I wake up with my tongue pressed to the roof of my mouth like it's trying to remember how to speak.
The air is familiar in the worst way.
Bleach. Paper dust. The faint metallic sweetness of a building that eats stories for breakfast and calls it "processing."
The ceiling above me is low and stained with old watermarks shaped like continents. A cheap vent rattles. Someone somewhere is dragging a cart down a corridor, the wheels making that hollow, endless sound like time itself has casters.
I sit up too fast.
My head spins, not from sleep, but from whiplash.
Because the last thing I remember is a prison corridor and a man calling himself the Reverend of Space, telling me my sin was already threaded into the future.
And before that, I remember the End. The café that wasn't a café. The knife Echo gave me. The giant eye with wings swallowing the horizon like a final punctuation mark.
I remember the snap when the last string broke.
And now I'm here.
Back in the old room. Back in the beginning of Null, when I was still new enough to flinch at the word "Corrections."
On the metal table beside the cot, there's a card.
CLIENT: NOOR [REDACTED]
RESIDUAL: 100%
I stare at it until my eyes hurt.
One hundred.
Not four.
Not locked.
Not "interesting problem."
One hundred means I haven't cut anything. One hundred means the system thinks I'm whole.
One hundred means the world has decided to pretend I never learned how it ends.
My hands shake when I pick the card up.
The plastic is real. The ink is crisp. The lie is fresh.
I press my thumb to the number like I can smear it, like I can rub the timeline back into its place.
Nothing happens.
Of course nothing happens. This building never responds to pleading. It responds to compliance, or it responds to refusal it can categorize.
Footsteps approach, unhurried.
The door slides open with a soft click that tries to sound polite.
Samira steps in first.
She looks… earlier.
Not younger, exactly. Just less tired in the way a person is less tired before a particular kind of betrayal finishes settling in their bones.
Her hair is still pinned with that practical severity. Her eyes still have that sharp professional edge. But there's a missing weight behind them, like she hasn't yet learned she can't outwork a machine that doesn't sleep.
Echo follows, half a step behind, hands in their pockets, like they're pretending this is a casual hallway encounter and not the start of someone's slow dismantling.
They see me awake and grin like nothing has ever ended.
"Look who's back in the land of fluorescent despair," Echo says. "Welcome to Null. Try not to get attached to your own name."
My throat tightens.
Their voice hits a place in me that still remembers a void-city café and a knife.
I force air into my lungs anyway.
Samira holds out a metal pass card.
Same one.
Same dull shine. Same corner nicked like it's been dropped on purpose more times than anyone admits.
"This is yours," she says. "Administrative deceased status. You'll keep it on you at all times."
I look at the card like it's a snake.
"So it's real," I say, and my voice comes out too flat. "We're doing this again."
Echo tilts their head.
"Again?" they repeat, amused. "You speedran your orientation in your sleep or what?"
I swallow.
Don't say it. Don't say End. Don't say reset. Don't say Reverend. Don't say you died and came back because the cosmos couldn't accept the possibility where you survived.
They won't remember. They can't remember. Whatever did this scrubbed the world clean of the version where we got far enough to name the monster.
Samira doesn't notice my hesitation. Or she does, and files it under shock.
"You're assigned three thread cuts," she says, brisk. "Residual attachments. The goal is to lower your residual percentage so the system can release you into appropriate—"
"Appropriate," I repeat, my mouth bitter before I can stop it.
Samira's eyes flick to mine.
"Appropriate means safe," she says, like she's reciting a rule she still believes in. "For you, and for everyone else."
Echo leans into the doorway, stretching like a cat in a place that hates softness.
"And safe means boring," they add. "Which is Null's favorite flavor."
My fingers tighten around the pass card. The metal bites into my palm.
Behind my ribs, something panics.
Not because I'm scared of thread cutting.
Because I remember what thread cutting really is.
It's not therapy. It's not closure. It's not mercy.
It's a system learning how to erase you cleanly without leaving messy grief in its gears.
