Paterson, New Jersey

  Inside a large warehouse filled with useless junk and used furniture, Liam stood.

  He was facing piles of organized appliances.

  Liam took a deep breath and ran toward the appliances. With all his strength, he jumped onto an old stove, then leaped again, this time toward a refrigerator about six meters away.

  It was obvious he wouldn’t make it, but using the air as support, Liam performed a double jump, managing to reach the refrigerator.

  Happy with his success, Liam continued jumping from place to place for a while.

  After getting tired, he sat on an old couch and ran his fingers over the blue stone necklace he wore.

  The necklace's status appeared.

  [Jump Stone

  Description: Allows the user to use the air as support to perform a double jump.

  +10 Agility

  +5 Jump Strength]

  "Jump Stone... Really amazing... But I still wanted the Varda Ring."

  This was the reward he received for placing third in Castlevania. Even though it was an extremely valuable item that would cost millions of dollars if put up for sale, Liam couldn't help but feel jealous of Alex and James’s rewards.

  The Sword Card was the Summoner he used the most in Castlevania, as it was by far the best in the game. And the Varda Ring was simply the best item available.

  Meanwhile, the Jump Stone was just one of the basic items you got in the middle of the game.

  Liam was still complaining about the unfairness when his grandmother entered the warehouse.

  "Liam, your computer is making noise."

  "!!!"

  Liam quickly stood up and ran out of the warehouse.

  "Thanks, Grandma!"

  "Don't run, boy! What if you fall?" the elderly woman warned, worried about her grandson.

  Unfortunately, Liam didn't hear her.

  Arriving in his room, he saw a download completion notification for the game Outer Wilds on his PC.

  The idea of installing a bot to download Maravilhador’s releases was simply genius. Liam felt a certain gratitude toward Alex for it, but he would never admit that to her.

  Checking his phone, he saw a message from Alex about the game.

  Since it had already been downloaded, Liam ignored the game’s synopsis and Alex's messages and immediately opened Outer Wilds.

  [Diving into Virtual Reality...]

  Liam was surprised to find himself lying next to a campfire.

  He could feel the breeze of the wind and the warmth of the fire. If it weren’t for the HP and energy bars in his field of vision, he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between this and real life.

  Liam got up and analyzed his surroundings, spotting a blue-skinned guy sitting nearby, smiling at him.

  The name "Slate" floated above his head.

  Noticing that Liam had woken up, Slate greeted him.

  "Here’s our pilot! Back from your pre-launch camp under the stars. So today’s the big launch day, huh? Feels like just yesterday you joined the space program, and suddenly, here you are, off on your first solo trip!"

  It was at that moment that Liam realized he should have read a bit about the game.

  Taking advantage of Liam's silence, Slate continued.

  "Ready to get this beauty off the ground? She's fueled up and good to go."

  Dialogue options appeared in Liam's field of vision.

  [All systems are working!]

  [I'm ready if you are!]

  [Are you sure you fixed the rockets?]

  Looking at the possible responses, Liam decided to exit the game to read the synopsis and be a little more prepared.

  'But how do I leave the game? After all, there are no menu options or anything like that...' he thought.

  Then, everything stopped.

  The sounds were silenced, the campfire flames froze, the shadows became rigid and unchanging, and even the stars in the sky stopped, as if time had been suspended, turning the world into a static black-and-gray painting, devoid of life and color.

  In the corner of Liam's vision, the following options appeared.

  [Continue]

  [Audio]

  [Video]

  [Exit]

  Realizing that the game had merely paused, Liam let out a relieved sigh.

  "That scared the hell out of me..."

  Quickly selecting 'Exit,' Liam was back in his room.

  Going to the game's Steam page, he began reading the synopsis.

  [Game: Outer Wilds

  Creator: Maravilhador

  Ratings: N/A

  Published: 2 minutes ago

  Price: $20

  Description: Outer Wilds is a mysterious open-world game about a solar system trapped in an infinite time loop.

  Welcome to the Space Program!

  You are the newest recruit of Outer Wilds Ventures, a recently launched space program searching for answers in a strange, ever-evolving solar system...]

  Three minutes were enough.

  "A galactic explorer trapped in a time loop... The goal is to break the loop, right?"

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Now having a certain level of understanding about Outer Wilds, Liam returned to the game, where everything was still frozen.

  Going back to the dialogue choices, Liam selected the second option.

  "I'm ready if you are."

  Excited, Slate said,

  "Are you kidding? Of course, I'm ready. Finally, it's time to test the new landing hydraulic system with a pilot instead of the autopilot! ...Speaking of pilots, make sure not to crash the ship on your first flight, got it? Anyway, you'll need to get the launch codes from Hornfels at the observatory before you can take off. Just bring them back here after you say your goodbyes or something."

