Aether's eyes snapped open.
Cold pavement.
Rain.
The crooked lamppost.
The overturned cart.
Loop 4.
But the moment he inhaled, he knew something had changed.
The air tasted wrong—thicker, metallic, tinged with the scent of burning paper.
Ink still streaked his skin from the collapsing memory-chamber.
For the first time, Aether whispered:
"…I carried something through the reset."
Golden text flickered beside him, slow and unstable:
[Loop 4 Initiated]
[Residual Memory Retention: 3%]
[Forbidden Knowledge Detected]
The last line trembled, glitching before stabilizing.
Aether tightened his jaw.
Good. Let it detect it.
He refused to forget the letter.
He refused to forget "C."
Lightning cracked, but the sound was delayed—as if the thunder had to remember it was supposed to follow.
Then he noticed it.
A small slip of paper lying at his feet.
His breath caught.
The letter he stole from the Echo-Child.
Crinkled but intact.
His hands shook as he picked it up.
The handwriting remained unchanged—elegant, calm, painfully familiar.
Aether,
If you are reading this, then the loop is already consuming you.
Know this: you chose oblivion to protect something greater.
And you must not remember what it is.
Not yet.
— C.
Aether pressed the note to his chest.
"Who are you… C…? What did I protect?"
A faint vibration rippled through the ground.
Aether snapped his head up.
But the tall shadow didn't appear.
Nor did the child-shadow.
The street remained eerily still.
Too still.
No warnings.
No chase.
No corruption.
Only the soft hum of the rain.
Golden letters formed—slowly:
[Shadow Entities Withheld]
[Reason: Narrative Instability]
[System Recalibrating]
Aether blinked.
"They're… not here?"
It felt wrong.
Like a predator choosing not to attack—not out of mercy, but because the prey had wandered somewhere far more dangerous.
Instinct tugged at Aether's gut.
Move. Now.
He turned and sprinted toward a nearby building—one he had never entered in previous loops. Its cracked windows stared like hollow eyes.
The moment he stepped through the broken doorway, the world snapped into focus—colors sharper, sounds clearer.
Something was definitely here.
The building's interior was lined with shelves, each filled with dusty circular objects—clocks, pocket watches, hourglasses with sand frozen mid-drop.
Aether reached for an hourglass.
Black sand.
Just like the sigil on his arm.
As he touched the glass, the sand stirred violently.
WHOOOM—
A burst of visions slammed into him.
A field of fractured stars.
A throne made of mirrors.
A girl standing atop broken constellations, her back to him, long white hair trailing like falling feathers.
She whispered:
"Aether… don't search for me."
Aether lurched back, gasping.
The hourglass fell and shattered, black sand spilling across the floor.
Golden text flashed furiously:
[Fragment Surge Detected]
[Identity Override Risk: 12%]
Aether's pulse raced.
"That girl… who—"
But then—
A voice spoke behind him.
Soft.
Guilt-laced.
Female.
"You weren't supposed to see that."
Aether froze.
Slowly, he turned.
A figure stood in the doorway, illuminated by faint lightning.
A girl—maybe his age.
White hair.
Soft, tired eyes the color of dawn.
Wearing a tattered cloak embroidered with constellations.
Aether's throat dried.
"…C?"
She flinched.
For a moment—just a moment—her expression trembled with something unbearably human: grief.
Then she stepped into the room, rain trailing after her like stardust.
"I shouldn't be here," she whispered. "Not in this loop."
Aether took a step forward.
"You wrote the letter. You know me. Tell me—what did I forget?"
She shook her head violently, backing away.
"Aether, stop. If I tell you now, you will die."
His heart pounded.
"Then why leave me the letter?"
Her voice cracked.
"Because you always find it.
Because you never stop searching.
Because even erased, you still love—"
She bit her tongue before the word could fully emerge.
Aether's world tilted.
"Love who?"
Her eyes shimmered with something like sorrow.
"…me."
Before Aether could speak, the room shook violently.
The clocks screamed.
Hourglasses burst.
Time itself buckled.
Golden text tore across the air:
[ILLEGAL REUNION DETECTED]
[LOOP CRISIS LEVEL: CRIMSON]
[SUMMONING: HIGHER SHADOW]
The girl—C—grabbed Aether's wrist.
"Aether, run. NOW."
From the collapsing hallway behind her, something vast began to crawl through the cracks of reality—its limbs made not of shadow, but of broken time.
Aether stared in horror as the shape emerged.
A monstrous figure stitched from dozens of versions of himself.
Each face twisted.
Each screaming.
Each reaching for him.
C's grip tightened.
"Aether—GO!"
And with a roar like shattering universes, the Amalgam of Lost Selves lunged.
The loop wasn't just unstable now.
It was trying to erase him entirely.