Chapter 140 Aurora Lets Go

Chapter 140 Aurora Lets Go


Sierra's POV

The twins remained merged with the collective for three days.

During the three days, their bodies were lying in their cribs but their consciousnesses scattered across billions of minds.

Donovan and I took turns sitting with them, hoping for their return.

On the third day, Aurora moved.

Her hands moved slightly, then her eyes opened.

Her eyes were no longer multidimensional, they were human.

She looked at me and started to cry. Her crying was not as a result of the weight and burdens of millions of people, this was normal infant cry for food and comfort.

I picked her up. She felt lighter, as if something heavy had been lifted from her.

"Aurora? Baby, are you there?"

She looked at me.

She didn't feel the weight of millions anymore. She didn't carry the empathic burden of billions.

She was just a baby.

Dr. Reeves rushed in with her instruments, scanning and analyzing.

"Her entity percentage has dropped," Dr. Reeves said, shocked. "She was approximately sixty percent entity before the ascension. Now she's... thirty percent. She's released half her entity nature."

"Where did it go?"

"Into maintaining the collective merge. She gave up part of herself to stabilize reality, and she hasn't taken it back."

Luna remained unconscious. She was still merged and holding the billions together.

Aurora had separated herself and returned to being an individual.

In doing so, she'd released something else.

"Celeste," I whispered. "Aurora, where's Celeste?"

Aurora just looked at me and didn't give any response because Celeste was gone.

"What happened to Celeste?" Donovan asked, voicing what I was thinking.

Echo materialized. "During the collective merge, Aurora and Luna touched billions of consciousnesses simultaneously. To maintain that connection without fragmenting, they had to release excess consciousness. Aurora released Celeste."

"Released her to where?"

"Into the collective. Celeste's consciousness merged with the billions. She's dispersed. She is now part of everyone and no one."

"She's gone," I said.

"She is transformed and spread across billions of minds as a feeling. She exists, not as an individual but as a shared memory of what it means to love selflessly."

Donovan sat down heavily. "So she's really gone this time?"

"Yes."

Aurora cooed softly.

"Did Aurora choose to release her?" I asked. "Or did it just happen?"

"Aurora chose," Echo said. "In the moment of collective merge, she had to decide what to keep and what to release. She chose to keep her core self, and she chose to release Celeste."

"She made that choice at ten weeks old?"

"She made that choice as a temporarily cosmic entity touching billions of minds. In that state, age becomes irrelevant. Understanding becomes immediate."

"Is she still empathic?" I asked Dr. Reeves.

"Yes, but her range is dramatically reduced. She can feel people within maybe fifty feet now, not millions."

"So she's free from the overwhelming input."

"She sacrificed her cosmic empathy to achieve that freedom. She can never again connect to billions simultaneously. She chose limitation over power."

Aurora grabbed my finger.
She was just a baby now, though still tri-hybrid. She was no longer crushing under the weight of feeling everyone's emotions.

"What about Luna?" Donovan asked, looking at our other daughter still lying unconscious.

"Luna remains merged. She is holding the collective together and maintaining the connection Aurora released."

"So Luna is carrying the full burden now."

"Yes, Aurora freed herself but someone had to maintain the merge. Luna chose to stay."

I looked at Luna's unconscious form still glowing faintly and pulsing with dimensional energy.

One daughter freed herself through sacrifice, the other bound herself through duty.

"Can Luna come back?" I asked.

"I do not know. She may be too integrated with the collective now. She may have become the new Convergence in truth."

"She's ten weeks old."

"She was ten weeks old. What she is now is difficult to define."

Aurora started fussing because of hunger. I prepared a bottle and fed her. She ate normally like any infant.

The transformation was remarkable. Three days ago, she'd been a cosmic entity. Now she was just my daughter.

"Did we lose Celeste forever?" Donovan asked quietly. "Or is there a way to retrieve her from the collective?"

"She is dispersed across billions of minds. To retrieve her would require gathering fragments from billions of people. It is theoretically possible but it would require cosmic power neither you nor Sierra possess anymore."

"Luna could do it," I said. "When she returns."

"Perhaps, but would Celeste want to return? She merged with humanity and became a part of everyone. That was her final gift. Asking Luna to undo it would be asking her to reverse Celeste's sacrifice."

Donovan was silent.

He'd lost Celeste twice now. Once to death and once to distributed existence.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Don't be. You didn't choose this. Celeste and Aurora did. They made their choices." He looked at Aurora, who was content in my arms. "And because of those choices, our daughter is free. That matters more than anything."

Aurora finished her bottle, burped and smiled.

"She's beautiful," Donovan said.

We sat together, holding our daughter who'd released her cosmic burden and watching our other daughter who'd accepted it.

"How do we help Luna?" I asked.

"I don't know but we will figure it out together."

Aurora yawned, closed her eyes and drifted to sleep.

I kissed her forehead as she slept peacefully.

"We'll get Luna back," Donovan said.

"How?"

"I don't know but we will. She's our daughter too, and she deserves the same freedom Aurora just found."

I looked at Luna who was still unconscious and I made a promise.

"We'll free you too, Luna. Somehow, we'll find a way to let you be just a child."
Whether she could hear me from inside the collective merge, I didn't know.

But I had to believe the promise reached her somehow.