Chapter Text
The surrounding was quiet.
Not the kind of quiet that soothed—not the natural hush of wind brushing over temple stone or the rhythm of distant waves slapping cliffs below—but a hollow, reverent kind of silence. The kind one might find in a tomb. Or a memory.
Amphoreus was beautiful, in a way that felt staged. Gold-leaf ivy coiled up pillars carved by forgotten hands. Statuary of headless gods loomed over crumbling altars. Floating mirrors hung in the air like lost stars, reflecting not light but time—fractured scenes looping faintly within them: children playing, wars raging, lovers parting in the dark. All long since dead. But here, preserved. Eternal.
Still, the mission was clear. The Astral Express had picked up a strange energy reading on Amphoreus—an ancient Remembrance mirror had awakened after centuries of silence. The anomaly was localized, but volatile. The area too unstable for a full team to land.
Only a small, mobile pair could safely navigate the ruins without triggering collapse.
Dan Heng and Caelus were the logical choice.
Himeko had given the briefing with her usual calm authority, the static of the Express’s comms humming gently behind her. Welt had chimed in with topography overlays, and March had waved with a cheerful:
"Try not to poke anything cursed, okay?"
"We’ll stay in contact by video," Himeko had added. "If the signal drops, you leave immediately. Understood?"
They had understood.
Now, the two of them stood in the Garden of Recollection—the mirror site nestled deep in the southern temple complex of Janusopolis.
Dan Heng was already scanning the perimeter with practiced calm. Caelus, meanwhile, lingered near the largest of the floating mirrors. Taller than the rest. Warped like a melted lens, its surface rippling faintly with each breath of wind.
"You’re drifting again," Dan Heng said quietly, not looking up from his datapad.
"Wow," Caelus drawled. "Not even a hello first? So cold."
"You’ve been staring at that mirror for three minutes. Unmoving."
"Maybe I’m admiring my reflection. Ever think of that?"
Dan Heng glanced over. "Your ego doesn’t need more inflation."
Caelus placed a hand dramatically over his heart. "Ouch. You wound me."
"You’ll survive."
"You say that like you’re not secretly worried I’ll trip into a memory loop and disappear forever," Caelus teased, stepping back just far enough to test Dan Heng’s patience.
Dan Heng didn’t answer. He only sighed—the kind of sigh that said this again—and refocused on his scanner. But Caelus could see the way his brows pinched ever so slightly, the faint flick of his gaze toward the mirror and back.
"You know," Caelus added, strolling lazily in a wide arc, "we spend so much time together, I’m beginning to think you’d actually miss me."
"I’d miss the peace and quiet," Dan Heng replied flatly.
"Liar. You’d be devastated. Crying. Clutching my jacket to your chest. Probably holding candlelight vigils in the archives."
Dan Heng gave him a long look. "...Do you ever stop talking?"
"No," Caelus said brightly. "But I do take requests."
He turned his attention back to the mirror. Something about it felt… off. His reflection stood beside Dan Heng as expected, but it didn’t move with him. It just stood there—still, slightly off-kilter. Tilted like a marionette awaiting instruction.
He narrowed his eyes. "Okay, seriously. Is it just me or is this mirror doing the creepy thing again?"
Dan Heng didn’t look up. "Which creepy thing? The planet-sized graveyard of ghosts kind or the existential dread kind?"
"The puppet doppelgänger kind."
Dan Heng did look up then. "Step back. Don’t touch it."
"I haven’t touched anything. Yet."
"You will."
"Wow. No trust in this relationship."
"There is no relationship."
Caelus smirked. "You keep saying that, and yet here we are. On a mysterious planet. Alone. Surrounded by metaphorical tombs and poetic trauma. Just two bros… navigating emotional landmines."
Dan Heng pinched the bridge of his nose.
"You’re insufferable," he muttered.
"And yet." Caelus leaned closer to the mirror, voice low. "You suffer with me."
"Caelus."
Too late.
The moment his fingertips brushed the surface, the mirror rippled like water struck by lightning.
The world twisted.