  'Instead of just giving me the launch codes right away, the game forces me to go to the observatory to get them. I suppose there will be tutorials for the game mechanics along the way,' Liam thought.

  Being a high-level player, he noticed the subtle hints in the dialogue and practically deciphered the game’s tutorial progression pattern.

  "Alex downloaded the game before me... I need to be quick," he said firmly.

  As expected, on his way to the observatory, he went through tutorials for all the game's equipment and mechanics, which Liam found particularly interesting.

  At the observatory, he ignored all the displayed objectives and went straight to Hornfels, quickly obtaining the codes.

  Preparing to leave as fast as he had entered, Liam was suddenly caught off guard by the Nomai statue on his way back.

  The glowing lights, the ghostly voices, and the eerie sensation of having his consciousness pulled toward the statue…

  "This statue stored my memories?" he asked himself, confused. "Maybe this is the respawn point."

  He walked around the statue, examining every detail.

  "If my memories are stored here... does that mean every time I die, I'll be revived here? Or will the game reset to this exact moment?" Liam pondered. "Could this be the start of the time loop? If that's the case, wouldn't breaking the statue solve the loop?"

  Then, another question popped into his mind. Had the time loop already existed, and the statue merely connected him to it? Or was the loop just initiated now for some unknown reason?

  "Regardless, this statue is probably a crucial key to understanding the time loop," he concluded. "If this solar system is trapped in an infinite cycle, it makes sense that something—or someone—is manipulating time. And who better to do that than an ancient, advanced civilization like the Nomai?"

  Reaching this conclusion, Liam decided that exploring the ruins of the Nomai civilization was the key to completing the game.

  Since he had already perfected the tutorial on how to pilot, Liam took off precisely, heading toward Lia's Rock, where an ancient Nomai ruin was located. After a brief struggle with the ship's controls, he easily stabilized the vehicle and flew toward the moon orbiting the small, wooded retreat.

  Instead of landing at the moon’s camp, Liam chose to explore the mysterious ruins. And so he did.

  He tested every compartment of the ocular signal detector, searched every inch of the underground chamber, and read all the scriptures left by the Nomai. It was there that he discovered that this locator alone wasn’t enough.

  The Nomai, having realized the same limitation, had built a new locator in the Uncertain Valley. They also mentioned an enigmatic locator on the Quantum Moon, located in the Hourglass Twin.

  Although he didn’t fully understand what the Eye of the Universe or the Quantum Moon was, Liam decided to investigate both, starting with the closest one: the Quantum Moon. He climbed back into his ship, ready to set course for the Ember Twin, when a melancholic melody suddenly played, breaking his concentration.

  Confused, he looked around and noticed something strange happening to the sun. It was... shrinking.

  "Why is the sun getting smaller...?" he murmured, puzzled. But as he observed more closely, the truth hit him like a punch.

  "It's not shrinking... It's collapsing!"

  And then, before he could fully process what was happening, the answer came with a deafening explosion.

  Boom.

  A devastating explosion erupted as the sun turned into a supernova.

  Liam could almost feel his atoms vibrating all around him.

  A gigantic wave of blue energy spread outward, disintegrating everything in its path.

  "Why did it explode?" he thought out loud, unable to hide his shock.

  After a few moments of analyzing the possibilities, he arrived at the most logical conclusion:

  "It must be an inevitable event. I've only been playing for 20 minutes... There's no way I did anything to trigger the end of the universe."

  As the supernova finally reached him, the sensation was almost tangible. His skin tingled as the wave of energy engulfed him, but in the next instant, he felt his consciousness being pulled away, just like when he had interacted with the Nomai statue.

  "Ah, now it all makes sense. Finally, the pieces fit together," he said, looking at the mask worn by the statue.

  He understood now. There was an invisible countdown to the end of the universe, but thanks to the statue, he was able to return 20 minutes before the catastrophe.

  "This is the time loop," he thought. "Dying and bringing back knowledge from the future is the key to progressing in the game."

  Since he had already explored Lia's Rock, there was no need to go back there in the next loop. With that realization, everything went dark.

  When he opened his eyes again, Liam was lying next to the campfire, right where it all started.

  "I thought I’d wake up at the statue."

  It seemed that the statue wasn’t the start of the loop but rather the entrance to it.

  Trying to get his bearings, he started a conversation with Slate to see if there were now new dialogue options. And as expected, there were.

  By exploring the new conversations, he discovered that he was the only one who retained memories of the time loops.

  Without wasting time, Liam headed straight for the ship and plotted a course to the Uncertain Valley. He would use the second loop to explore as much as possible within the available time.

  Twenty minutes later, the same melancholic melody echoed, signaling the impending end.

  He had explored nearly the entire surface of the planet but had found nothing concrete about the locator for the Eye of the Universe—only a strange library with no visible entrance.

