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The other Aris was silent for a long moment. Then he knelt beside his daughter’s desk and picked up her drawing—the smiling sun. “She asked me yesterday why the sun looks tired,” he said softly. “I told her it was just clouds.”
He expected anger. He expected fear. But the other Aris—this happier, softer version—just looked at him with profound, terrible understanding. “The solar flickers,” the other Aris said. “I’ve been measuring them for months. I thought it was natural. But it’s you.”
Aris stepped back from the aperture. The other Aris held up his daughter’s latest drawing: two stick figures in lab coats, shaking hands across a dotted line labeled “The Helping Line.”
