Part 2Vanishing For Your Second Chance

[Confirmation required: Does the Host wish to forfeit the mission?]

I bit my lip until the metallic tang of blood filled my mouth. I was ready to nod. I was ready to let the void take me.

Suddenly, the last dim light in the room died with a sharp pop.

Total darkness. The air felt like wet wool. I could hear the echoes of my father’s drunken shouting from my childhood, the sound of the cellar door locking. I tried to cover my ears, my breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps.

I opened my mouth to scream the word Yes to the Directive, to end it all—

BANG.

The door was kicked off its hinges.

A silhouette stood framed in the blinding light of the hallway. For a second, the outline of the man matched the lean, hungry shape of the boy I loved.

A smile broke through my terror. He came back. He still cares.

The Directive’s question faded into the back of my mind.

I must have fainted, because when I opened my eyes, I was dreaming.

In the dream, I was back in Haven Cove. We were kids. Alexander was the town’s stray, the orphan everyone whispered about. The first time I ever spoke to him was after a group of local bullies had cracked his forehead open with a rock.

I’d saved my lunch money for weeks. I used it to take him to the small clinic in town. I remembered him sitting on the exam table, his ribs showing through his skin, looking away from me.

"I'll pay you back," he’d said, his voice a gravelly rasp.

I’d just shook my head. "Don't worry about it. Just... next time you go to the city, can you take me with you?"

I wanted to learn. I wanted to see the world. My parents wouldn't pay for school, so I had to be smart. I had to find a way out.

We became inseparable. By the time I was eighteen, I held an acceptance letter to a university in the city, but my parents tore it into confetti. They wanted to marry me off to a man three times my age to settle a gambling debt.

I tried to run, but Haven Cove was a trap. They caught me. They locked me in the shed behind the house for three months. No light. Barely any food.

Alexander was the one who found me. He nearly died pulling me out of there, taking a beating that should have killed him.

After we escaped, he worked two shifts at the docks to put me through school. When I tried to tell him no, he just pinched my cheek and laughed. "Just graduate, Iris. Then we’ll get married. You're the only reason I want a better life."

That Alexander loved me with every fiber of his being.

So when the Directive appeared to me ten years ago, offering a deal—go to the future, save the man he becomes, and fix the tragedy of his accident—I didn't hesitate.

Even the eighteen-year-old Alexander had encouraged me. "The future me won't need a mission to love you," he'd joked.

But as I left, he’d gripped my hand, his eyes serious. "Iris, if the man I become ever breaks your heart... just walk away. I'm promising you right now, I'd rather die than be the reason you cry."

The dream started to dissolve. I reached out for his hand, screaming his name as I lurched awake.

But I wasn't in Alexander's arms.

I was in a hospital bed, and Lydia was standing over me with a smirk that made my skin crawl.

"You really thought it was him, didn't you?" she asked, her voice dripping with mockery.

She pulled out her phone and played a video. It was security footage of the Pulse Room. It wasn't Alexander who had kicked the door in; it was a panicked security guard.

"The staff didn't want a lawsuit," Lydia laughed. "Did you really think a little 'damsel in distress' act would work on him? Alexander has spent ten years hating you. You think a dark room changes that?"

She leaned in closer, her voice a sharp whisper. "I’m the leading lady of this story now, Iris. Why did you have to come back? You’re a ghost. Stay dead."

Before I could respond, she let out a piercing scream and threw herself onto the floor. The tray of hot soup she’d brought—supposedly as a peace offering—shattered, the scalding liquid splashing over her arms.

Right on cue, Alexander rolled into the room.

Lydia looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. "Iris, I only came here to check on you! Why would you do this?"

She sobbed, clutching Alexander’s hand. "It’s my fault, really. I just told her that the new treatment was working, that you were going to walk again... and she snapped. She kept saying that only she could save you."

I watched her performance with a cold, hollow feeling in my chest. I looked past her, straight into Alexander’s eyes.

"You were standing right outside the door," I said quietly. "You saw what happened. Didn't you?"