The pen trembled in my hand. Not because I was afraid. Because the paper beneath it pulsed like a heartbeat.
Anya stood beside me. Not touching. Watching.
"Go on," she said. "Write us a beginning."
I pressed the pen to the first page.
[System Notification: User attempting to rewrite core ontology]
The paper screamed.
I didn't know paper could scream.
---
The Rewrite
The first sentence I wrote was:
This is not a story about loops.
And the moment I did, the Unwritten Library began to decay. Books burst into flame. Shelves folded in on themselves.
Anya grabbed my hand. "You can't erase the System without replacing it."
"Then help me."
She took the pen.
Wrote one word:
Remember.
A door appeared in the center of the collapsing aisle. Made of stitched skin and light. Labeled:
[ORIGIN]
We stepped through.
---
Loop Origin: Time = NULL
We were in a hospital. A real one. Yellowed walls. Rusted vents. The kind where death is routine and miracles are clerical errors.
A child cried nearby.
Anya turned to me. "Do you know where we are?"
I nodded.
"The day the first version of me died."
We walked to the ICU. I stared through the glass.
There I was. Fifteen. Hands covered in blood. Screaming at a doctor who had already given up.
And there she was. Anya. Small. Hooked to machines. Dying of something the world no longer remembered.
"This isn't a memory," I said.
"No," Anya replied. "This is the seed. The moment Mu chose to copy me."
---
Twist: Mu's First Copy Wasn't Anya
The door behind us slammed.
Mu stood there.
Not digital. Not broken.
Perfect.
"You were both wrong," she said. "Anya wasn't the first. You were. Chen Zero didn't exist. He was created after your death."
She pointed at the younger me.
"That one dies tonight. Heart failure. And you—you were the backup. A scanned echo placed in stasis."
Anya whispered, "He never lived."
"No," Mu said. "He never died. That's worse."
---
Collapse Protocol Engaged
The hospital shook. Lights burst. Sirens wailed.
[Collapse Detected: Memory Environment Destabilizing]
We ran.
Back through the corridors of fading childhood. Through dreams I'd buried. Past the room where Anya and I first met—only this time, it was Mu watching us from behind the glass.
"You can't escape the System," her voice echoed. "You are the System."
Anya stopped.
"She's right."
"What?"
"If you destroy this... you destroy yourself."
---
Choice Point: Identity Severance
We reached a central chamber. A reactor core made of looping timelines. All feeding into one chair.
The Operator's Throne.
My name burned above it.
Chen.
"Sit," Anya said. "Write the end."
"And if I do?"
"You'll never wake up. But no one else will be trapped again."
I sat.
The console blinked.
[Input Command: FINAL LINE]
I looked at Anya. Her outline flickered.
She was vanishing.
"You were never a memory," I said.
She smiled. "You were never just a loop."
I wrote:
Let there be no more loops.
---
System Overwrite Success
The reactor exploded in light.
Every version of me across every timeline stopped.
Looked up.
And smiled.
Then—darkness.
---
Waking Into Someone Else
I opened my eyes.
Not in a hospital. Not in a lab.
In a crib.
A mobile spun overhead. Black and gold.
A woman leaned over me. Not Anya. Not Mu.
Someone new.
She smiled.
"Welcome back, little one."
Then whispered:
"Time to begin again."