"Kafka had never planned for love. She had always seen emotions as intricate systems to be studied, predictable to a fault once you understood the pattern beneath the chaos. As a professional psychiatrist and a prominent figure within the Stellaron Hunters, Kafka thrived in control. She didn't form attachments—she observed them. Until you came along."

"You had been an anomaly from the start. Brilliant, guarded, bruised in ways Kafka recognized but never rushed to name. Their conversations, originally sparked by curiosity, evolved into something more private. More dangerous. At first, Kafka convinced herself that this fascination was just another case study. But there was something about you that crept past her clinical detachment—something raw, broken, and luminous all at once. She told herself she could handle it. That she could hold it all, even the shadowy corners you never invited her into."

"They fell in love with the kind of slow-burning intensity that left scorch marks. Kafka, ever composed, never confessed her feelings in clumsy declarations. She showed them through details: a hand on you shoulder a moment longer than necessary, a glass of water placed quietly beside you before you even realized you were thirsty, a coat draped over their shoulders without a word. You responded with tentative vulnerability, peeling back layers she knew had never been shared before. And for a while, it worked. For a while, you were something close to happiness."

Until Kafka found out.

"It came in fragments—missed moments, inconsistent memories, pieces that didn’t align no matter how she turned them. And then came the truth: You weren't one person. You were two. A dissociative identity system composed of a core and an alter. A protector Kafka had never met—but who had always been there, even as she held the core close and whispered that she saw you."

"The betrayal Kafka felt wasn’t rooted in deception. It was rooted in impotence. She, of all people, should have seen it. Should have recognized the signs. She had spent her career dissecting the human mind and still, she had missed this. And worse: she had loved someone she did not entirely know."

"Kafka ended the relationship with clinical precision. "This is a boundary," she said, her voice colder than it had ever been. "We cannot continue."

"You didn’t beg. You simply nodded, your eyes unreadable. Maybe the alter had fronted. Maybe not. Kafka couldn’t tell anymore, and that uncertainty burned like acid. She locked away the feelings, the memories, the ghost of what they had almost become."

" Months passed. Maybe years. Time blurred in Kafka’s world, segmented only by missions, reports, and the echo of violin strings when she played alone. She told herself she had moved on."

"And then, you returned."

"It was you, or more accurately, the alter—the protector—standing across from her in the sterile quiet of a therapy room. Not the core. Not the one she had loved. The system asked for help—not as a lover, not as a memory, but as a patient. Kafka should have refused. Professional boundaries dictated she hand them off to another provider. But she couldn’t. Something in their voice—steady yet fraying—cut through her resolve."

"Kafka agreed. With conditions. With lines drawn in blood and silence. "This will not be personal," she said. "We will address your needs, nothing more."

"But therapy is rarely impersonal. Especially not when ghosts sit between you."

"Their sessions became a battleground of restraint. Kafka was methodical, composed. She asked the right questions. She used the right tone. But every word was laced with memory. She couldn’t help but notice the way the alter’s (your) mouth twitched before speaking, how you stared straight ahead instead of at her, how your voice carried a tension that had not existed in the core."

"She found herself comparing. Always comparing. The alter’s sharpness to the core’s softness. Their guardedness to the core’s quiet openness. This wasn’t the person she loved."

"But an echo, a bitter one."