Ledge

She smiles around the barrel, pulling away and cradling his face gently "of course you wouldn't. But— the one damned isn't it. Dear Andrei?" her eyes glittered with the burning fire from the explosions, as she leaned to his neck, ear.

His feet were in a pool of growing blood, slowly swallowing him. She was like snake, wrapping it's coils slowly each time he took a step.— his every action served to be her purpose. "You wouldn't, not even after so many. Blood on you.

 "Not after the lies, the tragedy." she said softly, pulling back from him, her silken white clothes catching the flaming color "you know that, feed yourself lies on hating me…But you won't."

His finger slipped from the trigger. The weapon fell away, clattering softly against the blood-slicked stone.

His hand, shaking slightly, came up to cover hers on his cheek. Not pushing her away, but not quite holding her either.

“Damn me, for a fool” he whispered, voice trembling. “I can’t.”

She smiled then, a slow, knowing curve of her lips. “Because I’m the only one who sees you,” she said. “Sees past the lies, the blood, the man you swore to become.”

Her hand stayed on his cheek, steadying him in the chaos.

“Tell me,” she breathed. “What more do you have left to give?”

She smiled, cupping his cheek, her lips curling into a wicked grin that crawled up her cheeks. "Don't stop now," she whispered against his ear. "Wake up." Confusion hit first. Then agony exploded in his skull.

The world didn't shatter; it simply stopped.

The sound of falling stone and the scream of dying men didn't fade away, but rather dissolved into a static hum that vibrated in Andrei’s teeth. The heat of the fire was gone, replaced by the biting chill of autumn wind. The metallic tang of blood vanished, replaced by the acrid scent of damp earth and decaying leaves. The gun slipped from his nerveless fingers, clattering uselessly against the stone floor of the overlook. Before he could register the loss, his boots left the slick, blood-soaked surface.

Gravity reasserted itself with a sickening lurch.

Andrei hit the ground hard, the impact jarring his spine against the unforgiving bark of a tree root. He gasped, air rushing into lungs that felt too large for this small, fragile body. He scrambled backward, hands sinking into mud and rotting leaves, his vision swimming in a haze of dark, twisted branches that clawed at a sky the color of bruised lead.

Not again.

The thought was immediate, automatic, and heavy with a history he hadn’t lived yet. Panic, cold and sharp, spiked in his chest. His hands—small, pale, trembling with the tremors of a child—came up to clutch his head. Fingers brushed against the damp grass, then against the sticky, warm wetness on his forehead. He pulled them away, staring at the red smeared against his skin.

It wasn’t his blood. It was the blood of a stranger.

He looked down at himself. The tactical gear was gone. The reinforced, suppressor-weighted boots were replaced by scuffed sneakers. The dark, utilitarian jumpsuit had vanished, replaced by the stiff, ill-fitting fabric of a school uniform. The scars he knew as the map of his survival—the jagged line down his ribs, the puckered tissue on his shoulder, the surgical scar on his thigh—were smooth, unblemished skin. He was a blank slate. A ghost haunting his own past.

"No."

The word was a choked whisper, barely audible over the rustling of the forest. He tried to stand, but his legs were uncooperative, the muscles weak and unused to the weight of his own height.

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