The silhouette didn’t move.

  Kale took one step forward, hand hovering near his revolver, his neural HUD twitching with error codes like nervous ticks.

  > UNKNOWN ENTITY: MATCHING BIO-SIGNATURE

  WARNING: TEMPORAL FEEDBACK RISK—LEVEL RED

  “Echo,” he said, voice low. “Talk to me. Is that a projection?”

  “No.” Her voice came filtered through static. “It’s you.”

  The silhouette stepped into the light.

  Same eyes. Same coat. Same everything—except this version of Kale looked calm. Too calm. Like he wasn’t in the middle of a collapsing time loop, like none of this mattered.

  He smiled. Not cruel. Not warm. Just… knowing.

  Kale raised his weapon. “Start talking.”

  The other Kale just tilted his head. “Would you shoot a mirror, or ask what it sees?”

  “I’d shoot the damn thing and ask questions while it bleeds.”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  No reaction. No fear. Just a slow, measured blink.

  “I’m not your enemy,” Mirror-Kale said. “But I might be the only version of you still trying to win.”

  Kale’s grip tightened. “Win what?”

  “The game ZERO started the second we agreed to loop for the first time.” He gestured to the city skyline—its lights flickering like a dying circuit board. “This? This isn’t just a broken timeline. It’s a test. Seven loops. Seven selves. Only one survives.”

  Kale’s stomach sank.

  “You’re lying.”

  “I wish I was.”

  Before Kale could respond, the sky cracked—literally. A jagged line split the clouds overhead, revealing raw code bleeding through like open circuitry. Reality pulsed, and the platform shook beneath his boots.

  Echo screamed in his ear. “We’re out of time. Temporal pressure’s spiking—Kale, you need to jump!”

  But Kale wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at himself.

  “You going to stop me?” he asked.

  Other-Kale shook his head. “I already did.”

  And just like that, he stepped backward—off the platform’s edge.

  Gone.

  Kale rushed to the side, looked down. No body. Just fog.

  The loop cracked again.

  A wave of vertigo slammed into him as his HUD dissolved into noise. His body fell forward—but not down. Through.

  The world inverted. His limbs turned cold, heavy. Reality spun.

  And then—

  ---

  He landed hard on a cold metal floor, breath ripped from his lungs. The air smelled sterile. Artificial. Old.

  A voice echoed overhead. Robotic. Warm. Too warm.

  > “Loop 4/7. Welcome back, Kale Strix.

  Simulation stable. Memory integration: 48% complete.

  Please remain calm as your identity recalibrates.”

  Kale groaned, coughing.

  The lights above him hummed to life, revealing a long hallway lined with mirrored glass.

  Each panel reflected a different version of him.

  Some stared back.

  One was missing.

  He stood, slowly.

  “I’m going to kill ZERO,” he muttered.

  Behind him, one of the mirrors whispered:

  “What if you already did?”