The simulation chamber was never meant to exist this long.

Buried beneath a decommissioned training dome in Sector 2, it had been abandoned after a power surge during an Echo field test rendered the system “unstable.”

Ren knew better.

He stood at the threshold now, staring into the dark void of the chamber. The walls pulsed faintly with leftover memory energy. Old lights blinked like dying stars. A faint hum filled the air—not electricity. Memory.

Juno stood beside him, blade at her hip, gaze unblinking.

[THREAD NODE ACCESS – MIRROR SIMULATION: ACTIVE]
[WARNING: SIMULATED ECHO ENVIRONMENT – UNSANCTIONED TIMELINE REPLICATION POSSIBLE]

“This place feels... alive,” she whispered.

“It remembers,” Ren replied. “Everything it was fed. Every outcome. Every failure.”

He stepped inside.

The doors hissed shut behind them. The world blinked.

And they were somewhere else.

The chamber had changed.

It looked like the surface of the Dome—sunset skies, cracked pavement, the smell of ash and ozone. But it was all wrong. Colors shifted unnaturally. People moved like echoes—slightly out of sync. Some faces were familiar, but not quite.

They passed a version of Ren dragging Juno’s unconscious body.

Juno flinched. “That didn’t happen.”

“It might have,” Ren said.

[ECHO REPLAY – THREAD ID: REJECTED ITERATION #17]
[OUTCOME: STASIS RESET]

They kept walking.

An alley opened beside them. In it, Ayane stood screaming as drones swarmed. Her eyes glowed white. Ren held her from behind, whispering something into her ear before stabbing her through the chest. Her face twisted in betrayal, pain, and something else—relief.

Juno gasped.

“That’s not real,” Ren said quickly. “That never—”

[ECHO REPLAY – THREAD ID: FRACTURED ITERATION #04]
[OUTCOME: OBSERVER INTERVENTION – VARIANCE CATASTROPHIC]

The image reset.

Ayane stood in the alley again, this time laughing. Ren wasn’t there. Neither was anyone else.

“Why show us this?” Juno asked.

“Because the system wants us afraid of our own choices.”

A voice answered from behind them.

“But what if the system is only showing you the truth?”

They turned.

Ren stared into his own eyes.

A cold shock rippled down his spine. For a split second, time felt suspended—like looking into a future he didn’t want to believe was real. There was recognition, yes, but also dread. This wasn’t just an echo. This was a possible him. One shaped by loss, compromise, and silence.

Another him stood there—older, worn, scars over one cheek. Same eyes. Same voice. But this Ren moved slower. Like gravity pulled at him harder.

Shock rooted Ren for a moment. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said.

“Neither are you,” the other replied.

Juno drew her weapon. The older Ren raised a hand. “I’m not your enemy.”

“Prove it.”

“I already did,” he said, gesturing around them. “This loop? This chamber? I built it. To remember.”

[UNREGISTERED THREAD-ARCHITECT ENTITY DETECTED – CLASS: ECHO LOOPMAKER]
[VARIANCE LEVEL: UNKNOWN]

“I broke free,” he continued. “Not the way you did. I refused the system's reset. Stayed behind in the code, anchoring myself to its fractures. It cost me everything—body, thread alignment, even time. But I held on. Long enough to shape this place.”. I stayed. I became the fault line. I created a chamber that would hold the worst versions of us, so the best version would never forget what he could become. So he would never think himself incapable of choosing wrong.”

Ren swallowed. “Why show us now?”

“Because Ayane’s loop is unraveling. The mirror doesn’t just reflect. It breaks. If she chooses wrong—if you choose wrong—there’s no reset left. Just what’s next.”

“And what’s next?” Juno asked.

The Loopmaker’s expression turned grim.

“A choice that kills one of you.”

The chamber began to collapse.

A deep rumble split the air as if the entire simulation drew in one final, violent breath. The sky above shattered into shards of bleeding light, raining sparks of fragmented memory that hissed as they struck the ground. Buildings folded inward like collapsing lungs, then burst apart in slow-motion explosions of color and static. Gravity warped—sideways, upward, all at once—pulling debris into curling vortices of corrupted data. The sound of screaming was layered—some from the echoes being erased, others from timelines dying mid-thought. The chamber itself groaned, not like metal, but like memory being torn open.

Skies shattered like glass. Buildings turned inside out. Gravity twisted sideways. Echoes screamed and vanished, their bodies unraveling into data and light.

[SIMULATION THREAD LIMIT BREACHED – PURGE INITIATED]
[ALL VARIANTS: CLEANSING PROCESS BEGUN]

The Loopmaker looked at Ren one last time. “Remember who she is. Not just what she was.”

And then he was gone.

Ren grabbed Juno’s arm. “Out. Now.”

They ran.

The doors opened seconds before the simulation imploded.

They stumbled out, breathing hard.

Juno looked at him. “What do we do now?”

Ren stared back into the dark. For a second, Ayane’s face flashed in his mind—laughing, screaming, flickering between timelines. Then the Loopmaker’s final words echoed through him like static on bone.

“We go to the Crown,” he said, not just with purpose—but with dread. Because this time, he wasn’t sure they were coming back.