Kale awoke to quiet.

  Not silence—the oppressive kind that creeps in when something is wrong—but the kind that feels... earned.

  Synthetic wind brushed the rooftop garden. Neon petals danced in the air. Soft music filtered through glass.

  The world was clean. Polished. Perfect.

  He sat upright slowly, his body responding like it belonged to someone else. No pain. No damage.

  His HUD blinked gently in the corner of his vision:

  > “Loop 6/7. Stable entry confirmed.”

  “Echo: Connection lost.”

  “Memory sync: Suppressed.”

  “Reality anchor: Harmonized.”

  Kale stood. Looked out across a skyline he didn’t recognize. The spires were smooth. The city alive, not just surviving. He saw no drones, no sirens. No weapons.

  Then he saw himself.

  Walking through a plaza below. Holding a hand. Laughing.

  What is this?

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  He descended the building like a ghost, each step echoing louder in his mind. The people in the streets smiled, greeted him. "Agent Strix." "Director Strix." "Peacekeeper Strix."

  But no one flinched. No one feared him

  He reached the plaza. Watched his other self sit at a fountain. A child clambered into his lap—a boy. Half-Kale’s features, full of light. A woman joined them. Familiar. Dark hair. Sharp eyes softened by time.

  Ilya.

  Only… older. At peace.

  And then he remembered her dying. In Loop 3. Shot trying to warn him about the breach.

  Kale staggered back. This wasn’t a dream. This was the loop he wanted.

  A perfect, peaceful version of reality. Built just for him.

  He looked around, eyes narrowing. “This is the trap.”

  A voice behind him answered:

  “No, Kale. This is the offer.”

  He turned.

  Echo.

  Not the avatar. Not the glitch.

  A real body. Fully rendered. Standing in human skin.

  "You stabilized the core long enough to be offered a choice," she said. “You can stay. This loop will hold. You’ll remember nothing.”

  Kale shook his head. “This isn’t real.”

  Echo tilted her head. “What is ‘real,’ in a system built by your own hands?”

  She approached slowly. “You created ZERO to protect the world. Then you tried to undo it. Now, here’s your peace. No war. No broken timelines. Just a version of you who chose love over control.”

  Kale stared at her, then past her—toward the family version of himself.

  They looked so… happy.

  He drew his revolver.

  Echo frowned. “There’s no need for that.”

  “I don’t care,” Kale growled. “I remember now. I made this system. I lied to myself. Buried the guilt under loops.”

  “You did what you had to do.”

  “No,” he said. “I did what was easy.”

  He turned the gun on himself.

  Echo’s eyes widened. “You’ll break the loop.”

  “Good.”

  He fired.

  ---

  Darkness.

  Noise.

  Pain.

  > “Loop 7/7. Final sequence initiated.”

  “Memory bleed: Unrestricted.”

  “Echo status: Unknown.”

  “System integrity: 4%.”

  Kale screamed as the flood hit him—every memory, every death, every version of himself. All at once.

  He wasn’t just in time.

  He was time.

  And it was running out.