The System is not artificial.
It is sentient memory—what remains after something eternal died.
Some cultures called it "the breath of fallen gods."
Others, like the underground Rift Engineers, believed it was a defence mechanism of the planet itself, meant to prepare the last organism capable of choice.
But over time, the System fractured.
Now it speaks in pieces—delivering quests, visions, rewards, and punishments—according to non-linear triggers.
It has no origin in the known world.
And it doesn't answer to any command…
Except one.
"[Vow Directive 000: ]
"Complete the Seeker Protocol. Preserve the Final Memory."
Buried across the world are eleven Rift Vaults, most unknown even to governments.
Each vault: houses fragments of erased timelines, Contains sealed lives—people, events, even entire hours, ripped from history and stored, and each vault is guarded by a paradox (e.g., creatures that can only exist if you forget them).
Only a Seeker—one marked by the System—can safely enter a vault.
Vaults are not physical alone. Some can only be entered either during temporal storms, or inside dreams, or after failing in another life.
One vault is rumoured to exist outside the 72-hour countdown, in what the System calls Hour Ø.
But no one has ever survived long enough to reach it.
Then there is the casual loop. Some events in the 72-hour countdown are locked—they will always happen.
Others are open, determined by the Seeker's actions.
But there's a problem: every time a Seeker dies and the System resets their body, the loop becomes more unstable.
After 5 loops, memory degradation begins.
After 9 loops, the Seeker may begin to remember past deaths.
And after 12 loops, the countdown begins to react to them.
They no longer walk the timeline.
They reshape it.
Eric is the 13th recorded Seeker.
The last 12 never made it past Hour 61.
Each had different strengths. Some had telepathic synchrony with weather patterns, some the ability to trap Null Shepherds, others had control over small "Event Freezes".
None had access to The Architect's Key, which Eric does.
No one knows why he was chosen. The System has not revealed that Vow yet.
But hidden in the Vaults lies the full Seeker Protocol. These are 6 Memory Fragments (one per Vault), 3 Truth Scrolls (locations unknown), and 1 Core Directive (rumoured to exist only in Hour Ø)
Completing the protocol may not stop the apocalypse.
It may only reveal why it happens again. And again. And again.
"He will try to break the loop. He must not. The 72 Hours are not a punishment. They are a mercy." Writes Memory Condenser Mask, Left Eye Layer, File 003
"Some rooms were never built. They simply waited… for someone broken enough to find them."
It was now 4:59 a.m.
Eric's System pulses.
But something is wrong.
"[ALERT] Hour 67 Initiated... but Hour 66 not recorded. "System memory corrupted. Reality may have skipped forward."
Eric glances around. He is no longer by the Rift Vault.
There is no red river. No dawn. No Tano.
He stands in a small, windowless hallway lit by flickering fluorescent bulbs.
The air is wrong—too clean, too stale, too silent.
"Where am I?" he whispers.
No answer.
Just a low hum, like a heartbeat beneath concrete.
Then, ahead he sees a door.
It was all metal, old, bolted, and sealed with 13 padlocks, each one half-melted.
Etched across the steel in capital letters were warning words;
"DO NOT OPEN. NOT YOUR TIMELINE.!"
The System flashes:
"Unauthorized Memory Zone Detected." "Designation: The Forgotten Room."
"Do not proceed. No backup will follow. You are alone."
"So this is the Forgotten Room?" Eric curiously ponders. He opens the door.
It swings inward with a wail of rusted hinges… revealing a room made of shifting stone and fractured memory.
The walls flicker—some parts wood-panelled, some tiled like a hospital, some pulsing like organic skin.
In the centre is a child's bed.
Lying on the bed is a stack of drawings. They are a child's handprint. Eric identifies it to be his own, but smaller.
Then a voice.
"You're late," a girl says.
Eric turns.
She is eleven years old. Wears a yellow dress. Freckles. Bright eyes. Holding a photo of him—older, bleeding, screaming in a sandstorm.
"Who are you?" Eric breathes.
"I'm your sister."
"That's impossible. I never had one."
"No. You did. But the Vault took me."
The System screams in his mind.
"[ERROR: Memory Suppression Layer Breached] Identity Collapse at 12%... 18%... 24%... Seeker, you are remembering what should not be recalled."
Eric staggers.
"I remember… your laugh. The window. The kite…"
She nods. "You were six when the Rift storm came. The vault took me first. I tried to stay. I wasn't strong enough."
"Why am I remembering now?"
"Because the 67th hour is when forgotten things fight back."
She hands him a small cube.
"This is my memory capsule. Hide it inside the Rift Vault before Hour 60. If they find it, they'll erase me again."
"Who are 'they'?"
Her smile fades.
"The Null Shepherds don't erase you all at once. They start with your family. With your anchor."
The room begins to shake.
The walls glitch, revealing scenes from erased lives—a family eating dinner as lightning rains inside the house… a woman with Eric's eyes singing in a nursery while black fog eats the crib.
"I'm already fading," she says, voice breaking. "Don't forget me again."
"I won't," Eric says, eyes burning.
"You will," she replies softly. "That's how the loop survives."
And then she vanishes.
The room collapses.
Eric awakens—this time in a library without books.
Each shelf holds only cassette tapes, labeled with hours:
"Hour 1 – Failure"
"Hour 33 – Drowned Eric"
"Hour 44 – Wrong Decision"
"Hour 67 – Forbidden Room (You Are Here)"
A man with a melted clock for a face floats down the aisle.
He wears a robe made of burned timelines.
"Seeker 13," the man says, his voice bending around the syllables. "You reached a forbidden hour. Do you wish to remember… or survive?"
"What happens if I remember?"
"You lose the innocence of not knowing. The System won't protect you anymore."
"And if I survive?"
"You forget your sister. Again."
Eric grits his teeth.
"I'll remember."
The man nods.
"Then here is your first truth: The System was never designed for one Seeker. It was made for two."
He offers Eric a tape—black, unlabelled, and warm.
"Play this only when you hear thunder without clouds."
"And the second Seeker?"
"She remembers you… but doesn't know your name."
The man fades into static.
Eric finds himself back by the Rift Vault entrance.
Tano is there—terrified.
"Where did you go?! You vanished mid-sentence! It's been an hour!"
Eric clenches the memory capsule in his fist.
"I went somewhere I shouldn't have."
"Was it real?"
"I don't know."
"You're bleeding from your ears."
Eric touches his face—his eyes are leaking blood too.
"[System Update:]"
"Seeker has breached a restricted memory layer. Your clock is now untethered."
"Warning: You will now experience temporal hallucinations. Not all hours will come in order."
"We're running out of time, aren't we?" Tano asks.
Eric just nods.
A sudden downpour begins—but it's not rain.
It's paper. They are all burned letters, receipts and diary pages.
One paper flutters into Eric's hand.
On it is drawn a map, marked with a symbol: Ω
Beneath it, written in a child's handwriting:
"Come find me before Hour 0. Before we both are erased."