The door vanished. Not shut—gone.

  Just blank wall now, pulsing faintly with vein-like circuits.

  Kale didn’t move.

  His reflection—dim in the throne’s interface glass—looked more like a stranger than ever. Hollowed out. Bruised. Older than yesterday. Younger than tomorrow.

  He faced Echo—if it was still Echo.

  “Say it again.”

  Her eyes twitched. “You are ZERO.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “No,” she said softly. “Just… misremembered.”

  The throne pulsed, feeding the room with old data. Snippets of memories not quite his own filtered in through the HUD: moments of peace, of war, of choices he didn’t recall making.

  Loop three.

  A child in his arms, asking if time could be kind.

  Loop two.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  A kill order with his signature.

  Loop one.

  A quiet command: Initiate Sequence: ZERO.

  Kale staggered back, hand to his head as static laced his vision. His memories were fracturing—rewriting. Or maybe restoring.

  “I was trying to stop this.”

  “You were,” she said. “Then you changed your mind.”

  He looked at her—really looked. Not as a ghost. Not as an AI. As a host.

  “You’re not Echo anymore.”

  “No. But I remember her. She loved you. Even when she hated what you became.”

  The room darkened. The throne folded in on itself, collapsing into a glowing core.

  > “Loop transition imminent. 5/7. Integrity breach: Active memory bleed.”

  Kale backed up.

  “Wait—what breach?”

  The walls flickered. The mirrors returned. Every version of him now screaming, glitching, caught in silent loops of failure and regret.

  And from the far side of the room—a voice.

  His voice.

  Calm. Cold.

  > “You’re not supposed to be awake yet.”

  Kale turned.

  Another version of him stood in the dark.

  Hair slicked. Uniform pristine. No tremble in the hand. No fear in the eyes.

  And around his neck—Equinox insignia. Burned. Blackened. As if torn from the wreckage of reality itself.

  “You're the last one,” this Other-Kale said. “Loop Seven needs a final candidate.”

  “What are you?”

  “A possibility.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To finish what you started.”

  They moved at the same time. Guns raised.

  But the loop collapsed first.

  ---

  Kale fell.

  No ground. No sound. Just infinite falling.

  And then—

  > “Loop 5/7. Welcome back, Kale Strix.”

  He woke in fire.

  The city above him was gone. Sky cracked wide open like shattered glass. Sirens wailing. Ash in the air. The skyline was war.

  A voice whispered from the smoke.

  “They all burned, Kale. And this time… you lit the match.”