Under Blake’s playful coaxing and persistence, the black-haired girl finally relented and quietly ate every single bite of the messy bento.
Blake watched her from the side of the park bench, a small smile forming on his lips.
As she wiped her mouth, he leaned in and asked, “Well?
How was it?”
“It was…
really good,” she whispered, giving a tiny, hesitant nod.
It was the first time in as long as she could remember that a simple hot meal had actually made her feel safe.
Seeing that she was full, Blake tried to keep the momentum going.
He scratched his chin, searching for a lighthearted topic.
“So…
got any big plans for the summer vacation?”
The question caused the girl’s smile to vanish.
She lowered her head, her gaze dark as her mind reluctantly dragged her back to the horrors of the previous night.
In her memory, she was curled into a tight ball on her mattress, her knees pulled flush against her chest.
Even inside her own bedroom, she was trembling, utterly devoid of any sense of security.
Suddenly, the door was violently kicked open, slamming against the drywall.
A middle-aged woman marched into the room, her face twisted in disgust.
She thrust a sharp, accusing finger at the girl’s face, her voice dripping with venom.
“The second tomorrow morning hits, you’re packing your crap and getting the hell out of my sight.
You’re going to your grandfather’s.
Just looking at your pathetic face makes me sick.”
The girl remained frozen, staring blankly at the floor.
Infuriated by her silence, the woman lunged forward, delivering a brutal, resounding slap across her cheek.
“I’m talking to you, brat!
Did you hear me, or are you deaf and mute on top of being a freak?!”
The sheer force of the blow snapped the girl’s head back.
She clamped a trembling hand over her rapidly reddening cheek, biting her lip as small, muffled sobs escaped her throat.
“Tch.
What a curse,” the woman muttered.
She spun on her heel and slammed the door shut behind her, the violent vibration causing the girl to flinch and curl even tighter into the corner.
“Waaah…
h-he-he…”
The memory fractured.
The girl’s hand subconsciously drifted up to stroke her own cheek, the phantom sting of the slap making her shudder.
She kept her eyes glued to her shoes, completely unwilling to speak.
“Hey, if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s totally fine,” Blake said gently, noticing her distress.
“I won’t force you.”
He pushed himself up from the bench.
Even though he possessed knowledge of the original timeline and knew she was supposed to go on a cross-country road trip with her grandfather, seeing her like this made him uneasy.
He offered a warm wave.
“I should probably head back home.
If I stay out any longer, my mom’s going to start suspecting I’m out here causing trouble with you.
See you around!”
He turned to leave, but before he could take a single step, a tiny, desperate pair of hands reached out, clutching tightly to the hem of his jacket.
Blake stopped, looking back over his shoulder.
“What’s up?”
The girl held onto the fabric with a white-knuckled grip, her expression a fragile mask of sheer terror as if letting him go meant losing her entire world.
But a second later, reality seemed to catch up to her.
Her fingers uncurled, releasing him as she lowered her head, shaking it slowly.
“Nothing…
it’s nothing.”
Blake’s internal alarms went off.
According to the standard timeline, Grandpa Max should have already picked her up in the Rust Bucket by this hour, yet there was absolutely no sign of anyone looking for her.
He realized that if he walked away right now, she would likely spend the night exposed to the elements, freezing on this park bench with nowhere else to go.
Without a second thought, Blake stepped back toward her and extended a hand.
The bright afternoon sun caught his silhouette from behind, casting a warm, radiant glow around him.
“Come on.
Let’s go for a walk.
I’ll show you around the city.”
To the girl, the boy standing before her didn’t just look like a friend, he looked like a blinding ray of pure dawn cutting through the absolute darkness of her life.
Her hand moved on instinct, reaching up to grasp his palm.
“Hold on tight,” Blake laughed, squeezing her hand firmly as he pulled her up and led her toward a nearby boardwalk amusement park.
Using the last of his pocket change, Blake spent the rest of the evening treating her to every ride and arcade game available.
At one point, he practically dragged her into a classic neon photo booth, aligning their faces in front of the lens.
“Alright, look at the camera and give me a huge smile!”
The girl hesitated, her facial muscles rigid from years of neglect, but she forced herself to squeeze out a tiny, genuine smile.
“Cheese!”
The shutter clicked, flashing brightly as it captured a physical anchor for the happiest memory of her life.
They spent the next few hours screaming on roller coasters, crashing into each other in bumper cars, and laughing until their stomachs ached.
By the time they grew exhausted, the two children sat quietly by the riverbank, watching the glassy surface of the water mirror their adjacent reflections.
They leaned into one another, soaking in the absolute serenity of the evening.
The girl stared at their combined reflection, her lips trembling slightly as she tried to form the words to tell him how much he truly meant to her.
