The Hidden Path 1.5

Aiden’s breath hitched as he recognized where he was—or at least, where he thought he was. It was Earth, but not the Earth he had known. This place was a distorted echo of his memories, a reflection of the world he had left behind. The air was thick with a metallic tang, and the ground beneath his feet shifted like sand, refusing to stay solid for long.

He took a hesitant step forward, his mind racing. This was impossible. He was on Aetheria, exploring the ruins—yet everything around him screamed of Earth, of home, and of the life he had lost.

The landscape around him began to shift, like a mirage forming out of the haze. Aiden blinked as the scene solidified into something achingly familiar. He was standing on a crowded street in New New York, the city that had risen from the ashes of the old world. The sky was perpetually grey, choked with smog and pollution, and the air was thick with the noise of a million desperate souls struggling to survive.

Aiden’s chest tightened as he took in the sight. He hadn’t been back to Earth in years, not since the day he had left for the Aetheria mission. But this wasn’t just any memory—it was the day everything changed.

He turned his head, almost afraid of what he might see, but there she was. Sophia. His wife. Standing on the other side of the street, looking just as she had the last time he had seen her—beautiful, strong, and utterly out of reach.

Aiden’s heart ached as he watched her, memories flooding back with painful clarity. Sophia had been the light in his life, the one thing that had kept him grounded as the world around them fell apart. But Earth had been dying, and so had she. The environmental collapse had taken its toll on everyone, but Sophia… she had never stood a chance.

“Don’t go,” he whispered, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him. She never had.

Sophia began to walk away, her figure fading into the crowd. Aiden wanted to chase after her, to reach out and pull her back, but his feet wouldn’t move. It was like he was trapped in his own memories, forced to relive the pain of losing her over and over again.

The street around him began to shift again, the buildings warping and twisting as if being pulled apart by some unseen force. Aiden’s vision blurred as the city dissolved into a new scene—his old laboratory, buried deep underground, where he had spent the last days on Earth trying to find a way to save her.

The lab was a mess of scattered notes, half-finished experiments, and the ever-present hum of machinery. Aiden remembered the desperation he had felt, the way he had thrown himself into his work, trying to find a solution to the environmental disaster that was slowly killing his wife. But it had all been in vain. Sophia’s condition had worsened, and in the end, there was nothing he could do.

Aiden watched himself hunched over a desk, eyes red-rimmed and hollow, as the clock on the wall ticked away the final hours. It had been a race against time, one that he had lost. The memory of holding Sophia’s hand as she slipped away was burned into his mind, a wound that had never healed.

“I’m sorry,” Aiden whispered to the image of his past self. “I’m so sorry.”

The scene around him began to blur once more, the edges of the lab dissolving into darkness. Aiden felt a strange sense of detachment, as if he was being pulled away from his own memories, back to the present. But the pain remained, a gnawing ache in his chest that refused to fade.

The last thing he saw before the memory faded completely was the mission briefing he had received from OmniCorp, the shadowy organization that had sent him to Aetheria. The CEO, a man with a voice as smooth as silk and a smile that never reached his eyes, had promised Aiden a fresh start—a way to escape the pain of his past and make a difference in the universe.

Aiden had taken the offer, desperate for a way out. But now, standing in the ruins of Aetheria, he couldn’t help but wonder if he had made the right choice.

The world around him continued to fade, the memories slipping through his fingers like sand. Aiden was left standing in the void, alone with his thoughts, as the weight of his past threatened to drag him down.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the flashback ended. The world of Aetheria snapped back into focus, and Aiden found himself lying on the cold, hard ground, the Orb of Eternity still clutched in his hand. His heart was pounding, his mind racing with the echoes of a life he had tried so hard to forget.

He took a shaky breath, his thoughts swirling in confusion. The flashback had been more than just a memory—it had been a window into the pain and regret he had buried deep within himself. And now, with the mission on Aetheria hanging in the balance, Aiden knew he couldn’t afford to let the past consume him.