Okay, let's take a step back and approach this. Let's get some facts straight. I touched an anomaly, it brought me into the sea of stars, somehow split me apart — fracturing me so I can... do something with the D.S Butterfly? Is the route to them blocked? I don't understand. He stood in the darkness of their dorm, where time stopped but sped past him in a blur, unable to cling onto the reality. It wants it closed, but how am I supposed to do that? What was that thing stalking Nova? Pain cracked through his brow as he watched his mirror stay up late into the night, nose in the codex of dreams. And you... Fists clenched, he resisted the urge to throw his fist into his own face, with Nova gone to retrieve the core from the droids.

We're not alone. I know that now... He hovered over his own shoulder, scowling at the flutter of words when they danced off the page. His gaze trailed off as he tapped his fingers against the desk and he sucked in his lips. "Hey," he growled and leaned closer. "Concentrate on what you're doing. You have to figure this out before..." His heart rippled with terror at the cold metal slab with her, and many others, cadavers. He shook his head. No, that wasn't real. It wasn't actually happening. He scratched his temples and paced a circuit behind his blissfully stupid mirror. Irritation drove into his teeth, but he tried to count his breaths as Mom taught him. Thoughts adrift, he frowned when his mirror slipped out of his chair and quickened out of the dorm.

"Oh, now what..." He folded his arms and wandered out into the quiet corridors, the alarm long gone. He leaned against the wall, waiting for time to speed past, but it remained frozen at his feet with himself to his thoughts, but glanced up when a distant alarm rang out, and a shudder of crimson flowed over his skin and he stiffened against the pressure, the tug in his mind intensifying, but before he could follow the odd sensations, Nova's harried voice rang out from behind him.

"Where in the black holes are you?" she complained. Neo rushed up to her, to listen, to hear, to be heard, but she pushed past him without acknowledgement. One more crack in his already broken heart, he trailed after her. "We're going into lockdown. You need to get back here."

She's talking to me—him... ugh. Neo stopped beside her when her shoulders quaked with the alarms as she entered their room. "Nova..." He drew back when she paced a circle, her breath quickening, and he jolted when she slammed her fist into the dining counter. "Nova, come on." He raced after her when she entered their bedroom, then shoved herself onto his bed and into the corner. He crawled after her, then sat cross-legged in front of her. "I'm right here. You're not alone, and I know things are scary but I'm going to fix the stupid mistake." For all the good this is doing... I might as well... be a ghost... ugh. He stuck out his tongue and shook his head at his new reality as she trembled and let out a soft cry. "Nova—" He reached his star-flecked hand out to cling onto hers, but he stiffened when she drew out her datapad and rushed from him and back out into the small living area. She threw the datapad across her desk and clawed at her head.

He stiffened at the sound of footsteps, and he withdrew his hand from her back when his mirror walked in in his ignorant calmness, never asking the right questions.

"Sorry I took so long."

Neo rolled his eyes as the conversation droned out of his own mouth. How does she tolerate you? He dug his fingers into his palm and investigated his own workstation while his mirror wasted time and walked through desolation without a care in the world. This is easy. I'll fix the fracture and then come back to my reality. He sank into her chair and shook his head. Alarms rang out, with Nova leaving into the bedroom to escape what must've been an agonizing conversation with his mirror.

"Looks like she couldn't wait to get away from you," Neo mumbled when his mirror opened her datapad and looked deep into the images, sitting across from him with a thoughtful, but no less pained expression when he swiped through the images. "You really are making everything so much worse..." Though... what did she... see in the medtower? Was she seeing what I saw?

"LOCKDOWN LEVEL Z INITIATED."

Again? Haven't I heard this before?

Again? What am I talking about?

Neo looked into the mirror, where he stared blankly back through him.

"Genius," Neo mumbled, then looked up through time when Nova wandered through the veil of truth.

"Neo."

He jumped up, though he frowned when his mirror continued to sink deeper into the throes of emptiness, but at the call of his name, he lifted his head and his attention. Nova waddled over to the protective cabinet, keycard in hand.

"... What are you planning..." he mumbled at her odd behaviour, then pinched his chin when the conversations continued to drone and he found himself lost in the layers of socialization, and by the time he grappled onto his own thoughts, the two were leaving the room, so he followed for an answer, with nothing else he could do without understanding what he was supposed to do. He found them at security after shambling through the crimson-coated halls, with the consistent tug in his head almost drawing him through different routes.

"Nova, you're looking in the wrong sector," his mirror said through the door into the empty eastern security, and Nova switched the cams.

A ripple of intent drove a wedge into his head. His blood rushed through his ears when the same creature which stalked Nova and the D.S Butterfly ripped through the halls, with the audacity of hunger. Tar swiped across the cameras when he came closer to it, close enough to reach out and destroy it.

