[■h■ one h■nd■■d t■■nty-fifth ■■op]
This time, we walked past the tower and its control center.
I don't know if it was the first time we'd done it. The sense of déjà vu was so strong it felt like muscle memory — like we had failed this exact walk hundreds of times before finally realizing the trap.
The red light from the tower faded behind us, pulsing slower and slower until it vanished completely.
The air shifted. The forest grew darker, quieter. Even the fog lost its movement, hanging heavy and static, as if suspended in glass.
A voice crackled faintly through the earpiece:
[T■■ a■■we■ li■■ in ■■e past]
I froze. The words crawled up my spine. The voice wasn't the anomaly's — it was softer, almost human.
Mira looked back over her shoulder. "Did someone just—?"
Theo shook his head quickly. "Nope. Don't. Don't even ask that question."
Silva's eyes narrowed, scanning the treeline. "Signal interference detected. Directional origin unknown."
"Meaning?" Theo asked.
"Meaning something wants to be heard," she said flatly.
We pressed on.
The deeper we went, the more the forest warped. Trees began bending in impossible directions, their trunks curling back toward their own roots. The sound of rain no longer matched the drops that fell — delayed, stuttering, as though the world's audio was buffering.
"So what exactly are we looking for, if not a tower?" Theo finally asked, voice breaking the thick silence.
Silva didn't answer right away. She crouched to examine the soil, pressing her gloved hand into the mud. When she stood again, her palm was coated in rust instead of dirt.
"The anomaly's pattern suggests a missing variable," she said quietly. "Something the tower doesn't account for."
Mira frowned. "A missing variable?"
"Every loop resets physical space, but not all data. It's possible the anomaly hides its core within the oldest existing signal in this region — the original transmission that started this all."
Theo tilted his head. "You're saying… we're not supposed to find something new. We're supposed to find something old."
Silva met his gaze. "Exactly."
The air grew colder. Even breathing began to feel wrong — the exhale echoing twice.
I could feel something watching. Not us, exactly — but the idea of us.
Somewhere in the fog, faint static whispered again:
[Ti■e b■■ds to bel■■f.]
[Fi■■ the or■■in. B■■e it e■■d.]
Mira shivered. "It's talking again. But… it sounds different this time."
Theo tried to joke, though his voice was thin. "Different how? Friendlier?"
"No," she murmured. "Lonelier."
Silva stopped walking. Ahead of us, the fog cleared just enough to reveal a faint outline — a structure half-buried in moss.
It wasn't the tower.
It was smaller, older — an abandoned wooden radio shack, roof caved in, antenna snapped and leaning like a broken spine.
I felt the world tilt slightly, like the air itself recognized the place.
"Chief," I whispered. "That shack… it wasn't on the map."
"It's not supposed to be," she said. "But if the answer lies in the past—"
"—then this is it," I finished for her.
Theo sighed, rubbing his face. "Great. A haunted shed in the middle of nowhere. Love that for us."
Mira shot him a tired glare. "Don't jinx it."
As we approached, the static on our earpieces flared to life again — not sharp this time, but rhythmic, almost like breathing.
And beneath it, faintly, a voice I recognized but couldn't place whispered through the noise:
[Yuw■■… d■■n't o■■n ■t.]
I froze mid-step. My throat went dry.
It was me again. My voice — weaker, fragmented — from one of the older loops, maybe even the first.
Silva turned, studying my face. "What did it say?"
I hesitated. "…It's warning me."
Theo blinked. "You mean warning us."
"No," I said softly. "Me."
The forest seemed to lean closer around us. The fog pulsed, mirroring the beat of my heart.
Silva's voice came calm but cold. "Then the question becomes — what warned you, Yuwon?"
I looked toward the shack.
"I don't know," I said finally, forcing the words out, "but we can't sit around either. Besides, it could've been the anomaly—trying to lure us away from this place."
Silva gave a slow nod. "Keen observation. Please remain consistent."
I exhaled quietly. This again…
Theo let out a low whistle, his breath clouding in the cold air. "You really know how to keep morale high, don't you, Chief?"
Mira bit back a laugh. "She's practically glowing with enthusiasm."
Silva didn't react. "Focus, children. Let's proceed inside."
We stepped forward as a unit, the rain softening into a mist that hissed against the decaying walls. The door creaked open at the lightest touch — the hinges letting out a sound like a drawn-out exhale.