And somewhere beyond this place, beyond the version of Null that still pretends it's only a district office with extra paperwork, there is a larger machine waiting to use this process until there are no strings left anywhere.
A Great End that doesn't arrive like a bomb.
It arrives like a form.
I stand up slowly.
Samira watches me with that handler assessment look, ready for resistance but not expecting it this early.
Echo watches me like they're watching a show they're about to heckle lovingly.
"You're at one hundred," Samira says, glancing at my card on the table. "That's normal at intake. Don't overthink it."
I stare at her.
I want to tell her that one hundred isn't normal.
That one hundred is a reset button.
That something decided there was no surviving in the path I took, so it rewound the tape and pressed play again.
But the words stick.
Because how do you explain a future like that without sounding like a myth begging to be filed?
How do you tell a system you already saw its ending, when the system is built to treat endings as errors?
I force my face into something neutral.
"Fine," I say. "Tell me where my first cut is."
Samira nods, satisfied. She turns toward the corridor.
Echo winks at me as they follow, like we're in on some joke.
And we are.
Just not the one they think.
We walk the familiar hallways. The same signage. The same walls painted a color that tries to be calming but just looks like watered-down surrender.
OFFICE OF CORRECTIONS
THREAD RESOLUTION UNIT
MEDIA & MEMORY DIVISION
Every label is a euphemism for taking something human and trimming it down until it fits in a drawer.
My feet know the path.
My body remembers, even if the building thinks it reset me.
That's the first crack in the lie.
They escort me to the intake desk, the same sterile counter with its little slots and its careful glass partition that implies danger is contagious.
A clerk sits behind it, tapping at a terminal. Their face is blank the way staff faces become blank here: not because they don't feel, but because feeling would slow the workflow.
Samira gives them my file code.
Echo leans on the counter, peering through the glass like it's an aquarium.
"This one's got the haunted eyes," Echo says conversationally. "Be gentle."
The clerk's gaze flicks to me. Then away. Then back.
They swallow.
"Residual score… high," they say, as if reading the number might summon something.
I smile without humor.
"Don't worry," I tell them. "We're going to make it lower. That's what you want, right?"
Samira turns, sharp. "Noor."
"Just being helpful," I say.
But my hands are already moving.
I slide my metal pass card back into my pocket.
And I decide, right there, while the system is still welcoming me, that I'm not going to cut a single thread this time.
Not because I don't love them.
Not because I don't want closure.
Because I remember what happens when I follow the script.
I remember becoming content.
I remember being used.
I remember the End.
And I remember a prison in the present where someone told me my future sin was efficiency.
So instead of lowering my residual, I'm going to do the only thing a system cannot predict accurately:
I'm going to change the route.
Samira is speaking to the clerk, confirming my schedule.
Echo is stealing a pen from a cup like a magpie with anxiety.
No one is watching my hands.
So I reach under the counter.
Not physically. I don't have access.
But I remember where the building is lazy.
There are always seams.
There are always little slippages where a system assumes the human will behave.
I lean slightly, like I'm tired.
I let my eyes unfocus like I'm overwhelmed.
And while Samira's attention is on the clerk's terminal, I watch the reflection in the glass.
A camera above us, angled down, its black lens like an insect's eye.
A badge reader on the side of the counter, used for staff entry into the back corridor.
The reader has a small light. Red when locked, green when open.
I remember the patterns.
I remember how Mara once laughed and told me half the building's security depended on people not being creative.
I don't know where Mara is now in this reset. I don't know if she's alive, or angry, or already a file with a label that lies.
But I know one thing.
The architecture doors are real.
Level -3 is real.
Room 0 is real.
And the Great End space isn't a metaphor. It's a place.
If I can reach the hidden stairwell early, if I can get into the maintenance guts before I become a project again, I can find the cause of this rewind.
Or at least find the first hand on the lever.
Samira turns back toward me.
"Your first thread," she says, "is scheduled for this evening. Maternal attachment. Café near the university district. Echo will accompany you."
