She had died.
Elrize had no words for the sensation—only the lingering memory of impact. Of a burning, searing heat, of the deafening sound of metal collapsing around her.
She remembered the battlefield. The way the ground shook as explosions tore through steel and earth alike. The blaring alarms. The frantic voices in her ears, calling out her—no, Aeri's—name.
The mech had been falling, tipping backward, its systems failing. She had been inside it.
No—not her. Aeri. The body she had been trapped in.
But it hadn't mattered. The pain had been real. The way her chest had tightened, her lungs burning from the suffocating heat, the sheer force of her mech breaking apart beneath her—it had felt real.
Then, the final moment.
Aeri's last breath.
The feeling of being ripped away.
And then—nothing.
A weightless silence. An endless, suffocating void.
She didn't know how long she drifted in the darkness.
There was no time here. No sound, no light.
Just cold, unfeeling emptiness.
Was this what death felt like?
A child like her had never imagined it would be this...hollow.
Her tiny mind trembled at the thought. Was this it? Would she just float here forever? No warmth, no home, no family—
No one?
Her chest ached—or at least, she thought it did. Did she even have a chest anymore? A body?
She couldn't tell.
She tried to move, but there was nothing to move. She had no arms, no legs, only the fragile awareness that she existed.
Her breath—no, she had no breath.
Her voice—no, she had no voice.
Fear wrapped its icy fingers around her.
She was alone. Completely and utterly alone.
And then—
A tug.
Something was pulling her.
At first, it was faint, like a whisper in the dark. Then it became stronger, relentless, dragging her downward, deeper into the abyss.
No!
Panic clawed at her nonexistent form as the force grew stronger, like invisible chains wrapping around her soul, yanking her toward something unseen.
She tried to resist—but how could she? She was nothing.
She had no hands to hold onto anything, no voice to scream for help.
She could only fall.
Faster, faster—
The darkness swirled around her, twisting and warping, no longer silent but filled with whispers. Low, unintelligible voices echoed, murmuring things she couldn't understand.
She clenched her eyes shut—not that it made a difference.
Then—
A light.
Faint at first. Then—blinding.
Elrize barely had time to react before she slammed into it.
She gasped—and this time, she could hear it.
And suddenly, she was no longer weightless.
No longer floating.
No longer nothing.
She was somewhere.
And in that somewhere, shards of mirrors floated around her—silent, waiting, watching.
The jagged shards drifted like broken stars in the void, some larger than others, some faintly glowing, yet all veiled by a thick, swirling mist. Their edges gleamed with a ghostly light, reflecting something just beyond her reach.
Elrize's breath hitched—no, she didn't have breath anymore, did she?
Each fragment pulsed with something strange, something familiar. But their contents were obscured, refusing to reveal their secrets.
Her tiny form curled inward, a deep sense of wrongness pressing against her chest.
She wasn't supposed to be here.
She was just a little girl.
She wanted to go home.
She wanted her family.
Her body trembled—or at least, she thought it did.
Then—
Something changed.
A presence. A weight. A silent calling.
Among the countless drifting shards, one stood out.
Larger than the others. Still. Waiting.
It did not drift aimlessly like the rest. It did not waver. It simply was.
And it was calling to her.
Elrize didn't want to go near it, but her body—or whatever she had left of one—moved anyway.
Her tiny form drifted forward, drawn by an invisible force she couldn't fight. The thick mist around the mirror rippled, curling away, as if it had been expecting her all along.
A deep, instinctual fear curled in her stomach.
She didn't want to see.
She didn't want to know.
But—
Her eyes met its reflection.
CRACK.
The moment her gaze touched it, the shard fractured.
A jagged split ran through the glass, a deep, splintering wound.
Elrize flinched, a sharp gasp escaping her lips.
The mirror trembled, shuddering beneath some unseen weight. The mist around it vanished as the cracks spread—splintering, crawling, devouring—
No, no, no!
She tried to pull away—**tried to run—**but the force dragged her in.
SHATTER.
The entire fragment exploded.
And then—
Agony.
A pain unlike anything she had ever felt ripped through her skull.
Elrize screamed.
Her small hands clutched at her head—except there were no hands, no body, just the unbearable pain of a dam breaking, of memories surging forward like a tidal wave, drowning her in everything she had forgotten.
The cold night. The bloodstained road.
The burning. The screaming.
Her family.
Her brother's voice.
Her tiny feet pounding against the ground, her lungs burning as she ran.
"Rizzy, don't ever look back. Run, okay?"
The words—her brother's words—tore through her like a blade.
She wanted to scream for him. To call out. To beg him not to leave her.
But she was drowning in memories, in a past she had forgotten.
The fire. The pain.
The moment her world had ended.
"Just a little more—"
But she never made it.
A searing, burning heat devoured her whole.
She curled into herself, sobbing soundlessly, as the abyss swallowed her once more.
And then—
Elrize's eyes snapped open.
Her lungs burned.
She was breathing.
A desperate, choking gasp tore from her throat as she jerked upright, her tiny body trembling uncontrollably.