I gasped, the air thick with panic as I tried to make sense of the room, of the man standing in front of me. The walls around me seemed to close in as my mind reeled. The Faded were outside, their guttural groans growing louder by the second. But the man—this version of Elias, or whatever he was—held me in place with nothing but a look, his eyes filled with an unsettling certainty.
“You’re not real,” I whispered, my voice trembling despite myself. "This can't be happening."
He tilted his head, his lips curving into a cold smile. “You think you're trapped in a nightmare, but this is reality. A reality that’s been repeated over and over again.”
Behind me, the pounding feet of the Faded grew louder, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the man before me. His words echoed in my mind, but it was the flickering light above that sent a jolt of dread through me.
“This is where it all started,” the man continued. His voice was calm, almost too calm. "The experiment wasn't just about controlling time—it was about breaking it. A rift was created, and we were all caught in it. You, me, everyone. The world didn’t end once. It ended countless times. And the loop... it never stops.”
My pulse raced as his words began to sink in. The Faded—the mindless creatures that haunted the world—weren’t just the remnants of the apocalypse. They were trapped in a single, painful moment of time, the last thing they saw before the collapse. Over and over again, they relived their final moments, their deaths, without escape.
I felt a cold sweat trickle down my spine. It wasn’t just the Faded that were victims. We were too.
“You mean...” I couldn’t finish the thought. I didn’t want to believe it. “We’ve all died before?”
The man nodded, his expression somber. "Yes. You, me, Elias... everyone who’s ever been caught in this rift. You were part of the experiment. And now, the loop has trapped us all. The Faded... they’re your past lives. Those who died during the experiment, stuck in time, reliving the chaos they caused."
I shook my head. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t.
But a sudden flash hit me. A memory—vivid, sharp—flashed behind my eyes. I saw myself, standing in the lab. A cold, sterile environment filled with machines I couldn’t understand. But I was there. I was the one giving the orders. The one who insisted they push forward with the experiment.
In that moment, everything clicked. The rift. The Faded. The endless loop.
I staggered back, clutching my head as the memory overwhelmed me. I was part of this. I caused this.
The man’s eyes darkened, watching me with a strange pity. "You're beginning to remember. Good. It's about time. The question is—do you want to end the loop, or will you let it repeat again?"
I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could, the door slammed open, and Elias—my Elias—burst into the room, his face wild with panic.
“Liora, we have to go—now!” he shouted, looking past me to the man. His eyes flicked to the figure’s face, and for a moment, I saw the same flicker of recognition in his eyes that I had felt earlier.
The figure—this man who had been standing in the shadows—smiled darkly. "He’s too late," he said softly. "The rift is already opening again."
Suddenly, the walls trembled. A deep hum filled the air, vibrating beneath my feet, as if the entire facility was alive, about to tear itself apart. The lights flickered again, casting everything in shadows. I felt the rift, the crack in time, pulse around us.
“Liora,” Elias’s voice cut through the chaos, pulling me back to the present. “We can’t stop it from happening. But we can’t let it consume us either.”
I turned toward him, my heart racing, but before I could ask what he meant, the ground shook violently, and I lost my balance, falling to my knees.
“Liora, look out!”
I barely had time to react as a heavy, dark energy surged from the walls—an invisible force pulling at my very being, like the rift was trying to drag me into it. I reached out for Elias, but my fingers grazed empty air as he was thrown backward, his body slamming into the wall.
The man in front of me stood completely still, watching as the rift grew larger. The door slammed shut again, cutting off any escape. Panic rose in my chest. This wasn’t just an experiment anymore—it was the end of everything.
“You can’t escape it,” the man said calmly, his voice drowning in the roar of the rift growing around us. “It’s been decided. The world will collapse again. It always does.”
I felt the weight of his words pressing down on me, the crushing realization that I might have no choice but to let it all happen. The truth—the horror—was too much to bear.
And then, just as I thought I couldn’t handle it anymore, a blinding flash of light erupted from the center of the room.
Everything went white.
For a moment, I couldn’t see, couldn’t move. The air itself seemed to crackle with energy, and I could feel my body being pulled, dragged, into something far beyond my understanding.
Then, everything stopped.
The world went silent.
I opened my eyes, and what I saw made my heart stop.
We were no longer in the facility. We were somewhere else—somewhere… wrong.
The sky above us was a deep red, and the ground beneath our feet was cracked and blackened. The air was thick with smoke, and the remnants of broken buildings loomed in the distance, their skeletal structures reaching toward the sky like fingers clawing at the heavens.
And in front of us, standing as if waiting for us to arrive, were the Faded. Thousands of them, their hollow eyes fixed on us with an eerie, unblinking stare.
My heart pounded in my chest. We weren’t just caught in the rift anymore. We were part of it.
