The child tugs his sleeve. “Are you gonna leave too?”

Ten. Five.

Lie number two. He did not volunteer. He was on a bridge. A collapsing bridge. He was pulling a child from a burning car when the concrete gave way. Then nothing. Then the cube. He holds onto that—the child’s small hand, the weight of a life he’d already saved. That is real.

Behind him, the cube that was closes forever. Ahead of him, a world that needs people who know how to survive not by running, but by choosing what to carry and what to let go.

He takes out his wallet. There’s a photo of Elena. He kisses it. Then he tears the photo in half. Not because he stops loving her. Because the sacrifice can’t be something he hates. That’s not honest. The honest sacrifice is the thing he wants to keep most.