Soundless, weightless—like being pulled backward through a dream that no longer wanted to be remembered. Color bent at the corners of his vision. Gravity wavered. Heat rushed to his ears.
Then—stillness.
Not peace. Stillness like death.
A silence that didn’t just fall, but consumed.
Caelus blinked, breath catching in his throat. The garden was gone. The temple. The sky. Even Dan Heng.
He stood alone on a blackened plain that stretched endlessly in every direction, hemmed by impossible walls of towering mirrors. Each one shimmered with a sickly, shifting light. Each one showed a different scene—memories he didn’t recognize, lives that weren’t his. Faces both familiar and foreign. Laughter. Screams. Silence again.
Nothing made sense.
The air was cold. Not biting, just empty—thin and dry like parchment left out too long, like even the oxygen here was forgetful.
His footsteps echoed, but the echo lagged just behind—half a second too late. Like the space was trying to remember how to mimic him, and failing.
"Dan?"
No answer.
He called louder. "Dan Heng!"
Nothing. No sound returned. Not even his own breath.
His fingers fumbled for the communicator on his belt. It was dead. No power. No signal. The screen didn’t even flicker.
Something inside him recoiled.
Panic prickled at the base of his skull. Not full-blown terror—yet—but the kind of creeping dread that slides in like fog: slow, suffocating, final.
He turned to the nearest mirror. In its glassy surface, he saw Dan Heng—his Dan Heng—pacing the garden floor in the real world. Mouth moving. Voice silent. Desperation radiating from every taut line of his body. He was shouting. Calling. Trying to reach—
Him.
Caelus pressed a trembling hand to the mirror.
It was cold. Too cold.
And then—
He felt it.
Something inside him slipped.
It was subtle, at first. Like forgetting a word mid-sentence. But worse.
He tried to say his name. Anchor himself.
"Caelus."
Silence.
It echoed—distant, thin, like it didn’t fit anymore.
"I’m Caelus," he whispered, firmer this time. "I’m part of the Astral Express. I belong there. I—"
But even those thoughts were fading, like ink left too long in the sun.
The shape of his name. His past. His self. Unraveling.
He remembered the stories. The Trailblazer logs Himeko once warned him not to read at night. About the Remembrance mirrors that did more than reflect—they rewrote. Erased. Peeled people out of existence so cleanly there wasn’t even grief left behind.
Just… absence.
He pressed a hand to his chest.
His heart was still beating.
But it felt lighter. Like it had forgotten who it was beating for.
"Stay with me," he murmured, voice trembling. "I’m still here. I’m still me."
Another mirror flared to life behind him.
He turned, slowly.
It showed Dan Heng again—standing at the place Caelus had vanished. No longer pacing. Just staring. Still. Shoulders rigid. Eyes hollow.
His hands were clenched so tightly, the knuckles had gone white.
And Caelus—Caelus felt it.
That thread. Fragile but unbroken. That unseen thing between them that no world could quite erase.
Even now. Even here.
Dan Heng turned his head sharply. Like a blade drawn by instinct.
He knew.
Caelus’s breath hitched.
He leaned into the mirror, forehead pressed to the icy glass, palm splayed wide against it.
"You’ll remember," he whispered. His voice cracked. "You have to remember me, right Dan Heng?'
The mirror didn’t answer.
But somewhere, something pulsed back—soft and warm.
A heartbeat, maybe.
Not his.
But not forgotten.
Not yet.
Dan Heng stared at the mirror.
Just one second ago, Caelus had been beside him.
Laughing, of course—too close to the glass, too reckless, too full of life. Always leaning toward danger with a grin that made Dan Heng’s pulse spike, always trusting the world too much and the odds too little. Always needing someone to steady him. To keep him grounded. To pull him back.
That someone had been Dan Heng.
He could still hear it—the ghost of Caelus’s laughter, bright and defiant, like gravity was just another challenge he intended to ignore.
Now…
Nothing.
Not a sound. Not a presence. Not even a trace in the air.
Dan Heng took a step forward, slow and sharp, like a blade unsheathing itself without permission. His training took over—scanning, assessing, narrowing his breath to a tight, even rhythm. Instinct told him to stay calm.
