Chapter 29: Echoes in the Loop
The Cortex buzzed faintly with the ambient hum of machines, but no one said a word.
Barry looked at Dante, brow furrowed, eyes sharp with curiosity and doubt. "How do you know all this?"
There was no accusation in his tone—just confusion. Real, earnest confusion.
"I mean… no offense, but—"
He didn't finish. Dante cut him off before he could.
"Yeah, I know," Dante said, with a soft laugh that held no humor. "I dropped out of school. Spent years hustling for scraps, then watched my whole family die. After that? I was homeless. So how the hell does an ex-homeless guy like me know so much about timelines and paradoxes?"
The air thickened with awkward silence.
Caitlin opened her mouth to say something, but Dante raised a hand gently, stopping her.
He looked at each of them—Cisco, Joe, Caitlin, and finally Barry. His expression was unreadable, calm but distant. Then he smiled. Soft. Tired.
"It's a secret," he said lightly, before his gaze darkened. "But I'll give you this—you're the nerds here. All of you. The science geniuses. So tell me, honestly: what do you think will happen if you go back and save your mother?"
Barry remained still, the question crashing into him like a wave.
Dante stepped toward the blackboard and wiped away the previous drawings with his palm. Then, slowly, he drew three stick figures in the same room—small, almost comical in their simplicity.
"Let me set the scene," he said. "It's the night your mother dies. Right now, as things stand, there are already two versions of you in that house. One—a terrified kid hiding behind a door. The other—an older, faster Barry watching it all unfold. He's the one who didn't interfere."
Then Dante added a third stick figure beside them.
"You go back now? That makes three Barrys in the same place, at the same moment."
Cisco stepped forward slowly. "That kind of temporal pressure… the universe wasn't designed for that. That's unstable."
Dante nodded. "Exactly. But let's say you go through with it. You save her. You change everything."
Barry looked at the board, his throat tight.
"Everything starts to slip," Dante continued. "You start to lose yourself. Your speed. Your memories. Your entire identity. You're holding on by threads. So what do you do?"
He turned from the board, looking Barry dead in the eyes.
"You go back again."
Caitlin gasped softly, understanding hitting her all at once.
"You go back to let her die," Dante said quietly. "You realize saving her broke everything. So you reverse it. You let Reverse-Flash kill your mother, hoping it'll bring everything back to normal."
"No…" Barry whispered, horrified at the thought.
"But it doesn't," Dante said.
His voice was low now, nearly a whisper. Like someone revealing a ghost story that was all too real.
"Because by doing that, you still don't return to your original timeline. You create another one. A third. Slightly off. Slightly wrong. A place where everything feels almost familiar… but isn't."
He took a breath.
"And then one day… you do it again. You go back again. And again. And again."
The weight of it settled like a boulder in Barry's chest. The idea of chasing a perfect moment, only to drift further from it every time.
Cisco looked shaken. "You're talking about a time loop. A recursion."
"No," Dante said. "I'm talking about a curse. One where you become so desperate to fix things that you tear the world apart trying."
Joe leaned against the console, rubbing his temples. "You've been thinking about this a long time, haven't you?"
Dante gave a soft shrug. "Since the moment I felt time shatter around me. Since I realized what kind of power we're dealing with."
He turned to Barry again, softer now. "You think I'm just a weapon. Just some angry guy with fire in his veins. But I've been watching. Learning. I don't have your IQ, Barry—but I've lived through enough destruction to know what not to touch."
Barry's voice cracked. "Then what am I supposed to do?"
Dante stepped closer, his tone suddenly gentle.
"You grieve. You heal. You let her go."
"But it's my mom—" Barry started.
"I know," Dante said, nodding. "And no one will ever understand your pain the way you do. But this…" He motioned to the board. "This is not how you honor her. This is how you erase yourself trying."
Silence settled over the Cortex again. Thick and heavy.
Barry looked down at the floor, shoulders hunched, fists clenched.
Then he felt a hand on his shoulder. Joe. Steady. Warm.
"You're not alone, son," Joe said. "We're all here. And your mom… she wouldn't want you to lose yourself trying to bring her back."
Cisco nodded. "Yeah. Plus, let's be real. If you mess the timeline up enough, I might stop being a genius. And then who would fix the coffee machine?"
That earned a faint smile.
Caitlin stepped forward and took Barry's hand. "You've already saved so many people, Barry. You're already a hero. Don't lose that chasing a world that doesn't exist anymore."
Barry blinked fast, his voice cracking. "I just… miss her."
Dante exhaled, looking out the window at the quiet city beyond.
"Yeah," he said softly. "We all miss someone."
And in that silence, as grief and wisdom intertwined, Barry Allen took one small step away from temptation—and one giant step closer to becoming the man the city truly needed.
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