The wind struck my face sharply.
Cold.
Familiar.
I drew in a breath and steadied myself, my feet planted firmly against the concrete.
The rooftop stretched out before me, unchanged — the same railing, the same edge, the same empty night sky.
My heart pounded.
“I’m… back,” I whispered.
This place.
This moment.
The moment everything had started.
I didn’t think I’d gone into the past.
I knew this scene.
The beginning.
Then something caught my eye.
I turned—
And froze.
Two figures lay on the rooftop.
Side by side.
Both of them were me.
They were facing away from me, bodies still, hair spread across the concrete.
For a terrifying second, my mind refused to process what I was seeing.
Then the numbers appeared.
Above the first body hovered a soft glow.
1
Above the second — newer, fresher — another number burned faintly brighter.
2
My breath hitched.
I glanced instinctively at the dark reflection in the stairwell glass.
Above my own head—
0
My stomach dropped.
“So… it’s happening again,” I murmured.
Not time.
Not reversal.
Duplication.
My thoughts snapped back to the last thing I remembered clearly.
The bed.
The room.
The silence.
Clone-1 lying beside me.
Unconscious.
Not moving.
Fear surged through me.
I didn’t think.
I ran.
My footsteps cracked sharply across the rooftop as I dropped to my knees beside the body marked 1.
My hands trembled as I reached out, hovering just above her shoulder before finally touching it.
She was cold.
Still.
Too still.
“Hey… hey,” I whispered urgently.
I leaned closer, watching her chest, searching desperately for movement.
Please.
Anything.
Behind me, the second body — 2 — remained motionless, forgotten for the moment.
Right now, only one thing mattered.
Clone-1.
Because the last time I had seen her—
She hadn’t moved at all.
And deep inside, beneath the fear and confusion, a terrible realization began to take shape:
Every return didn’t fix the moment.
It left someone behind.
I leaned closer, holding my breath.
For a second, there was nothing.
Then—
A faint rise.
A shallow fall.
My chest loosened painfully as I felt it — the slow, uneven rhythm beneath my hand.
“She’s breathing,” I whispered.
Relief crashed into me so suddenly my knees almost gave out.
Her eyelashes trembled faintly, barely noticeable — like ripples on still water.
Then her brow tightened.
Her lips parted.
And slowly—
Her eyes opened.
They were unfocused at first, clouded with sleep and confusion.
She blinked once.
Then again.
“Mizuki…?” she murmured.
I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
“You’re okay,” I said quickly, my voice shaking despite myself.
“You’re safe.”
She frowned faintly, eyes drifting across the rooftop — the concrete, the open sky, the cold wind brushing past us.
“…Where are we?” she asked quietly.
Her gaze returned to my face.
“I remember…” She hesitated, confusion deepening.
“We were in the room.
On the bed.”
She swallowed.
“We fell asleep,” she said slowly.
“We were hugging.”
The words hit harder than I expected.
“Yes,” I said softly.
“We were.”
She pushed herself up onto one elbow, movements weak but deliberate.
Her eyes searched my face, reading it, sensing that something was wrong.
“But this isn’t home,” she whispered.
“No,” I answered.
I helped her sit up, keeping one hand steady against her back.
The night wind wrapped around us, cold and undeniable.
She looked around again — then down at herself.
Then back at me.
“Mizuki,” she said, her voice trembling now, “what happened?”
I opened my mouth to answer—
And realized I didn’t yet know how.
I was still holding her when it happened.
A sharp sound split the night.
“Mizuki—!”
The scream tore through the air.
My head snapped up.
Behind us, the second body — 2 — jerked violently, shoulders lifting as she gasped for breath.
Her eyes flew open, wild and unfocused, chest rising too fast.
“Mizuki!” she cried again, panic cracking her voice.
I turned fully, my heart hammering.
She was shaking.
Her hands clawed at the concrete as if she didn’t know where she was — as if the world had dropped her somewhere unfamiliar and refused to explain why.
“I’m here!” I called without thinking.
The moment she heard my voice, her gaze locked onto me.
Relief flooded her face so suddenly it almost hurt to see.
“There—you’re there,” she breathed, scrambling clumsily to sit up.
“I—I couldn’t—”
Her words tangled as she pushed toward me, movements unsteady, fear clinging to her like a second skin.
“I thought I lost you,” she said, her voice breaking.
“We were asleep and then—”
She stopped.
Her eyes flicked between me and the version sitting beside me.
Her breath hitched.
“…There’s two of you,” she whispered.
Silence settled heavily between us.
Clone-1 stiffened beside me, her hand tightening unconsciously in my sleeve.
Clone-2 stared, panic reshaping itself — not fading, but sharpening.
“I called you,” she said softly.
“I screamed your name.”
I stepped forward.
“I heard you,” I said.
“Both times.”
Her shoulders sagged just a little.
The numbers above our heads glowed faintly in the dark — 0, 1, 2 — quiet witnesses to something none of us fully understood yet. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
Three breaths.
Three heartbeats.
One name spoken twice.
And standing there between two versions of myself, I realized something else:
The world wasn’t finished copying me.
It was testing how much I could hold together.
I closed my eyes briefly.
The wind brushed past us, steady and cold, as if it had been waiting the entire time.
“This isn’t random,” I said quietly.
Both of them looked at me.
Clone-1, still close, watching my face.
Clone-2, tense and alert, fear still clinging to her breath.
I took a slow breath.
“I think I understand what the power does.”
Neither of them interrupted.
“When I die,” I said carefully, “I don’t disappear.”
I opened my eyes.
“I come back here.
To this rooftop.
To this exact moment.”
Their expressions shifted — not disbelief, but recognition.
Like something they already felt but hadn’t named.
“And when that happens,” I continued, my voice lower, “the world doesn’t erase what came before.”
I gestured behind us.
“It adds.”
Clone-2’s fingers curled.
“So… every time,” she said slowly, “there’s another one.”
“Yes.”
I nodded once.
“The count increases.
One more copy appears at the same spot.”
I looked at them — truly looked.
“And the new one,” I said quietly, “has all my memories.”
Not fragments.
Not echoes.
Everything.
“The same thoughts,” I added.
“The same fear.
The same understanding I had when I returned.”
Silence settled again.
Clone-1 swallowed.
“So that’s why we remember the bed,” she said softly.
“The hug.
Falling asleep.”
“Yes.”
“And why I screamed for you,” Clone-2 whispered.
“Because I thought you were the only one.”
I nodded.
“That was me,” I said.
“Just… one version later.”
I glanced at the stairwell glass.
Above my head: 0.
Above theirs: 1 and 2.
“The numbers aren’t about value,” I said.
“They’re counting attempts.”
Attempts to survive.
Attempts to change something.
Attempts the world refuses to forget.
My chest tightened.
“And every time this happens,” I finished, “there’s one more of us left behind.”
The words hung in the air.
No one spoke for a long moment.
Then Clone-2 asked quietly—
“What happens if you die again?”
I didn’t answer.
Because the answer was already standing behind me.
Thank you so much for reading Beyond Space and Time – I Was Not Allowed to End.
It truly means a lot to me that you gave my story a chance.