Echo salutes. "Thrilled."
I nod like a compliant patient.
Inside, my throat burns.
Maternal thread.
The memory of lentils. Her handwriting correction. The blade approach.
I remember my mother's face changing when the memory landed. I remember the relief and the ache and the cruelty of giving someone closure only because a system asked me to.
I loved her. I still love her. That wasn't fake.
But I'm not doing it as a task.
Not today.
Not under their timing.
"Okay," I say softly. "This evening."
Samira watches me closely, searching for signs of defiance. She doesn't see what she's looking for.
Because my defiance has already moved past her.
It's not an argument. It's an escape route.
She gestures toward the hallway.
"Rest until then," she says. "Don't wander. You're not cleared for unsupervised movement."
Echo drapes an arm over my shoulder as if we're friends going to class.
"You heard the boss," they sing. "No wandering. Which means we should definitely wander."
Samira shoots them a look.
Echo lifts both hands. "Joke. Mostly."
We walk back toward the dorm corridor.
Echo chats about nothing, which is their gift and their armor.
They point out a bulletin board with a motivational poster that says YOU CAN HEAL.
They mock it gently.
They tell me about a trainee who cried in the break room because they mislabeled a case and it "felt like killing someone twice."
I laugh in the right places.
I keep my breathing steady.
I do not say, I already know how this ends.
When we reach my door, Samira leaves. Echo lingers.
They lean against the wall, studying me.
"You're acting weird," they say finally.
"Define weird," I answer.
Echo's grin slips a fraction.
"I mean… you're always weird," they say, softer. "But this is like… haunted weird. Like you woke up already missing someone."
My throat closes.
There's a moment where I almost tell them everything.
The End. The knife. The winged eye. The way they looked at me in nothingness and still chose to be there.
But the reset has made them clean.
If I pour the future into them now, I don't know what it will do.
Will it infect them? Will it summon the system's attention? Will it turn them into a file with a bright red label?
I look away.
"I had a dream," I say.
Echo's expression changes instantly, as if the word dream is a door they recognize.
"Was it bad?" they ask.
"It was… final," I say.
Echo nods slowly.
"Yeah," they say. "Those are the ones that stick. The kind you don't wake up from all the way."
They push off the wall.
"Hey," they add, lightening their tone with effort. "We're still here. You're still here. That counts for something."
I force a smile.
"Does it?" I ask.
Echo's grin returns, but there's a seriousness behind it now, like a small flame hidden in their ribs.
"It counts because you noticed," they say. "Most people don't notice when they're alive."
Then they point at my door.
"Rest," they say, mimicking Samira. "No wandering."
They turn, walking away down the hall with a little wave over their shoulder.
I watch them go.
And I decide I'm going to do the cruelest thing a system can't forgive:
I'm going to leave them behind.
Not because I don't want them.
Because if the building is resetting timelines to prevent survival, the people closest to me are either bait or collateral.
And I refuse to let Echo become a training module again.
I shut the door.
I sit on the cot.
I stare at my card: RESIDUAL 100%.
I breathe until my hands stop shaking.
Then I move.
Quietly.
The dorm room has a vent panel near the floor. I remember noticing it the first time and assuming it was just for air.
But vents are always more than air in places like this.
They're veins.
They lead to the building's underbody.
I pry it open with the stolen pen Echo took and forgot to put away. The pen is cheap plastic, but stubbornness is stronger than steel here.
The panel comes loose with a soft pop.
Cold air breathes out like the building sighing.
Behind it, darkness.
I slide the panel aside and peer in.
A narrow maintenance crawlspace, dust and cable bundles, a faint glow from distant indicator lights.
I hesitate.
Not because I'm afraid of tight spaces.
Because I know what tight spaces become when a system gets angry.
But the alternative is letting the script play out until I end up where I already ended up.
So I climb in.
The metal is cold under my palms. The air tastes like old electricity.
I pull the panel back into place from inside, leaving it slightly ajar for exit.
Then I crawl.
The building's guts are louder than its hallways.