But the courage failed her.
She remained silent, content to just exist by his side until the stars began to needle through the sky.
For the first time in her existence, she understood what it felt like to be cherished.
And for the first time, Blake began to comprehend the true weight of why he had been reincarnated into this world.
As the night grew cold, Blake decided it was time to guide her toward the forest coordinates where the Rust Bucket was supposed to be stationed.
He couldn’t keep her out forever.
“Man, I am going to get absolutely grounded into oblivion by my mom when I get back,” he joked as they walked.
He had no idea that he would never have to worry about his mother’s punishments ever again.
This was his final night alive.
“Let’s get you back to your grandpa,” Blake said.
The moment the words left his lips, the girl lunged forward, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist as her entire body began to shake.
A profound, instinctual terror seemed to grip her.
But just as quickly, she forced her emotions down, loosening her grip and silently following a step behind him as they entered the dense woods.
Relying on his memories of the show, Blake navigated the thick underbrush until the metallic frame of the Rust Bucket finally came into view.
Yet the moment they stepped into the clearing, this timeline’s version of Grandpa Max and Gwen burst from the vehicle, unleashed a torrent of vile, venomous insults at the girl.
The sheer, unadulterated hatred in their voices was palpable.
Unable to take the cruelty, the girl burst into tears and bolted into the deepest trenches of the dark forest, desperate to hide her humiliation from Blake.
She had no way of knowing that her flight would trigger the start of an absolute, irreversible nightmare…
(Inside Blake’s Consciousness)
The dream shifted rapidly.
Blake watched as the black-haired girl remained kneeling in the center of the raging hellfire she had created, motionless until the entire forest and everyone within it had been completely reduced to ash.
She slowly stood up, her gaze fixed entirely on the glowing green faceplate of the Omnitrix on her wrist.
The warmth in her eyes had completely evaporated, replaced by an absolute, sub-zero chill.
“I will make every single one of them pay,” she whispered.
With that single vow, the remaining light in her soul decayed, turning as pitch-black as her hair.
In the years that followed, she utilized the absolute power of the Omnitrix to launch a ruthless, bloody campaign that brought the entire planet to its knees.
Her tyrannical, uncompromising methodology quickly caught the attention of the cosmos and eventually, the creator of the device itself.
Azmuth traced the signature to Earth, determined to strip the weapon away from a human who was using his masterpiece to slaughter civilizations.
But the Galvan scientist completely underestimated her.
Knowing exactly who he was, she didn’t hesitate.
Transforming into Four Arms, she pinned the ancient creator to the ground, her grip tightening until his bones popped as she demanded absolute master-control access.
“You will not take this away from me,” she snarled, her voice distorted by the alien vocal cords.
“Authorize the master control, or I will tear your head from your shoulders right now.”
Terrified and entirely defenseless, Azmuth was forced to unlock the device’s full potential, granting her unrestricted access to every biological file in the watch.
But her reign didn’t go unnoticed.
A massive warlord dreadnought soon descended upon Earth’s atmosphere, and Vilgax himself crashed onto the battlefield, standing tall before her.
Azmuth, watching from his restraints, looked at the tyrannical girl with absolute disgust.
“Look at what you’ve become.
You are no different than Vilgax.”
Armed with the master control, the battle was entirely one-sided.
She systematically dismantled the galactic conqueror.
Shifting into Wildmutt, she used her bare teeth to tear Vilgax’s head straight from his shoulders, hoisting the trophy high into the sky as she bellowed across the cosmos, “To all the so-called conquerors of the universe—enjoy your final days.
I am coming for you next!”
She reverted to her human form, turning a wild, unhinged gaze toward Azmuth as a bouts of manic, hysterical laughter tore from her throat.
“Leaving this watch on my wrist is going to be the absolute greatest mistake you ever make in your pathetic life.”
Sometime later, Azmuth’s vengeful assistant, Albedo, managed to track her down.
Having constructed a secondary copy of the Omnitrix, the genetic feedback loop had permanently altered his DNA, transforming him into a near-identical clone of the black-haired girl, save for a cascade of long, snow-white hair and a pair of piercing crimson eyes.
Albedo’s sole objective was to reclaim the original core to stabilize his genetic matrix and return to his true Galvan form.
Initially, the girl intended to simply execute him on the spot.
But the moment she analyzed the advanced synchronization capabilities of Albedo’s secondary device, a dark, insatiable ambition took root in her mind.
The battle was swift and brutal.
She brought Albedo down to his knees, but the copycat refused to yield his device, locking his fingers over the faceplate.
Without a shred of hesitation, the girl grabbed his forearm and violently ripped the entire limb from his shoulder, taking the watch with it.
