They sat at the edge of the cliff for a long time.
Kael watched the horizon fade into itself. Clouds passed like old thoughts, slow and unhurried. Below, the sea swayed without rhythm — not peaceful, not angry. Just present.
The girl beside him — Tama, or something born from her — opened her journal.
Her hands trembled slightly, not from fear, but from the weight of being witnessed.
Echo lay beside them, eyes open, ears alert. She didn't speak. She rarely did when things this fragile were unfolding.
Tama looked at Kael.
"I don't remember being her," she said. "But sometimes I dream in syllables she left behind."
He nodded. "You sound like her."
"I sound like a thousand unfinished sentences," she replied, almost smiling.
She held out her journal.
"Want to read it?"
Kael hesitated.
Then took it.
The pages were handbound, slightly uneven. Ink smudged at the corners. Inside: sketches. Phrases. Half-glyphs that bled into each other. One page was just a list of questions.
He read a few aloud:
What if I had turned around sooner?
Would the tower still have burned?
Did he cry after I left?
Was I meant to be a witness or a wound?
Kael closed the book softly.
"You didn't have to come back."
Tama looked away.
"I didn't. I just… stayed too long in the space between questions."
Echo stood and paced toward the cliff's edge.
"She's not a reincarnation," she said. "She's the version of Tama that wasn't buried under what happened."
Kael looked at the girl beside him.
"You're a memory that outlived the event."
Tama nodded. "And I've been writing in silence, waiting for someone to answer."
They moved to a small grove farther from the cliff, where the grass grew in slow, concentric spirals and flowers opened only when asked. Kael lit a small fire with a matchbox he hadn't used in months. Echo curled into a quiet patch of sun.
Tama sat opposite him.
She handed him a folded letter.
"This one's for you," she said. "Not from me. From her. Before she faded."
Kael opened it.
The ink was older.
Shakier.
But the writing was unmistakable.
Kael,
I'm sorry I left before the story was done. I didn't know what kind of tale we were telling. I didn't know you'd carry it so far.
If you ever find the part of me that didn't survive — be gentle. She's not a ghost. She's the silence between the verses.
You were never meant to do this alone.
—Tama
He folded the letter without speaking.
Tama watched him carefully.
"You've changed," she said.
"So have you," he replied.
"No," she said. "I never was. Not until now."
Kael reached into his satchel and pulled out his blank book — the one from the Archive of Could-Have-Beens.
He turned to the first empty page.
And handed her the pen.
Tama blinked.
"What am I writing?"
Kael's voice was soft.
"The story we never told."
She stared at the page for a long time.
Then, slowly, she wrote:
Once, there was a girl who left a boy behind.
But the boy didn't stop walking.
And the girl didn't stop whispering, even after she was gone.
So when the story bent far enough, they found each other again.
Not to finish the story.
To begin it.
She looked up.
Kael smiled.
Echo raised her head, glowing faintly.
"Do you want to come with us?" Kael asked.
Tama thought for a long time.
Then nodded.
"But I don't want to be a character this time," she said.
Kael tilted his head. "What do you want to be?"
She smiled, clearer now.
"A co-author."
They camped there for one more night, beneath a sky that looked newly drawn. The stars pulsed in unfamiliar patterns, as if stories were being stitched together across constellations.
Kael didn't sleep.
He watched the waves.
Listened to Echo breathe.
And when Tama woke beside him just before dawn, she handed him back the pen.
"You'll need this," she said. "You're about to write something that doesn't have a beginning."
Kael blinked.
"How do you write something like that?"
Tama smiled softly.
"By remembering that not all stories start with once upon a time."
"Some begin with what if."