Luca didn't answer the question.
He sat still at his desk, back straight, eyes forward, but his mind wasn't here. Not anymore.
That voice.
"You're getting closer, Luca."
It was new. A ripple in the loop. Something that hadn't happened in seven years of hell.
Mr. Fredrick cleared his throat. "No thoughts today, Luca?"
"No, sir," Luca muttered, gaze distant.
The class moved on. Chatter resumed. But Luca was already deep in thought. He clutched the edge of the desk like he could anchor himself to the moment—force it to last longer than it should.
It didn't matter what he did until now. Helped a stranger, robbed a store, confessed his love, murdered a man—he tried every path, and the result was always the same. Death. Reset. Repeat.
But the voice meant someone—or something—was watching. That he wasn't alone.
After class, he didn't go home.
Instead, he walked aimlessly, passing cafes, alleyways, the station, the church, the school park where time always seemed frozen. He tested new paths before, hundreds of them. But today he walked them differently, watching the sky like he expected it to speak.
"You're getting closer..."
Closer to what?
Around 4:37 PM, the world always caught up to him. That's when the bullet would come.
So he turned down a different street, heading for the abandoned train tunnel—the one place he rarely went.
He stepped into the shadows, heartbeat steady.
"Alright," he whispered. "Come get me."
He waited. One minute. Two. Nothing.
Then—
"You weren't supposed to go this way."
Luca spun around, heart pounding.
A man stood behind him, face covered in a dark, birdlike mask, hands behind his back like a teacher waiting for a question.
"You—" Luca stepped back. "You said something. Just before the loop."
The man tilted his head. "So you remember."
"Who are you? What is this?"
The masked man didn't move. "Seven years. That's how long you've been stuck in this layer."
"Layer?"
"You're in a construct, Luca. A fail-safe loop designed to reset on deviation. Death triggers it. Catastrophic events trigger it. But you—you've worn it thin."
Luca narrowed his eyes. "Why me?"
"Because you broke the pattern."
The masked figure stepped closer, the shadows warping around him like heat haze. "They want you to keep resetting. But you've started remembering pieces you shouldn't."
Luca clenched his fists. "Who's 'they'?"
The man turned, ignoring the question. "You want out? Then stop playing by their rules."
"How?"
A pause.
"Find the anchor."
And with that—
CRACK.
The bullet hit. But not from the masked man.
From the rooftops.
Everything collapsed again.
Darkness.
But this time, Luca didn't wake up in class.