NEO

Everything cracked.

It rippled stars through the void.

Foam pressed against his temples as he grasped for reality, but it was all too clear. Too obvious. Yanked apart by the seams of his skin, he sat up when the universe spun, taking away his nonsensical thoughts.

Kairos. I keep hearing that name — or is it a name? Why do I remember something about it... Neo brushed his temple with his other hand. Quiet embers spit in the campfire outside and spread light to the edge of his black hole. Stars swallowed into his vision. Something. I'm forgetting something important. He held himself up by the arms, who slept, though shifted in the discomfort of a nightmare as she buried herself deeper into her blanket.

Kairos... was it something that called me... or something that I was called?

Neo rested his hands in his lap and tried not to throw up the spillage of the cosmos gathering in his chest. Hand against his heart, everything around his fingertips vibrated for another fragment, forcefully torn from him. Never complete. Never whole. Nausea sprinkled his tongue when he sat up further, stumbling over Nova to crawl out of the cave.

Away from those who died and suffered due to his ignorance and arrogance.

Because of me. Because of a single question. Kairos. Neo stopped beside the fire and fought the urge to sink to his knees when flames chewed blank spots of his failed memory. Nova, crying, saying words he couldn't understand though it rang through time and space.

'Neo, you have to close your eyes.'

Yes... that's what you said, close my eyes — but I never could do that, could I? Neo held his stomach and curled closer to the fire. I'm a fragment of that, of him, a broken piece. He brushed black locks away from his brow. Embers bit at his skin, and he tried to claw it out from underneath. Every life, for Kairos — the original? He breathed deep of the grassy smell inside the flames, intermingled with rust and metal as he checked on Nova, who squirmed and kept her eyes shut tight. Close my eyes? Or close his?

... you did say that to me, right?

Neo took in the stars looming in the clear sky. Wings of cloudy rainbows fluttered between the speckled void. Dew bubbled at the tips of the grass to join the heavens, and the embers created more stars. He fought to think; tried to see past the bubbles of memories. Pain went through his ears, and he held them when alarms screamed.

It fell quiet in the song of the gate's last whispers.

Hands in the soft grass, he tried to stand.

He jumped away from the fire when a shape slinked closer to him. Maw open, Neo scrambled until his back hit a nearby bush to flee from the endlessness of truth.

Green eyes studied him. "Scientist Neo," they signed through the shadows before coming into the light. "You should be resting."

Broken fragments. It stilled into a clearer image when Izerva came closer, without the ferocity of the black hole. He shuffled his feet to get into an upright position, but he leaned against the nearest tree to keep himself standing. "I'm not tired."

Izerva knelt beside him with an ear flick. "Your energy is still gathering. You are tired."

He pressed his cheek against the tree for its charred support. "You can see the energy of people," he restated the obvious. "Xelnods are more attuned to the movement of the universe on a level not all can see." He dug his fingers into the flaky bark. "You speak through this same movement." Bloody bile rose into his nose, and he rested his flaming brow against the tree.

Izerva came closer. "You are a curious one." He shied away from them when they signed, "Why come out here? You are not part of the watch schedule."

He hugged the tree and eyed them. "I..." Words, voice, it all failed him. In the sea of time, I screamed and cried and no matter what I tried she couldn't hear me. No one could hear me. He let go of the tree from his cursed touch, then slid down the surface when Izerva's eyes narrowed into a frown.

I don't know what to say anymore.

"You are confused." Izerva's tail swished through the starry grass. "Nova told me what occurred on the space station."

"Some." Neo brushed stalks of grass between his finger, then allowed a long one to trail across his palm to spread the dew across his skin. "Did she tell you that I—?"

"You touched the Gate of Choros."

Neo bit on his tongue and tasted the blood of a thousand moments of time. "I did this," he rasped. "I did this to them. I subjected them to that torture, to that fate worse than death." He tried to dig his knuckle into the tough dirt. "All in the name of finding out the truth, but what truth did I find? I wasn't any better than the IAR." He smacked the back of his skull against the tree. "I should've stayed asleep."

"Nova would not have liked that."

I'm not even who she meant to save.

Izerva tilted their head. "You studied my culture, yes? Did you stumble upon the term 'Eye of Kairos'."

Familiar, but so far out of reach... I don't know. "I've heard of it."

"Where?"

"The better question is when," Neo rasped and hugged himself. "I kept hearing it on the space station. After I touched the anomaly and while it killed everyone around me. It wasn't worth it." He dug his fingers into his temples to scoop out his thoughts and impulsivity. "Never in any universe would this have been worth it."

"No, Scientist Neo, that is not the better question," Izerva argued. "You should be asking what is happening to you."

Neo gazed at them. "Why are you telling me this? I got Admiral Mythrai killed. I must've gotten people you knew and cared about killed. Stars... I got some of the best anomaly scientists we had left killed." He hid against the tree. "You... You shouldn't be telling me any of this."

