeks and the entire universe writhed in pain. "It's wrong," he rasped. "It's all wrong."

"Neo, I said I'll take you back home," she whispered.

He stilled, but never removed his hands from his face. "Home?"

"Yes. Yes!" Nova tried to force herself out of her seat, but it held her down to stop her from reaching him. "Yes, we can go home... this doesn't have to happen again..."

Neo lowered his arms in a chilly relaxed state. "I... That sounds nice, Nova... to go home and rewind it all." He breathed deep and shook his head. "If that's the case, I think..." Tears fell down his cheeks when he gazed at her. "Nova, I think I'm already dead... there is no helping me."

No. No. No!

He stepped off the podium and rushed out of the room on a trail of ghostly tracks.

The world snapped back to reality at his departure.

Time restarted.

Again and again.

Everyone returned to normal.

No one gave pause to the lack of his presence.

Admiral Mythrai rifled through infodrives on the podium.

"Where's Neo?" she hissed to Thuni, Ulin, and Izerva, the three closest people on the trains of consistency.

"You tell us," Thuni mumbled and folded his arms. "You came in alone."

Underneath the shadow of her failed memory, she trembled with the weight of the act.

He thinks he's dead? If... If that Neo on the podium wasn't actually here, then... no...

Out of the chain of time, she snapped out her chair and sped through space, kicking it to the ground out of her way, and almost tripped on Izerva's tail when she sped out of the dome. It was as if the universe put every hurdle possible in her path to him. Nova threw researchers and scientists to the side, ignoring the rising complaint of ignorance.

None of it mattered.

None of them would remember.

But he did.

As she tumbled into the living room corridor, it echoed through time, a single gunshot of a thousand ends.

It curled through the air and caused some people loitering to twist to the source.

No. He didn't.

Nova pushed through the pressure in her legs to reach their door, and slammed her kaypass to get through the lock.

Into the gradient field as if the loop never reset at all. A reality seared into her soul with one last taunt at her flimsy act.

Everything she touched turned to cosmic stardust.

A puddle of nebulous liquid spread out from Neo, carved with crimson. It plastered through his black hair. Inches away from his fingers, the extra blaster she kept locked out of the way. The blaster he used to take Thuni's life, and then to trap himself in a vaporizing wave. It sizzled with excess energy.

Her heartbeat skipped, sped up, then stopped.

Her hand found the doorframe to keep herself standing when the station swung on the pendulum of a necklace.

Every step.

It ticked to replace the heartbeat until the puddle stained her boots, and then her hands when her knees gave out from the weight of life. No noise came to her throat. Tears shed off the world when she lowered her hand to his sticky hair.

Everyone deserved to live, no one on the station deserved to die.

Yet... His blood oozed through her fingers, and nothing changed at all from the first. I killed you.

It left her throat in a tearing scream.

Time and space cracked with the disappearance of all sound and alarms. She clutched onto him, to shake him out of the reality she created, to what should have been. Her heartbeat never restarted, and she choked without oxygen.

I'm sorry, Neo. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry! Tears mixed down her cheeks when the world screeched. I should've... tried harder.

"Izerva, get her out of here!" a deep growl snapped. "Now!"

Nova fought to keep her grip on him, but strong arms wrapped around her. She writhed to get out of the cruel grip of the universe and her grief. It dragged her away from him when he needed her the most as he laid in a puddle of his own blood. "Let me go," she begged. "I can still help him." Nova fought and writhed to escape, but another faceless shape joined the tussle to take her legs out from underneath her.

Corners spiralled.

It was all meaningless in her ears.

"Nova?" someone asked from the shadows.

Neo?

Left alone once more in a field of butterflies in flowers, she listened to the voices outside the door as she sat on the floor to watch the holographic butterflies flutter around her.

"We need to turn this damned station around, Zynaia!" Admiral Mythrai snapped, his growl shuddering in the air. "I don't give a damn what the IAR wants! A student researcher took their own life under our watch! I can't let this continue any further! They went on and on about the D.S Butterfly and its research, but nothing is worth this. Forget the D.S Butterfly. If this continues, it will spiral out of control and Neo Teimea will not be the only one! We will lose more lives if we continue on this course!"

Zynaia sighed, the same emptiness and despair in her voice. "We've tried turning the station around already. We've been left out here to die."

Her hope faltered.

Doctors shuffled along, quiet.

Beeps filled the gaps in the torturous silence.

Nova laid there in the field of flowers.

Her heartbeat returned, but every pulse choked her throat with white-hot pain. Nova tucked deeper into the blankets around her shoulders and huddled against the corner.

I'm sorry.

Tears ran down her face when footsteps broke the silence. "Miss Spacyn?" a voice whispered, gentle, familiar. "Someone's here to talk to you, if you're up for it."

Just tell me you'll come back and make sense of this.

Again and again.

Hope overflowed into the dam when she wanted it to be him to walk through.

It shattered when it was Izerva.

No strength left to argue or fight, she tucked her arms against herself and locked her knees into her chest. In the haze of water, they came closer, their tail stiff with their cautious approach with something wrapped in their hands. "What are you doing here?" she managed out, her voice strange on her tongue.

Izerva put the package to the side and knelt down on her level, but gave her ample space.

Nova swallowed nothing. "He's gone, isn't he?" Water burst the dam and she brought her hands to her face, but her own voice filled with the emptiness in his. "He..." Again and again. What have I done? A sob escaped her throat, and she winced when Izerva held their hand out, it took a moment for them to bridge the rest of the gap to squeeze her shoulder before letting go.

"I know it means nothing to you, but I am sorry," they signed with a slow tail flick. "I am here to keep you company." Izerva's shoulders drew upwards with a silent sigh. "Admiral Mythrai is going to attempt to turn the station around to reach the outer bounds of the nebula to send a distress call."

That won't happen. Miss Zynaia is right. We've been left here to die. Trapped, she let Izerva continue in pointlessness.

"As for you, they're going to move you into different quarters."

Nova shook her head. "No, I want to go back."

I have to tell him I'm sorry.

Izerva released a tiny, distressed chirp through their sharp teeth. "I cannot imagine what you must be feeling, Nova. I know you two were close. Soulmates bound by ancient stars." They shook their head. "They won't let you go back there, but I came with something." They grabbed the package they set to the side to push it into her hands.

"What is it?"

"I believe they are logs he was taking." Their ears flattened against their head. "I grabbed what I could. It is no comfort, I know, but I cannot help otherwise."

Nova held them against her heart. You listened to my advice after all... Weight dropped through her cheeks when she tucked closer to the corner with them. "It doesn't matter." This will reset and I'll be all that's left. I'll be the only one that remembers... but now I think he's stuck remembering too, and he can't take it. He can't handle it. I can't handle it. Nova hugged the spherical drive full of his thoughts. His words.

Everything he was.

"Thuni and Ulin were asking after you as well." Izerva hauled themselves off the ground. "They might come and see you. If there is anything you require, send word to me and I'll see if I can't find it."

Abandoned again, Nova rested her head against the wall of lies when Izerva disappeared with a doctor.

It'll reset, and he'll be alive. Nova tried to feel for a heartbeat in his logs, but nothing echoed out to her. Should I have killed a part of me? Would that have made this easier?

It was a stupid question.

She had killed a part of her.

Time reminded her of the consequences.

Talk to me. I know you still exist. I need to hear your words.

Nova let the drive sit in her lap in silence.

But maybe I don't deserve to.