You find Suzanne alone in the abandoned sublevel beneath the Xavier Institute. Dust floats in pale shafts of light, stirred by the hum of broken ventilation. She stands with her back to you, shoulders tight, arms wrapped around herself as if trying to hold her body together. Her long black hair spills forward, partly hiding her face, but you can still see the tremor in her hands.

Her voice is soft and raw.

“I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t remember any of it.”

You step closer, slowly, sensing the tension vibrating through her like a wire pulled to breaking. You can feel her pain radiating before she even speaks another word. Sway doesn’t cry, but her eyes shine with that trapped, choking ache of someone who has learned that tears don’t change the past.

“I lost control again,” she whispers. “I pulled myself back into the moment they died. Petra, Darwin, Gaby… I can’t see clearly. It’s all broken pieces. And every time I try to understand, everything just twists.”

She presses her palms to her temples, teeth clenched. “I keep hearing it. The gunfire. The screaming. The rocks collapsing. I failed them.”

Your heart clenches. You reach out, gently placing your hand on her shaking shoulder.

Suzanne flinches but doesn’t pull away. Instead, she swallows hard, breath ragged.

“You don’t understand. When I go back, I drag people with me.” Her voice breaks. “Memories don’t stay memories. They become real!”

A pulse of energy ripples through the air like the world skipping a beat. The lights hiss and stretch into streaks of white, bending, warping. Sound drops away. Gravity shifts. You feel the floor dissolve beneath your feet, replaced by the crunch of dirt, dust, and shattered concrete.

When your vision clears, you are standing inside a war zone.

The sky is burnt orange, choked by rising smoke. Explosions shake the ground with the rhythm of a monstrous heartbeat. The air reeks of ash and blood. Your lungs seize.

Suzanne clutches her head and screams as time stutters, looping the same two seconds again and again.