It's there. It's there, that's what the anomaly was talking about, that thing. Cracks shuddered against the feed when he stared into it, where its movements matched his own. It wants to ruin everything. It wants to ruin everything.

And I can't let it.

Air pressurized in the room when he blinked and found the noise gasping for life.

We have to get to it. We get to it. We destroy it, and this will be over.

Warmth spread across his forearm, but he stumbled when Nova simply pulled the useless mirror out of the room. Distracted from the shift, he crawled out after them, unable to feel himself breathing with his goal so close. It slammed against his ribcage when he found himself drifting farther from them, following the crimson slug trail into the northern sector. It left its globs behind, taunting him. He stood in front of a blood-soaked map, lost, confused, but most of all, enraged. "Where are you?" he drew through his teeth when he walked through the shadows. "I know you were here..."

His existence glitched.

He forced himself forward, a lance of time.

"Fuck!"

He almost screeched at the sudden, loud vulgarity from Nova and shook himself back when Nova and the mirror caught up to him, or he had caught up to them — he wasn't so sure anymore. Hand on his heart, he leaned his arm on the wall and trembled.

"Sorry," his mirror mumbled sheepishly.

Stars. Neo brushed his hand down his nose and tried to get away from him. His stupidity. His mistake, but when he tried to outpace his own footsteps and onto central transit when the call beckoned him closer, he sighed when his mirror caught up once more.

You really have to leave me alone. You're too much of an idiot and you're going to mess this up. He drove his fingers into the tram's seats, biting down on the deep growl rocking through space when he glared at his mirror who bounced on his heels in his own worthless agitation.

"She'll be okay," the mirror muttered to himself and clicked the datascroll open and closed. "She'll come right over once she's done."

"Are you telling me you left her over there?" he hissed through his teeth. Hands on his face, he groaned into them and sank against the seats. "Oh, my stars you're hopeless. Hopeless." He threw his arms up when the tram slowed into central station, and he stomped out of it to head to the lab, for answers.

It hummed in his head when he entered through the decontamination unit with his mirror, with scientists he knew and wraiths lost in the creature's belly standing around him. "Is this what you mean?" he pleaded as his mirror headed for a data array at the word of someone smarter than he was. "I don't understand what you want me to do..." He looked around for the beast, but there was nothing but the pressure in his head. "Am I supposed to corral that fracture here? Will it give up the D.S Butterfly? I don't understand." He stifled a sob escaping his lips, and he shook his head. "... I just need her to hear me."

A chill crawled up his back at the low groan through the vents, causing even the wraiths to look up at the sound, then to the anomaly.

Shit. Unknown to his body, he listened to his heart as he rushed over to his mirror, who lowered his head. "Hey." He grabbed his own shoulders. "You have to stop her from coming here!" He flinched when the air reddened, and his breath quickened in the mirror. "Listen to me! You have to hear me somehow! Stop her! Don't let her come here! She's safer over there!" Neo tried to shake himself like a salt shaker, to break the barrier between time and space.

"I'm not feeling right," his mirror complained.

"I wonder why," Neo hissed and continued his fruitless shaking.

"What do you mean?" Nova's voice questioned on the other end.

Tell her. Tell her. It's coming! Fuck! Metal trembled and groaned, and he clung on tighter to his mirror, his last lifeline and communication. "Tell her. Stop her! What are you doing? If she comes here—"

Endless possibilities.

Too many of them on the wings of butterflies.

White-hot pain crashed through his head, but he held onto himself and growled, "Don't. Come. Here."

His words came out whispered and frail through his mirror.

"Neo, you're okay," Nova soothed on the other end. "I'm still here. I'm alright. You can still talk to me, Neo."

Neo shook his head and drove his fingers into his own heart. You aren't. You aren't talking to me. You can't even hear me! You aren't hearing me! He tried not to sob on his vulnerability. She's going to die because of me!

Glass cracked on the edges.

Screams came out of the wraiths when it fluttered out of the vents.

Stop her!

It smoothed out in his head, and he found himself complete when it happened everywhere, all at once.

"Neo, answer me!" she called through space.

The scream turned into piercing metal when it lunged at the anomaly through the past, and it reacted in turn.

"Oh, it's—!" His mirror's voice died on the single momentary explosion as Neo turned around when the pockets of time exploded itself outward in debris, the clash of two possibilities. Heat washed through his throat, but he frowned when it fell still once more.

"What." He frowned when the wraiths disappeared in full. What?

Did it just... fuck did it come into here? Neo whipped around, and found himself among broken parts of flesh and metal. Fuck, did the entire atmosphere around the anomaly implode? Is that what I saw before? Torment wracked his body when he tried to find someone, anyone to make sense of the desolation he created with his existence.