"Curiosity is a double-edged blade. Often it can cut through an obstacle, but it can cut through you," Izerva signed. "You should rest." He kept his hands against his temples when Izerva walked away from him, tail tucked behind them. He crawled around the tree to hide in its shadow, away from the warmth. Away from the stars he loved.

Further from those he loved.

Neo toyed with the butterfly necklace Mother got him when he was a kid dreaming of the stars. Colour drained out of the gold cracks of the wings. He flipped it between both his palms, but he stopped when a piece chipped off to the grass.

Time stretched, and he curled his fingers around the chain.

Every crack followed his tight grip.

Every tendril flowed out of the fragment.

Glass shattered.

It washed out of his wrist.

He opened up his palm, where the butterfly laid there, dying. He brushed the edges of its wings, then put it back into his pocket to rest against the tree. He sat there, alone, waiting until twilight merged into daybreak in one blinked moment.

"Neo, were you out here all night?" Nova's voice came from beside him.

No matter how much I screamed, how could you hear me from across the sea I forced you to wade through? Neo tilted back when Nova sat beside him, a frown on her face to accentuate the deep shadows underneath her brown eyes. A reflection of the pain of time and the loop he stuck her in.

"I was." Neo tucked into himself. "I had to think."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Neo studied her, but she refused to waver. "I don't think there's much to say about it." He inched out of her reach to get out of her space, but she bridged it without fear. "Or, better yet, I should keep it to myself."

"I'll listen."

He longed to blurt out the impulsive truth. Glass lodged in his throat and refused to bleed off his lips. A mistaken fragment. He shook his head and twisted from her. "We're on Movium 1XH — and the scout the space station first sent out is all that remains." He tasted his own frozen blood. "Stuck on an anomalous planet..."

Nova smiled. "We do need your help."

"I can't help."

Her hand rested on his shoulder. Warm. Solid. Her smile softened. "Thuni and Izerva got slimed by some sort of plant. They had some sort of reaction."

"Sounds like allergies." Neo drew further out of her reach, to not leave her with a fragment.

"Maybe, but it gave anomalous readings," she whispered and held out his scanner. It glitched, but registered data as if never changed. "Give it a chance? We're going to need help navigating through this place, so..." Pain creased her brow, but she kept up her smile. "So we can go home."

Home.

He clutched the anomaly scanner and frowned when Nova sat closer to him. Neo turned it on in full and adjusted some of the dials and switches until the glitch disappeared. Nova pursed her lips, then asked, "Are you telling me I just messed up some settings?"

"Huh?"

"Well—" Nova clasped her hands. "It was glitching before so I couldn't get a read on the lifeform that slimed us."

"The module got dislodged."

"Oh." Her silence screamed in his ear, and he jolted when Nova touched his shoulder. "Neo."

"Yes?"

Nova hesitated, then held out her arms. An invitation, not a push. He held out the butterfly necklace, and she retracted her unassuming invitation. "It looks more beat up than I recall," she whispered.

"Any sort of pressure will probably shatter it," he mumbled. Flames crushed the butterfly in his palm, so he adjusted onto his knees and pushed it into her hands. One last piece of who she meant to save. He tucked his hands in his lap while she studied it. "You can do whatever you want with it. You could even toss it across the crags somewhere and watch it shatter."

"Isn't it a gift from your mom?" she asked. "Isn't it your good luck charm?"

"I just saw it in the store one day and asked for it," he reminded her. "It's just a stupid necklace. I'm giving it to you now. I don't need it. As it turns out, it wasn't very lucky considering I lost it."

Nova stared at it with a strange expression, then pocketed it. Her last piece before the loops.

Neo went to stand up, but Nova followed him. "Yes?"

"I'll listen," she repeated, begged and through the cracks, a thousand tears. "If you need to talk, I'll listen."

He rubbed his fingers together, he tried to force a smile on his face, but his voice failed to build upon a foundation. He was trapped in a frozen moment. "I'm awake."

For all the times I sat beside you while you grieved over me, trying to get you to hear me. For all the times I forced you to live it over and over again — until I lost track and lost you. He clenched his fists and found himself unable to look her in the eyes and keep up his smile at the same time.

Nova held out her arms.

"What are you going to do with the clasp?" he asked in the cold.

"I'll figure it out," she said. "I've gotten better at thinking on the fly."

He hugged himself.

I'll listen. I'll hear you.

I'll believe you.

I love you.

His heart stuttered at the words. Words he spoke in return, but never quite heard. Adrift in the sea of time, he drowned in it and moved through space. He let go of his sides, then matched her position. Nova sighed, then latched onto him, tighter, and the necklace never cracked underneath the pressure.

He stood there in her arms, then embraced her in return though he was a broken fragment.

"I'm so glad you're here," she whispered and nuzzled him.

Glad you're alive.

He had to tell the truth before the butterfly fluttered away with the terror on its shattered wings of coloured glass.