The war had lasted for decades, yet no one knew how it began. The conflict between Dark Ink, Shadow Stream, and Watts stretched across time itself, repeating endlessly, unseen by those trapped within it.

  But something had changed.

  Lester and Franklin, once just soldiers fighting for survival, had begun to remember. Memories from past battles seeped into their minds like ink bleeding through paper. They had died, again and again, each time believing the fight would end—only to awaken at the start once more.

  But now, they knew the truth.

  They were prisoners of something far greater than Watts.

  And this time, they would break free.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Lester stood at the edge of a battlefield that had become a graveyard. Smoke coiled through the ruins, thick with the stench of burning metal and blood. He had seen this place before—not just once, but hundreds of times. The same shattered buildings, the same bodies strewn across the mud. The same crimson sky hanging overhead like a wound that would never heal.

  Franklin crouched beside him, rifle steady but his hands shaking. “Do you feel it?” he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.

  Lester nodded. It was no longer just déjà vu. It was recognition. A pattern unraveling before them, revealing the strings that had bound them for so long.

  “We’re caught in a loop,” Lester said, the words tasting like rust on his tongue. “A cycle. Something’s keeping us here.”

  Franklin exhaled sharply, glancing at the insignias of fallen soldiers—Dark Ink, Shadow Stream, Watts—all fighting for reasons they couldn’t remember.

  “Then we break it,” Franklin said.

  Lester clenched his jaw. He could already feel the unseen force pressing against them, trying to pull them back into the cycle, into oblivion.

  This time, they would resist.

  This time, they would remember.

  And this time, they would escape.