Silence dropped over the dome like an executioner's hood.
Not the quiet of peace — the quiet of absolute recognition.
The kind of silence the world makes when something too old to exist steps through its skin.
Arin stared at the newcomer.
He looked like him.
He looked nothing like him.
Loop Zero Arin was gaunt, hollow-eyed, wearing clothes that didn't belong to any cycle Arin had seen — torn linen, metal clasps, fragments of tech fused into his arms like brutal jewelry. His skin pulsed faintly with glitch-light, like a creature caught halfway between timelines.
His presence distorted the air.
Lyra gasped, recoiling as her weapon glitched in her hand, dissolving into static.
The Architect staggered backward.
"No. No, this is impossible. The zero iteration was scrubbed — erased from archive!"
Loop Zero Arin smiled faintly.
"Nothing that begins the loop can be erased," he said.
His voice was sanded down, colder than winter wind.
"And nothing that breaks it can be ignored."
Arin's throat tightened.
"You're… me."
Loop Zero shook his head slowly.
"I was you. Before the Kernel. Before the resets. Before the safeguards. Before the world wrapped itself around your death like a bandage."
Those hollow eyes locked onto Arin's.
"I am the reason everything repeats."
Lyra flinched. "Then you're the one who— who broke the timeline? You caused all of this?"
Loop Zero stepped forward, and every light in the dome flickered in fear.
"No," he said.
"I didn't break it."
He pointed at Arin.
"He did."
The ground dropped out beneath Arin's stomach.
"What?" he whispered. "I didn't— I don't even remember—"
Loop Zero cut him off.
"That's the point. You don't remember because the Kernel was built to make you forget. To keep you manageable. Contained. Harmless."
The Architect found his voice — shakier, more fragile than Arin had ever heard it.
"This entity is lying. The zero iteration was unstable, corrupted—"
"Corrupted?" Loop Zero laughed softly. "I was murdered."
Arin froze.
Lyra's breath caught.
The Architect went silent.
Loop Zero stepped closer until Arin could see the fractures in his skin, the way code pulsed beneath it like veins.
"My death fractured the timeline," he said. "But my death wasn't an accident. It wasn't a crime of passion. It wasn't fate."
He leaned in, voice going sharp.
"It was a correction."
Arin's pulse thrashed. "A correction by who?"
Loop Zero turned slowly toward the Architect.
The Architect's eyes widened.
"No," the Architect whispered. "You don't understand—"
"I understand perfectly," Loop Zero said, voice like breaking bone.
"You killed me."
Arin felt the world stop.
Lyra took a step back, shocked. "The Architect— killed—?"
Loop Zero faced Arin again, voice cold and steady.
"He ended me to protect the loop model. Because I discovered something in that first world— before the Kernel, before the cycle — something dangerous enough that the world chose to erase me and try again."
Arin swallowed hard. "What… did you discover?"
Loop Zero's expression softened into something more haunting.
"The truth about what we are."
Arin's heartbeat faltered.
Loop Zero raised a hand, and the dome's walls lit up with shifting memories — flickers of the world before cycles, before rewriting, before the Kernel. There were cities alive with people, skies without glitches, lives without resets.
Then—
A lab.
A circle of machines.
A young scientist standing in the center.
A scientist with Arin's face.
Arin felt cold pins spread across his skin.
"That's me?"
"That's us," Loop Zero said. "The original. The beginning. The one who tried to rewrite fate itself. You weren't a victim. You were the creator."
Arin's breath came ragged.
"I created… the loop?"
"No," Loop Zero said.
"You created the technology that would one day become the Kernel. But the world wasn't ready. Humanity wasn't ready. And the Architect—"
He pointed at the trembling man,
"—was the one who betrayed you. He killed you to stop the experiment. To stop you from breaking the flow of history."
The Architect's voice rose in a thin, desperate whisper.
"I was preserving the world— you were tearing it open— you wanted to rewrite the future— you didn't understand the consequences—"
Loop Zero roared back:
"I understood exactly what I was doing!"
Arin felt pressure building in his skull — memories trying to surface, slamming against mental walls like prisoners beating at cell doors.
"Stop," Arin whispered. "Stop— I can't take all of this at once— please—"
Loop Zero softened.
"You need to remember the moment it began."
The dome darkened.
The floor melted away.
Arin stood suddenly in another memory — but this one didn't drift like a dream.
This one hit like a blow.
He stood in the lab.
The original lab.
Screens flashing equations he almost understood.
A countdown blinking red.
The final test.
He saw himself — the original Arin — inputting a string of code.
Laughing with exhilaration.
Saying:
"If this works, we won't need destiny. We'll build our own."
Then he saw—
A hand.
A blade.
A shadow behind him.
A voice whispering:
"You were never meant to rewrite fate."
And the blade plunged.
Everything flashed white.
Arin collapsed on the dome floor, gasping, shaking violently as the memory ripped out of him like a parasite.
Lyra knelt beside him. "Arin— Arin, look at me— what did you see?"
He stared at her.
And whispered the truth:
"I was murdered for trying to reshape the future. And the Architect covered it up by building the Kernel around my corpse."
The Architect crumpled to the ground, trembling.
Loop Zero stepped forward.
"The loop wasn't built to save humanity," he said. "It was built to stop you. To contain every version of you across every timeline so you never attempt to break fate again."
Arin felt the world shift under his feet.
He realized the horror of it.
The loop wasn't a prison he was trapped in.
It was a prison built because of him.
Lyra whispered, broken,
"Arin… what do we do now?"
Arin looked at Loop Zero.
Loop Zero looked back with lifeless eyes.
And said softly:
"We destroy the Kernel."
The dome shook violently. The Kernel screamed again. The Architect whispered prayers to no one.
Arin stood, steadying himself.
He didn't know what destroying the Kernel meant.
He didn't know who would survive it.
He didn't know if he could trust his future self.
He didn't know if he could trust Lyra.
He didn't know if he could trust himself.
But he knew one thing:
He was done being the problem someone else tried to fix.
He met Loop Zero's gaze.
"Show me how to end it."
Loop Zero smiled.
His first real smile.
"Gladly."