Lester and Franklin stopped fighting.

  No more charging into battle. No more dying just to wake up and do it again. Instead, they searched for answers.

  They moved in the shadows, slipping away between resets, using the time between battles to dig deeper. Every loop gave them a few more seconds, a few more opportunities to steal documents, break into restricted areas, listen in on hushed conversations.

  Old files. Hidden reports. Fragments of knowledge buried beneath decades of erasure.

  And then, finally—they found the truth.

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  Watts wasn’t the cause of the Cycle.

  He was another prisoner.

  Lester’s stomach turned as he flipped through a weathered file marked *CLASSIFIED—LEVEL OMEGA.* Inside, faded reports detailed experiments, anomalies—references to something called *Project Eternum.* A handwritten note in the margins stood out among the typed words: *We are not meant to leave. The Cycle will ensure that.

  Franklin read over his shoulder, his voice barely above a whisper. “This isn’t a war.” His hands tightened into fists. “It’s a containment system.”

  Lester exhaled sharply, his pulse hammering. The war, the endless fighting, the resets—*they weren’t accidents.*

  Something—or *someone*—was resetting reality whenever they got too close to breaking free.

  The Cycle wasn’t just a curse.

  It was a *design*.

  And whoever built it wasn’t going to let them escape.