You can hear the real work here: water in pipes, power cycling, distant fans, the subtle clicking of relays deciding who gets to exist.
I move slowly, counting turns.
I remember pieces of the route from later chapters, from chases with Mara through maintenance corridors, from hidden stairs and doors labeled with lies.
But this is earlier. Some of the routes might not exist yet.
Or they might exist and simply not be named.
I crawl until the space widens into a narrow service corridor.
I drop down onto concrete.
A sign on the wall reads AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
I smile to myself.
Every story begins with a sign like that.
I move down the corridor, staying close to the wall, listening for footsteps.
At the end, there's a door with no handle, only a keypad and a badge reader.
This is where most people stop.
Because most people assume a door is a door.
I remember what the Reverend said.
Space is a door.
And you have been a door before.
I exhale.
Then I do something I've never tried this early.
I don't attack the lock.
I don't try to trick the keypad.
I simply stand in front of the badge reader and let my mind reach for the feeling of distance collapsing.
It sounds insane, even in my own head.
But I've felt it.
When the End tilted into me. When the prison corridor blinked. When reality leaned sideways like it was being rerouted.
I close my eyes.
I imagine the corridor behind me becoming longer, then shorter, then folding.
I imagine the reader light turning green not because I convinced it, but because the space between "locked" and "open" got confused.
For a moment nothing happens.
Then the air shifts.
A tiny pressure behind my eyes, like a headache choosing a shape.
The badge reader's light flickers.
Red.
Red.
Green.
The door clicks.
My eyes fly open.
I stare at the light like it's a miracle I don't deserve.
Then I push the door open and step through before the building can change its mind.
Beyond it is a stairwell.
No signage.
No floor numbers.
Just concrete steps spiraling down into the kind of darkness that doesn't feel like absence, but like something watching with patience.
I descend.
Each step feels like going against a current.
The air gets colder. The hum changes pitch.
And somewhere deep below, I hear something that sounds like a train.
Not the metro.
Something older. Something that doesn't run on tracks as much as it runs on inevitability.
At the bottom of the stairwell is a corridor with doors.
Unlabeled.
Plain.
Too plain.
As if the building didn't want to admit these places existed.
I walk past them, scanning for the one I remember.
In the future, it was called Architecture.
Here, the door is blank.
But there's a faint scratch near the handle, like someone once tried to write a name and stopped.
I place my hand on the door.
The metal is warmer than it should be.
Like something on the other side is alive.
I push.
It opens.
And the air changes immediately.
Not temperature. Not smell.
Meaning.
The space beyond is not a room.
It's a threshold.
A station that is too wide, too clean, too wrong.
The floor is smooth and pale like bone. The ceiling is high and disappears into shadow. Far away, there are pillars that look like they're holding up nothing.
And in the distance, there is a platform edge.
No rails.
Just a drop into black, like a mouth.
I step closer.
The black isn't empty. It moves subtly, like ink in water.
A sign hangs above the platform, letters flickering, trying to decide what language to be.
GREAT END TRANSIT
My stomach twists.
So it exists.
Not a theory. Not a future. Not a metaphor.
A place.
A space between systems where endings get shipped like packages.
I hear a soft static pop behind me and turn.
Nothing.
Just the corridor I came from, now seeming smaller, like it's pretending it didn't open for me.
I look back to the platform.
In the black below, something glows faintly. A line of light like a distant tunnel.
And then, as if responding to my presence, something begins to rise.
Not a train exactly.
More like a shape gathering itself from darkness.
A carriage made of shadow, outlined in thin white seams, as if reality is stitching it into place.
The air vibrates with the promise of movement.
I take a step back instinctively.
This is where I should stop.
This is where a sane person would go back, pretend they never saw this, cut their threads, do their tasks, stay inside the story that the building understands.
But I'm not sane anymore.
I've seen the End.
I've died and returned and found a card that says 100% like the universe is trying to erase my proof.
So I step forward.
The shadow-carriage finishes forming.
