The countdown was frozen at 6:12, but it ticked invisibly behind their eyes—Matthew could feel it like a pulse at the base of his skull.
He and Rin walked the curved edge of the void, where geometry looped in impossible angles. The walls didn't exist, but logic did—folded over itself like a dying star.
Matthew spoke first. "The recursion isn't just repeating us—it's rehearsing us."
Rin gave him a sharp look. "You think it's predicting moves?"
"No," he said. "It's training copies to replace us."
And then they saw it.
A glowing corridor, suspended in nothing, lined with black-framed mirrors—but none showed their reflections.
They showed possibilities.
Different versions of themselves, captured mid-game, mid-failure, mid-death.
Some were screaming. Some were empty-eyed.
Some… hadn't been them in a long time.
At the end of the corridor: a pulse. Deep blue.
Like a heartbeat in reverse.
RECURSION HUB // CORE PROCESSING NODE
Cognition: Forked
Stability: Decaying
Access Granted: One Thread Remaining
"There," Rin said, moving toward the core.
As they stepped closer, their ears filled with static—the language of the system. Words trying to be thoughts. Thoughts trying to be command.
Then a voice—Matthew's own—echoed from the node:
"If you trace the loops too deep, you will forget which version you are."
"You're not supposed to be here."
"That's why you still can be."
Matthew ignored it.
He raised a hand toward the core and froze. "Rin—look."
The core was spinning. But not on its own axis.
It was turning on a tether. A single gold thread—glowing faintly and pulsing with names.
Names they knew.
SORA
RIN
MATTHEW
ZEHRΛ
LUCA
ILARI
…and more.
"Every recursion resets with a reference," Rin whispered. "That's the thread. It's anchoring identity."
"But not ours," Matthew realized. "It's the copy's reference memory. If we sever it…"
"…they lose the ability to mirror us," Rin finished.
"But we might lose the ability to be us, too," Matthew added.
They stood at the edge of the recursion core.
The thread pulsed.
The system whispered:
Sever to break the mirror.
Sever to lose the frame.
Sever to set the fire.
"What if this is what Sora wanted?" Rin asked.
Matthew's hand hovered over the thread.
"Then she'll be waiting on the other side."
And he cut it.
The thread vanished.
The mirrors exploded into nothing.
And the countdown resumed—this time in reverse:
00:00:00
Unmarked Game: ERROR
System rebooting recursion protocol…
…Access denied.
The recursion was broken.
But the system was now awake.
And it was watching.