  Soon, the next cycle began, and Liam set off toward the Hourglass Twins. From space, he watched the two planets orbiting each other in a celestial dance. The Ember Twin, a reddish, arid planet, had a gigantic canyon slowly being filled with sand sent by its brother, the Ash Twin, which was a barren planet made entirely of sand.

  Upon landing on the Ember Twin, Liam spotted a vast cave system. As an experienced player, he knew that caves often meant hidden secrets. So, he temporarily abandoned his search for the Quantum Moon locator and decided to explore the depths of the area.

  Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be as easy as he had imagined.

  "Damn it!" Liam groaned, landing on the Ember Twin for the fifth time.

  It took him four full cycles to explore the caves. The cave system was extremely complex, and if Liam got lost, it meant a wasted cycle.

  But in the last cycle, he discovered that hidden Nomai writings provided instructions on how to navigate the tunnels.

  Following the Nomai inscriptions on the walls, he found the path to the City of Chance, an ancient and grand settlement of the extinct civilization. Upon arriving at the city, Liam encountered various records left by the Nomai on topics that were still shrouded in mystery to him.

  However, it didn’t take long for him to realize that the sand was slowly filling the cave paths and covering the City of Chance itself, threatening to bury him alive.

  Suddenly, he felt a wave of claustrophobia.

  "I knew the sand was rising, but I didn’t realize it was this fast. I need to get out of here."

  Desperate, he tried several paths until he finally found one leading upward. However, instead of an exit, he stumbled upon a strange laboratory.

  Scanning the sign, the name appeared:

  [High Energy Lab] +

  The Nomai inscriptions glowed softly, and Liam began reading all the available information in the area. From that, he formed a general understanding of the experiments conducted there.

  "They created a teleporter using white and black holes... But the messages mention something strange. They say that an object exits the white hole 'three seconds before' entering the black hole." He reflected aloud, intrigued.

  The most logical conclusion was that the object had traveled three seconds into the past after entering the black hole.

  "Could this be where the Nomai’s time travel technology originated?"

  Liam decided he needed to test the experiment, even with the cycle’s end approaching. He adjusted the controls of the High Energy Lab. He had already read everything about warp cores and the signal duplication phenomenon. He knew exactly how to operate them. Now, he just wanted to see the experiment in action.

  "Let’s see this work."

  He launched the little probe into the black hole, and before the object even crossed through, its duplicate had already emerged from the white hole. On his helmet’s display, the signal of the second probe appeared. Everything happened exactly as described—a perfect duplication.

  Liam smiled, satisfied.

  But then, he decided to try something different.

  This time, after launching the probe again and seeing the duplicate emerge from the white hole, he immediately deactivated the black hole core before the original could enter.

  "It works!" Liam exclaimed, excited.

  The impossible had happened: two identical probes existed simultaneously.

  Unfortunately, spacetime couldn't handle this anomaly.

  Suddenly, the air around him began to distort. The walls vibrated violently, and a low, constant hum filled the room. Liam felt his body being pulled in all directions. The space around him folded upon itself, and he saw multiple versions of himself flickering in and out of existence.

  The universe was shattering before his eyes, twisting until everything dissolved into an empty darkness.

  Spacetime had collapsed.

  In the midst of that void, no Nomai mask appeared, no sensation of his mind returning through time. There was only... nothingness.

  For a moment, Liam forgot he was in a game. A growing sense of dread consumed his thoughts.

  "Is this possible? Am I going to be trapped... in this void?"

  As he pondered the catastrophic decision that had led to the end of the universe, a deep and sinister voice echoed around him.

  [You have met a terrible fate.]

  A chill ran down Liam’s spine. He looked around, but there was nothing. Before he could recover, a new notification appeared.

  [You have completed the secret challenge: Destroy the fabric of spacetime.]

  [You have received the item "Scroll of Return." The reward will be delivered as a bonus upon completing the game.]

  Before Liam could react, he was suddenly ejected from the game. Covered in sweat, he found himself back in his room, sitting on his bed and staring at his computer screen in shock.

  "What the hell was that?!" He shouted without thinking.

  "Watch your mouth, boy!" His grandmother’s voice echoed from the kitchen.

  "Sorry, Grandma!" He quickly replied.

  Still shaken, Liam threw himself onto his bed, staring at the ceiling.

  'It was a secret challenge... But damn, that was scary as hell!' He thought, trying to calm down. 'At least I got an extra reward. I bet neither Alex nor James managed to find this.'

  Determined to share his discovery with his friends, he grabbed his phone, ready to send a message in the group chat. However, before he could type, his computer started playing the Star Wars theme.

  Liam glanced at the screen and saw an incoming group video call in the "Emergency" chat. Without a second thought, he answered the call.