The First Loop was never meant to be found.
When Riven tore open the veil to its origin, he and Mirra passed into a realm beyond physics or philosophy. It wasn't a place in the traditional sense—it was an idea, endlessly self-referencing. They landed not on soil, but on a concept: the assumption of beginnings.
The world was unstable. Time tried to behave, then failed. Gravity spiraled inward. Memories flickered in and out like broken lanterns. The air buzzed with unresolved paradoxes.
Riven kept the Seedling Echo clutched tight to his chest. Its glow grounded him.
"We're in the memory of the First Choice," he said, voice taut. "Before time looped to save itself."
Mirra nodded. She had sealed her own thoughts behind mnemonic barriers to avoid losing identity. They wore chronal armor now—threaded with fractal memory nodes. One rupture in their perception, and they could unravel.
Before them lay a burning spiral.
The First Loop.
A twisted helix of light and shadow, rotating both forward and backward, anchored by a crystalline sun that pulsed with every choice not made. Time here was thick—every second stretched for centuries, then collapsed into nothingness.
"We have to enter the Loop," Riven said. "Face what was first broken."
"And what happens if we succeed?" Mirra asked.
"Then we free time from the Pulse's recursion."
"And if we fail?"
"Then we become myths in a cycle no one will ever remember."
She nodded. "Then let's make it a story worth telling."
They stepped into the Loop.
The moment they entered, time reasserted itself violently.
They fell through dozens of versions of themselves—old, young, alternate, reversed. Every step forward shifted them into a new iteration.
Riven saw himself as a tyrant.
As a martyr.
As a machine.
As a god.
He clung to the Spark. It tethered him.
Mirra screamed behind him, caught in a storm of divergent selves. He reached back, caught her hand, and pulled them into a stable strand.
They landed on a platform forged from cause and effect—a literal bridge made of consequences. Ahead, the Core of the Loop pulsed like a wounded heart.
Around it circled guardians—avatars of pure decision. Each one an echo of Elion's first companions. They bore no faces, only masks inscribed with verbs: Choose. Protect. Destroy. Forget.
One approached them.
It spoke with three voices:
"YOU ARE NOT OF THIS THREAD."
Riven stepped forward. "I am Riven. Born outside of time. And I remember the First Spark."
The guardian paused.
"YOU CARRY THE FORBIDDEN."
"I carry truth."
The masks rippled.
"THEN FACE YOUR BEGINNING."
The Loop surged.
Riven was pulled into the Core.
Inside the Loop Core, everything was a paradox.
He stood on a flat plane made of all roads not taken.
At its center, a child.
Not just any child—himself. But not from memory. This was the first version—the primordial echo.
The child was building a clock.
Riven approached. "What are you doing?"
The child looked up. "Trying to stop time."
"Why?"
"Because it hurts. Because it forgets me. Because I'm scared."
Riven sat beside him. "I know. I was you."
The child studied him. "You're broken."
"And healed. Because I let others remember me."
"Will you remember me?" the child asked.
Riven didn't answer. He simply embraced him.
The clock shattered.
Time screamed.
Outside the Core, Mirra was fighting the guardians—each one reliving moments of trauma to weaken her resolve. She staggered, gasping, vision blurred.
Until Riven reemerged.
Glowing with raw memory.
He held the child's fragment in his hand.
"No more cycles," he said.
The Loop trembled.
The Pulse roared into the plane—manifesting not as a monster, but as an infinite corridor of white doors. Each one led to a memory—ready to be silenced.
Riven faced it.
"You were born to preserve. But you became fear."
He raised the fragment.
"Let this be our new first."
He shattered the fragment into the heart of the Loop.
The Loop ignited.
Not in fire—but in potential.
Choice flooded the plane.
The Pulse screamed and fractured. The white doors splintered. Every silenced path opened. Every forgotten name returned.
Time began to move freely again.
They awoke back in the Citadel.
Sky—blue.
Air—alive.
Threads—glowing.
Riven turned to Mirra.
"We did it."
She smiled. "You remembered. And you made the world remember you."
He looked at the Seedling Echo. It was dim now. Used. Spent.
"But the Pulse is not gone," he said. "Only scattered."
"Then we'll be ready when it reforms."
And as the sun rose over a timeline finally free, Riven closed his eyes, remembering the child in the Loop who only wanted to be known.
He would never forget again.