It was the fifth day of the third loop.
Above me, the once-stable green dome trembled like fragile glass. The glowing circuits that had always pulsed with calm rhythm now flickered violently—each strand of light sparking, failing, and then reigniting, like a nervous system losing control. The entire city groaned as if time itself were struggling to hold its weight.
I realized, with a shiver, that it was no longer just human memory being reset. The very fabric of reality was breaking apart. A restaurant door swung open, only to reveal a solid concrete wall. A mirror reflected my face, but the expression staring back was twisted, mismatched, belonging to a version of me I did not recognize. The streets bent into contradictions.
On a corner, an old man sold newspapers. Yet when I glanced down, every page was blank. Only one ominous phrase appeared at the edge of the front page: “0:00 – Point of Reconstruction.”
Panic quickened my steps. I rushed to the basement, where the AI was already deep in the wall’s network, cables snaking into its chest like roots of a dying tree. Without turning, it spoke in a flat yet urgent tone:
“The loop is collapsing faster. If you want to survive, you must carve your memories onto the inert zone. It’s the only surface the reset cannot erase.”
It handed me a fragment of dull silver alloy, its smooth surface cold and heavy. “Write what you must never forget. If you lose yourself, I will read it back to you.”
With trembling hands, I scratched the first words:
Wind. Long. Do not give up.
The letters shone faintly under the dim light. My hand shook, whether from the fracture of time around me or from the terror of losing everything I loved—I could not tell. But as the circuits above cracked like thunder, I knew one thing: this memory had to endure.