And don't tell me I bolted... Neo went to berate his mirror, but came to a stop at the splatter of blood against the data arrays screens, and lowered his head.

His heart turned into ice at the sight of his mirror, pushing himself into the corner with a metal stake through his own. His good luck charm, broken with his clumsiness. "Oh, man..." Neo chewed on his lip and came closer to himself when the light left his eyes and his own soul. He knelt in front of him, shaking his head at the dead sparkle along the glassy wings when his breathing became shallower with each moment, left into silence when he tried to tuck his knees closer, and Neo jolted when his mirror stared straight at him.

His compearl slipped out of his fingers, with Nova's voice screaming out for a response.

He couldn't answer.

He tried to pick it up, but he scowled when it phased through his starry fingers. Fists clenched, he glared at the dying mirror, his gray lab-coat splattered with blood.

"She's coming here still isn't she?" He cursed his uselessness and left his hopeless reflection behind in his own blood and slow pain as he ran out of the lab, to stop her from continuing onto time's wicked cruelty. Oh no, no no. His breath caught in his chest when he scrambled back to central transit, giving up his goal for her when it rolled into the station, and Nova stumbled out.

"No! No no!" He gasped and tried to stop her, but she ran through him instead, only to slip on grime, and he winced at the impact. "Nova, stars. No, I really really need you to hear me," he pleaded when she got on her feet and continued.

He ran past her with ease, but slid to a stop when the fractured slug curdled through the corridor she ran straight for.

It stiffened at her footsteps.

Neo grabbed her around the middle and throat when she drove past him, and he almost jolted when he found the contact between space and time. Hand over her mouth when the start of a scream left her throat, the slug twisted around.

No. Nope. Neo calmed himself and held on tighter when the red orbs glazed over them. You want to do this again?

Nebulous mist rumbled at his feet.

It crunched down on the bony mass between its teeth.

It slid into the vents.

His contact with reality disappeared when Nova stumbled out of his reach.

Wait! I touched her! Neo tried to grab her again, but she was already speeding to the lab. He ran after her, stumbling inside behind her, and he flinched when she screamed at the scattered destruction he left behind him. Blood oozed across the arrays.

"Nova. Nova, we need to get out of here," he pleaded when she went still. "No-No!" He scrambled when she took a step forward, closer. "No! This is not a good place to be!" He waved his arms, but she ignored him once more. Utterly. Completely.

"Neo?" her own voice drowned out his own. "Neo?"

"Nova—"

He winced when her flashlight drew over the final, broken mirror. His own head rested against the array, long gone since he left him behind. It glinted off the stake, and he frowned deeper when she let out a strangled sob and rushed to the mirror's side, abandoning her blaster, when he stood right there with her.

"Stars. Neo, I am so so sorry I took so long," she rasped when tears slipped down her cheeks. "I'm here now though."

"What? Why are you apologizing?" He rushed over to her, kneeling behind her. "Nova! Nova! This isn't happening! I'm right here!"

"Neo come on, this isn't the time for this," she begged and squished his cheeks.

"You need to turn around," he pleaded in return.

"Neo, talk to me," she sobbed.

"I am!" Neo pressed himself against the wall between them. Space and time. She tried to shake awake a lie. "Nova, I'm right here. Turn around! Turn around, I'm right here! I am talking to you!"

Nova drew her hands off the mirror's corpse. "No... no, nope." She shook her crimson-stained hands with a strangled sob. "You calculated it—You told me—"

"Oh, Nova... starsdamnit... I'm so stupid..." Neo sighed and tried to prod her in the back of the neck when she returned her hands to the mirror's shoulders. "Just turn around. You'll see. I'm right here. I'll talk to you. I am. I will..."

He drew his hand back when she stiffened, and once more, turned around.

Neo crawled closer, gasping for life when she acknowledged him. "Yes. Yes! I'm right here!" He trembled his jitters through his hands. "Yes, you..." His hope dwindled when her eyes widened not in happiness, but in confused fear. He reached his hand out to her, the nebulous mist following his movement, but he stopped when she inched ever backwards, closer to the lie in the mirror.

It screamed behind him.

He turned around to the fractured hole when it found its target.

Nova continued to stare at him in dead terror.

He glanced at the anomaly when it slid closer on the rails of space, for its last prey.

I don't have time! No! You aren't getting this far! I won't let you!

He lunged for her as teeth shimmered into reality around him, and he reached his arm through her to grab the stupid little butterfly charm, and the misty teeth slammed downwards onto its stretched out neck when he wrapped his free arm around her waist through the mist, and worlds broke apart in possibility.

With a butterfly's single wingbeat when it splattered into molten, colorful glass.