4.6 | Dark Ages ✓

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HE IS LOST without her.

His feet thump down the stairs as he returns to her lab. Upstairs, his other self remains knocked out cold from the memory wipe. It won't be for another few hours before he wakes. But that leaves him, alone, not knowing where to go from here.

All he'd done was to relieve the pain of his other self. When the other Taehyung had studied the gun in his hands, he knew. Déjà vu had flooded through him. That hopelessness, that desperation, that sadness all led to one thought: I am nothing without her. And as much as he felt the same way, he couldn't let his other self pull the trigger.

So he'd wiped him.

But now what?

He opens the door of her lab and wanders in. His head pounds with fatigue; his heart aches with the emotional turmoil he's been through. Distractedly, he glances down at the Cypher around his wrist. Should I jump? But even if he went back to present time, it wouldn't make any difference.

She won't be there.

He heads past the counter of her unfinished experiments, making a beeline for the bed. But as he passes through, something catches his eye. He stops, blinks, and backtracks. The metal plate which once held the Cypher is no longer empty.

Instead, there sits rows and rows of bullets in pale-blue. A fresh batch of Antigen V. A key with an address labelled on it. There's a post-it note tacked below, written in a familiar hand.

You've saved me. You've saved the world.

Now be your own hero.

His breath catches. His heart feels like it's been wrung out, sharp spikes piercing his chest. Just the sight of her handwriting reminds him how much he misses her.

But, at the same time, his purpose is suddenly crystal clear. There must be enough bullets here to kill an army of zombies, to have him survive days—no, weeks—of the Dark Ages. And isn't that what he must do? Why else would she have left him these?

I will create my own future.

But, first, he must bury the past.

Slowly, he heads out of the lab again. He locates her urn and, clutching it to his chest, goes to bury her. He can scarcely believe it, that all that's left of her is this—a single urn holding her ashes. His eyes sting, and he feels like he should be crying but he can't. She's taken away all his tears and laughter with her leaving.

He finds her rose plant on the windowsill. Still sheer beauty in its luminance, white like snow, with buds almost in full bloom. The singular rose is now on the verge of wilting, turned away from the sun as though shunning the latter's attention.

He transfers the plant to the hole he's dug, covers both its roots and the urn with soil, then sits back on his heels. In his mind's eye, he sees an echo of a memory where, tomorrow, he would wonder—Who put you here? Who put me here?

I did.

And the girl you would be searching for is right here.

He drags in a deep breath. With a shaking hand, he presses his fingers to his lips, then to her grave. There aren't any words left to say when she's not here to hear them. Reluctantly, he pulls himself to his feet and goes back into the house.

Her absence still haunts him, made only more painful by the presence of her belongings. His hands and feet move on autopilot as he removes every trace of her. The blue coffee mug, the white coat hanging on the stand, the pink toothbrush in its holder. Gone are her research notes from the counter, her shoes from the rack, her books from their shared library. He removes them all, and stows them away in her lab.

Then he creates what will be.

A slow spinning fan. A gap between the curtains. A threadbare room. Research notes, first-aid, packeted food and other paraphernalia are shoved into a bag—the same bag he'd carried through his previous jumps. The bullets she'd given him are slotted into a gun, then laid beside his other self on the bed. He digs out the Cypher from his pocket and places it on top of the bag. Then he takes a step back and scans the room.

What else?

His eyes land on a blank notepad.

Immediately, he strides across the room, snatching a pen on the way over, the words already tumbling forth without much thought on his part. Of course. How hadn't he seen it before? She wasn't the one who was with him all along.

It had always been him.

In a swift scrawl, he pens down the words that had seen him through from the beginning:

This is the new Dark Ages.

Here's your bag, your gun and your watch. Do whatever it takes to survive.

I'll be with you to the very end.