A door appears on its side, seamless, waiting.
The black around it ripples like a curtain.
I stand at the threshold and hesitate only long enough to think of Echo's face down the hallway.
Of Samira's tired belief in "safe."
Of my mother's hands correcting my writing.
Of all the threads the system wants me to cut until there's nothing left of me but compliance.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, to people who won't hear me in this version of time.
Then I step into the carriage.
Inside, the air is quiet in a way that makes my skin crawl.
There are seats, but no fabric, just smooth surfaces shaped like chairs that learned what humans need by watching from a distance.
The door closes behind me without a sound.
A faint voice crackles through the walls, not the calm drill voice, not Samira, not Echo.
Something older.
Something that speaks like a report disguised as prayer.
WELCOME, it says.
Then, after a pause, like it's reading my file and adjusting its tone:
ANOMALOUS ROUTE DETECTED.
I swallow.
The carriage shudders.
Outside, the platform recedes as if the world is folding itself away.
The black below rises up and around, swallowing the view.
For a moment, I feel the same tilt in the air I felt when the logic tree glitched, when the building blinked, when a prison corridor leaned sideways into a new angle.
This is the feeling of being rerouted.
This is the feeling of becoming a door.
The carriage moves.
Not forward.
Not down.
Sideways through distance itself.
My bones hum like tuning forks.
My stomach lurches as if gravity is being rewritten.
And in that nausea, in that awful in-between, I realize the simplest, ugliest truth:
Whatever reset me did it because I was getting too close.
Because humanity has no chance to survive in the possibility I lived.
So the cosmos rewound.
And now it's trying to funnel me back into a safer, smaller story.
But I'm not staying in the small story.
I'm going to the place that ships endings.
I'm going to Great End space.
I'm going to find the hand that rewinds.
The carriage hum deepens.
The air grows colder.
On the wall across from me, text scrolls in faint white letters like a status update no one asked for.
DESTINATION UNRESOLVED.
SEARCHING FOR VALID SYSTEM NODE.
ROUTE PRIORITY: UNKNOWN SUBJECT.
I stare at the words until they blur.
Unknown subject.
That's what they call you when you refuse to be filed.
The carriage shudders again.
The darkness outside thins for a moment, like a curtain lifting.
And I see, far away, a field of lights like cities hanging in nothing.
Not one city.
Many.
Systems.
Timelines.
Worlds packaged as destinations.
Some glowing bright. Some dim. Some flickering like they're already dying.
And in the center of that impossible constellation, something huge sits still, watching.
Not a face.
Not a body.
A presence.
A gravity of attention.
The carriage's hum falters, like it doesn't want to approach.
The text on the wall glitches.
Then stabilizes into a single line that makes my blood run cold.
POINT OF ZERO: PROXIMITY INCREASING
I inhale sharply.
So this is where my defiance takes me.
Not back to my mother.
Not to a thread cut.
Not to a safe release.
To the place where routes are decided.
To the place where angels are born, or endings are assigned, or whatever the machine calls salvation when it means control.
The carriage continues.
My hands clench on the edge of the seat.
I don't pray.
I don't beg.
I simply stare into the widening dark and promise myself one thing, the only thing that feels true in any timeline:
I will not let the universe erase what I've seen.
I will not let the Great End use my life like a lever.
If the cosmos wants to punish itself through Eternal Rebirth, if it wants to reset every time humanity survives, then I will become the flaw it can't smooth out.
The carriage shakes like it's laughing at me.
The lights outside rearrange.
The presence ahead grows clearer, heavier, closer.
And somewhere in the metal skin of the moving shadow, I swear I hear a faint whisper, like an old echo trapped in the walls.
Not a full sentence.
Just a warning.
Don't get comfortable.
I swallow, eyes fixed forward as the carriage carries me toward the place where stories become routes.
And I let the past version of me die quietly behind me, still at 100%, still at intake, still thinking thread cuts are the beginning.
This time, the beginning is the escape.
Act Forty-Third's End – "Reset by the Mother"