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The image of her old world hung in the void for a heartbeat longer - clear, sharp, so real she could almost taste the rain on the wind, hear the distant wail of sirens, feel the weight of the knife she kept strapped to her thigh. It was real. She knew it.

The entity did not lie about this. It had the power to pull back the curtain, to undo the fall, to set her feet back on that familiar pavement, back before the ambush, back before the world turned to code and magic and impossible choices.

And she said no.

She stepped forward, her silver blade lowered but...