Instinct had no idea what to do with this.
“Caelus,” he said, evenly. “Report.”
Silence.
He tapped the communicator at his wrist. “Caelus. Respond. Do you read me?”
Static.
No voice. No ping. No feedback loop. The line was open—he could see the connection light flickering—but no one was on the other end.
Just a signal to nowhere.
A cold sensation crept down his spine. Not panic. Dan Heng didn’t panic. But this wasn’t logic either. This wasn’t a problem he could fix with protocol or analysis.
It felt like a tether had snapped inside him.
He turned his gaze back to the mirror.
No ripples now. No flickering light. The surface had gone flat, like still water turned to stone.
Not reflecting.
Not remembering.
Just… gone.
“No…”
The word was barely a breath, slipping from him like something torn loose. His vision narrowed at the edges. Pressure rose behind his eyes—not tears, not yet, but something dangerously close.
Not again.
How many people had slipped through his fingers? How many times had he held too tightly to the idea of control, only to find his hands empty?
He moved—one step, then two—then faster. Boots pounding across stone and moss, cracking ancient leaves beneath his weight. He ran down the temple stairs like he was chasing a ghost, like he could outrun the hollow growing in his chest.
He didn’t stop until the air shifted. Until the signal returned.
The communicator chirped to life, the flicker of contact like a breath breaking the surface.
Himeko’s voice came through, calm and clear. “Dan Heng, do you copy?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Caelus is gone. He touched the mirror and vanished. I need emergency extraction or access to backup signal routing. Now.”
There was a beat—too long.
Then March’s voice broke in, airy and casual. “Wait—who’s gone?”
Dan Heng’s blood went cold.
“Caelus,” he said.
Another pause.
On the screen, Welt’s expression shifted. Confused. Concerned.
“Dan Heng… who are you talking about?”
The words didn’t make sense. They clashed against reality like static. His fingers clenched the side of the communicator.
“He was assigned to this mission with me,” Dan Heng said, voice sharpening at the edges. “You briefed us both.”
March tilted her head, brows furrowed. “There was someone else with you? From the locals?”
“He was standing right here,” Dan Heng snapped—not loud, but pointed, like a blow behind glass. “He activated the mirror. It pulled him in.”
Himeko glanced sideways at Welt. Her tone shifted—gentle now. Cautious.
“Dan Heng… you were deployed alone.”
Alone.
The words hit him harder than they should have. He knew they were wrong. He knew.
But they felt like a sentence. A verdict already passed.
“No,” he said, low and certain. Not defiant—just anchored. “He was here. You know him. He's part of the crew!"
March’s voice dropped. “Dan… are you sure this place isn’t messing with your memory? The Remembrance Path anomaly, it—”
“I remember him.”
It came out too fast. Too raw. Like something he hadn’t meant to say aloud—but had to.
He reached into his coat.
Pulled out the worn notebook, the one he never let out of arm’s reach. His hands moved fast, searching for something real—anything real.
He flipped to the page.
CAELUS.
The name stared back at him. Scrawled in his own handwriting. Written after Penacony. After they made it out. After that night on the Express, shoulder to shoulder, when Caelus said—
Next time, when it’s you that needs saving, I’ll be there.
Dan Heng’s hand trembled.
Just barely.
But enough.
He held the book up to the screen like a shield. Like proof of a wound no one else could see.
“Even if the world forgets him,” he said, quiet and cold beneath the weight of grief, “I don’t.”
On-screen, Himeko’s eyes softened. Her voice was cautious now, careful like she was stepping around broken glass.
“Dan Heng… I believe you believe this. But if the mirror has affected your cognition—”
“Then let me prove I’m not wrong.”
He closed the notebook with finality. The sound was barely a whisper, but it felt louder than anything.
Caelus is real.
I remember him.
I always will.
His feet moved before he realized. Fast. Determined. Boots slamming against ancient stone.
“Give me time,” he murmured—half to them, half to himself. “Before the last piece of him disappears.”
The call ended. The screen went black.
Dan Heng didn’t look back.
He was already running.
Back to the mirror.
Back to the name that refused to die quietly.