Elise didn't sleep.
She hadn't in… what felt like days. But the timestamps on her HUD showed only five hours had passed since they boarded the Peregrine.
The lights on the derelict ship stayed on at all times—no cycle, no artificial night. Just sterile illumination like a hospital, bright and indifferent.
Mira was in medbay, shaken but stable. Loro was in engineering, still reeling from the… event. The logs said he'd been sedated, but Elise didn't remember giving the order.
What she did remember was standing at the same hallway intersection three times in the last hour.
Not similar. Identical.
Same flickering ceiling panel. Same scuff on the wall. Same hum.
The ship's not looping time, she thought. It's looping us.
She entered the bridge.
Or rather, what was left of it.
Shattered displays. A command chair bolted into the floor. Viewports that showed nothing but the void.
There was a terminal still functioning—barely.
She approached it.
ACCESS: COMMAND LOGS – CAPTAIN ELISE ROHN
She blinked.
That's my name.
She hadn't logged in. At least, not this time.
Hesitantly, she tapped "View Entries."
The screen displayed a single file.
ENTRY 00: FINAL CAPTAIN'S LOGDate: YEAR UNKNOWN
She played it.
A video feed crackled to life.
The woman onscreen was her.
Same eyes. Same hair. Same scar beneath her chin from the orbital training accident.
But she looked… older.
Tired.
Different.
"If you're watching this," the recorded Elise said, voice shaking, "then the loop reset again. I'm sorry."
"We came here because of the signal. I thought I could beat the trap. Thought if I recorded my memories ahead of time, I could break free. But it doesn't work like that."
"This ship doesn't kill. It copies. Rewrites. When we die, we're remade. New variables, same framework. Our bodies aren't real anymore—not fully. The Peregrine rebuilds us. Tests us. Feeds on us."
"We are not the first crew to board it. We are not even the first us."
The video glitched.
"Every loop, I remember a little less. My crew changes. Sometimes it's Loro. Sometimes Mira. Sometimes… someone else."
"But I'm always here. I always find this log. And I always forget it by the time I leave this room."
She leaned forward on the recording.
"So here's your test, Elise: leave something behind you'll believe. Something they can't erase."
"Because next time—if there's a next time—you might not be you at all."
The feed ended.
Elise stared at the screen.
Her fingers were trembling.
She reached down and touched the console's surface.
Something was carved into the metal.
Three words:
"DON'T TRUST HER."
She frowned.
"Don't trust who?"
Behind her, a soft voice replied:
"Me."
She spun around, drawing her weapon.
The bridge was empty.
But for a heartbeat, her reflection in the cracked viewport was still looking at her—even after she turned away.