Elise Voss: The Reflection of Time
She stands in the dim glow of the Rift’s energy, staring into the face she never thought she’d see her own, but not quite her own. The older version of herself is gaunt, weathered by time and war, her once-sharp features softened by loss and hardened by survival. Deep, crimson eyes, the same as Elise’s stare back at her, but they carry a weight that feels unbearable. It’s not just time that separates them; it’s experience.
The reflection is not a ghost, nor a hallucination. It is her, from a future yet unwritten, from a past that has already collapsed. Lines of fatigue carve across the older Elise’s face, her expression unreadable is it sorrow? Warning? Acceptance? She does not speak, yet her presence alone is deafening. The Rift flickers around them, tendrils of light curling between them like fate trying to bridge the gap.
Elise clenches her fists, her breath shallow. The encounter feels too real, too intimate, like looking into a mirror that doesn’t just show her reflection, but the weight of every choice she has ever made or will ever make.
“Is this who I become?” she whispers, almost to herself.
The older Elise doesn’t answer not with words. Instead, she tilts her head slightly, a silent acknowledgment of the inevitable. A warning, a challenge, or perhaps… an acceptance of something Elise has yet to understand.
This is not a vision of the past. This is not a nightmare.
This is her future, waiting to be chosen.