Inside, it smelled of rot and electricity.
Dust hung thick in the air, shimmering faintly with static as if each speck carried a memory. The first step I took landed in shallow water — a puddle that shouldn't have been there — and ripples spread outward, distorting the reflections of the others.
There were no lights, yet everything was dimly visible. The room seemed lit by a memory of itself.
Old equipment lined the walls: fractured monitors, rusted knobs, cables tangled like roots. A metal plaque hung crooked beside the doorway, text almost erased by time. Only a few letters remained visible:
RADIO OPERATIONS — T-001
Theo brushed dust off a terminal near the corner. "This looks ancient. Like, pre-tower tech."
Mira leaned closer. "Pre-tower? That's… impossible. The data doesn't go back that far."
Silva ran a gloved hand along the wall, stopping where the paint peeled to reveal another layer beneath — a cleaner, newer white coat.
"No," she said quietly. "It's not impossible. It's been reset so many times, the timelines have folded over each other. This place is a residue — what's left when you overwrite the same memory too many times."
The air hummed faintly.
I turned toward the sound.
A radio console sat at the back of the room, still powered somehow. Its dials shifted on their own, cycling through frequencies that screamed and whispered and sighed.
Theo stepped forward. "Should I—?"
"Don't touch it yet," Silva warned.
But it was already too late.
The speakers crackled, and a voice — my voice — spilled out:
[Yuwon—please. Don't repeat this.]
[It's not a message. It's a recording. You left this for yourself.]
My chest tightened. I staggered backward as the words repeated, fractured by static.
The pitch shifted slightly each time, as if dozens of versions of me were speaking at once — overlapping, distorting, pleading.
Mira's eyes darted between me and the console. "Is that—"
"—his voice," Silva finished, expression unreadable.
Theo looked uneasy now. "Okay, that's not normal, even for anomaly standards."
Silva approached the console slowly, lowering her head to examine the waveform flickering on its dusty screen. "It's… encoded into the loop sequence. Every iteration must have left an imprint here."
"So we've been here before," Mira murmured.
"Hundreds of times," Silva replied. "Each visit stacking over the last."
The room flickered once.
When it settled again, the layout had shifted.
The desk Theo leaned against was gone. The puddles were dry. And sunlight — or something pretending to be sunlight — filtered through the boarded window.
Theo blinked, glancing around. "Uh… did the furniture just time-travel?"
Mira's voice trembled. "This isn't the same room anymore."
Silva turned in slow motion, eyes darting to the plaque by the door — it now read:
FIELD STATION — PROTOTYPE 01 (ACTIVE)
The rust and rot were gone. Everything was pristine, clean, humming with life. The old radio console now glowed a bright emerald, emitting a faint pulse that matched the rhythm of my heartbeat.
And in the reflection of its screen, I saw another me standing behind us — faint, almost translucent, wearing a torn uniform and a tired expression.
"Yuwon…" Mira whispered. "Please tell me that's not—"
The figure blinked out before she could finish.
But its shadow remained burned into the floorboards, dark and unmoving.
A low static murmured through the air again, threading through our ears like a whisper too close to the skin.
[Ti■■e d■■sn't lo■■e its way.]
[It fi■■ds you.]
Theo cursed under his breath. "We should leave. We've seen enough."
Silva didn't respond. She stood perfectly still, staring at the console — or rather, at the faint reflection of herself in the glass.
Because there were two of her now.
One with us.
One inside the reflection, standing slightly out of sync.
Her reflected lips moved independently, lagging behind her real ones.
"Chief?" I asked quietly.
She didn't look away. "I think we're standing on the origin point."
The radio hummed louder.
The reflection smiled — but not the same smile.
Something else was smiling through her.
And then, through the speakers, my voice came again, quieter this time, resigned:
[You fou■d it.]
[N■w you un■ersta■d.]
[The ■■rst ste■.]
[Cut ■he po■er]
Static surged. Our flashlights dimmed.
Every surface in the shack began to vibrate softly — like the building itself was breathing.
Silva turned toward me. "Yuwon," she said slowly, her tone colder than ever, "whatever you do, don't—"
The console clicked.
The screen blinked.
A final message appeared, written in glitching letters that faded as soon as we read them:
[Loop one hundred ninety-four]
And the world folded in on itself.