Through methods that defied comprehension, she successfully fused the devices together, unlocking a tier of evolutionary data that led her to a startling discovery: the existence of the Celestialsapiens – an omnipotent, god-like race whose DNA had been deliberately locked away by Azmuth.
Driven by a singular, psychopathic obsession, she launched an interstellar crusade across the galaxy, burning entire star systems to the ground.
She didn’t care about universal domination or cosmic power.
She was searching for a way to rewrite reality itself, just so she could see his face again.
Blake watched in absolute horror as the tragic, twisted reel of the girl’s life concluded.
He had carefully tested the boundaries of the dreamscape, confirming that none of the entities within the memory could perceive his ghostly presence.
But right at the very end, a cold, paralyzing sweat broke out across his skin.
The warlord version of the girl sat upon a throne of cold steel, her fingers gently tracing the edge of an old, worn photograph of the young Blake.
Suddenly, her head snapped up.
Her piercing, unhinged gaze locked directly onto the exact empty space where Blake was standing.
A terrifying, deeply pathological smile spread across her face, her cheeks flushing with a sick, manic blush as she whispered directly to him, “I found you…
Just wait for me…
I’m coming to get you…”
“Ah!”
Blake shot awake on the sofa, his chest heaving violently as he drew in desperate gulps of air.
The terrifying image of her bloodshot, obsessive eyes burned behind his eyelids.
“Oh, man…
it was just a nightmare…
thank god it was just a nightmare…” He pressed a trembling hand against his chest, trying to force his racing pulse to slow down.
Yet, deep down in his gut, a sickening intuition told him that what he had just witnessed wasn’t a mere fabrication of his mind.
“What the hell…
why was that dream so incredibly realistic?”
Shaking off the lingering dread, Blake swung his legs over the edge of the sofa, planning to head to the kitchen to grab a glass of ice water to clear his head.
But the moment his feet touched the floor, his eyes locked onto the dining table.
Resting in the center of the wooden surface was an old, weathered leather journal that definitely hadn’t been there when he went to sleep.
Blinking in confusion, Blake walked over and picked up the manuscript.
He flipped through the aged, yellowed pages, finding that only a single leaf near the center contained any writing.
He cleared his throat, reading the elegant, handwritten text aloud in a soft whisper:
“Written by: Paradox.”
“I first met that boy, a creature made of pure dawn and starlight.”
“And I first met her, a girl who wanted nothing more than a simple future with the one she loved.”
“But now, she stands entirely consumed by exhaustion, her soul burdened by a thousand unspoken griefs.”
“I desperately wanted to offer her comfort, but the tragedy unfolded far too quickly.”
“You vanished from my sight without warning.
We used to speak of everything under the sun, yet now your heart is filled only with resentment toward me.”
“Perhaps, at the end of all things, this irreversible ruin is simply a debt that I am meant to pay.”
“This entire universe is constructed upon a foundation of beautiful lies.”
“My soul screams to beg you to stay, yet my lips can only utter cold, venomous words of rejection to push you away.”
“The promise I once carved into your heart was simple: as long as I draw breath by your side, you will never have to fear the dark again.”
“Yet our agonizing memories continue to torture us, leaving us too terrified to ever step closer to one another again.”
“Our love has shattered into a million jagged shards across the earth; I will kneel and bleed, slowly gathering them back into my palms one by one.”
“Perhaps, when you finally tire of the war and turn your head back around…
I will still be standing right here in the exact same spot, waiting for you.”
“You have begun to collide with the jagged, broken edges of your own memories.”
“You have never truly understood that to her…
you were the entire universe.”
“Now you carry the weight of an exhausting existence, your mind fractured by a thousand heavy secrets; you refuse to comfort your own soul anymore, and so you raise your fist and shatter the mirror before you.”
“I want to smash the reflection of the man in the glass to pieces…
why is it that our story could never have a perfect ending?”
“I have never truly possessed you for even a single second in my life…
yet why does it feel as though I have lost you a thousand times over?”
“Huh…?”
As the final syllable left his lips, a sudden warmth spilled over Blake’s cheek.
He reached up, his fingers brushing against his skin in utter bewilderment.
Without him even realizing it, a silent stream of tears had begun to pour from his eyes, dripping down his jaw.
Finding no other text within the journal, Blake carefully closed the leather cover.
Moving with an uncharacteristic solemnity, he hid the ancient manuscript in a secure, hidden compartment deep within his luggage where no one else would ever find it.
However, Blake had failed to notice a final detail.
Carved into the very fabric of the back cover, hidden beneath the weathered leather lining, was a single, elegantly written name…
But for now, the identity of the person who had left that tragic text behind remained buried in the shadows of time.