The endless loop was about to begin again.
And this time, there was no escape.
“Liora…” Elias whispered, his voice barely audible over the sound of the wind. He was standing next to me, his hand reaching for mine, his grip tight. “This… this is it.”
And in that moment, as the Faded closed in around us, I knew we were standing at the very edge of oblivion. The rift had opened, and it was dragging us into the final chapter of the world. 
The ground beneath us shifted, trembling as if something deep within was waking. I could feel the heavy pull of the rift in the air, thick and oppressive, pressing in from all sides. The Faded moved closer, their footsteps silent but deadly, like a creeping tide ready to consume everything in its path.
Elias’s hand tightened around mine, his grip warm but shaking. “This isn’t just an ending, Liora,” he said, his voice low and strained. “It’s a beginning. We’re caught in a cycle, and I don’t know how to stop it.”
I didn’t answer. My throat was tight, a lump of fear lodged there that I couldn’t swallow. The Faded were no longer just wandering creatures—they were waiting. Watching. They knew something we didn’t. I could see it in their eyes, those empty, soulless eyes that seemed to pierce right through me.
As the first of the Faded lunged toward us, I instinctively pulled my knife from its sheath, but my movements were sluggish. My thoughts were too tangled, too overwhelmed by the enormity of what was happening. The Faded swarmed around us, and it felt like time itself had frozen, just before they reached us.
Is this how it ends? The thought hit me like a wave, sweeping over me, dragging me into its depths.
I raised my knife, preparing to fight, but Elias pulled me back. “No. Not this way,” he muttered urgently. “We need to get out of here—now.”
I opened my mouth to argue, to demand an explanation, but before I could, something shifted—something changed. The air crackled, humming with an unnatural energy, and the ground beneath our feet split open with a deafening roar.
The Faded halted, their heads snapping toward the new sound, their movements frozen in place. Something was happening—something I didn’t understand, but it felt… wrong.
“Liora—” Elias’s voice cracked as he looked at me, his eyes wide with fear. "This is it. The rift is closing."
Before I could respond, the ground beneath us gave way. The earth split open like a wound, pulling us down into the darkness. I screamed, reaching out for anything to hold onto, but there was nothing. The world around me collapsed, falling away, and the last thing I saw before everything went black was Elias’s face, his expression one of pure terror.
Then… nothing.
For a long moment, there was no sound, no movement. Just a cold, suffocating silence. But I could feel it—the pull. It was familiar, the sensation of being caught in a loop, but it felt... different this time. It was like time itself had torn, fractured, and everything was falling apart at once.
I opened my eyes, but the world around me was… wrong.
I was standing in the same place, but everything was distorted. The sky was a sickly shade of orange, and the ground was cracked, like a puzzle missing pieces. The air smelled of smoke and decay, thick and heavy, as if the world had died long ago and had only just begun to remember it.
And in front of me stood Elias, but not the Elias I knew. His eyes were wide and frantic, but there was something else there too—something I couldn’t place. Something... familiar.
"Where are we?" I managed to whisper, my voice hoarse and strained.
He didn’t answer. His eyes darted around, scanning the broken landscape as if searching for something—someone. Then, he looked back at me, his lips trembling.
"You're not supposed to be here," he said, his voice cracking.
Before I could ask what he meant, a sudden noise—a sharp, guttural cry—echoed from behind me.
I turned around just in time to see the Faded emerging from the shadows. Dozens of them, their hollow eyes staring, their bodies jerking unnaturally as they closed in on us.
"Get back!" Elias shouted, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward a nearby building that had long since crumbled into ruin.
But as we ran, the world around us continued to warp and bend. Buildings that had once stood tall were now nothing but skeletal remains. Trees grew twisted and bent, their leaves hanging lifeless. And everywhere, the Faded followed, their movements slow but relentless.
We were running out of time.
I turned to Elias, but he was no longer beside me.
He had disappeared.
“Elias?!” I called, panic rising in my chest. I ran through the crumbling ruins, calling his name, but the only response was the sound of the Faded, their cries growing louder.
I stumbled through the wreckage, my heart pounding, but there was no sign of him. I couldn’t see him anywhere. And then, in the distance, I saw something—someone—standing in the shadows.
It was a figure I knew all too well.
“Elias?” I whispered, my voice barely audible. My legs were frozen, rooted to the spot. I couldn’t move.
But then, something shifted in the air, like the entire world was holding its breath. And the figure before me, standing still as stone, started to move.
A flash of silver caught my eye, and I saw the blade in his hand.
It wasn’t Elias.
“Liora…”
My name was whispered like a curse, and the world seemed to crumble beneath me as the Faded surged forward, their grotesque forms closing in from all sides.
Before I could react, the man—the other Elias—raised his blade.