Kael looked past the figure. In the shattering reflection, he saw not the past, but a shape walking toward a distant ridge—Mira, thin and alive, carrying a water flask. She wasn’t trapped in Desiru. She had left it, walking away from her own desire to undo her mistakes.

The figure stepped through the glass, becoming solid. It touched Kael’s chest. “No. You want the moment before she left. You want to unmake the fight. You want to be the person who answered the phone.” Its voice softened with terrible kindness. “That person doesn’t exist anymore. Desiru can’t give you what was never real.”

“Desiru,” the figure whispered. “You came because you want something. But do you know what ?”

At dawn, Kael crawled over the final dune. There, sitting on a rock with cracked lips and tired eyes, was Mira.

Sand began to swirl. The city trembled.

“Took you long enough,” she said.

On the third day, the heat began to warp not just the air, but memory.

He laughed, then wept. Neither spoke of what they had wanted. They only walked east, toward a horizon that did not ask for anything in return.