Chapter 29 · First Blood, Again

The breach dumped them onto frozen mud and the smell of diesel smoke.

Cole hit the ground hard, rifle already up. His knees remembered this terrain before his brain did. The cold bit through his fatigues in seconds. Around him, scattered figures in tactical gear were picking themselves up, disoriented, weapons swinging at nothing.

"Where the hell—" someone started.

Cole knew exactly where.

The sky was the wrong color. Not the fluorescent void they'd just escaped, but the flat gray of a winter dawn that hadn't broken yet. In the distance, the low silhouette of a compound crouched against the tree line. Guard towers. Razor wire. The faint glow of perimeter lights.

His chest went tight.

Loop One terrain. The first battlefield. The place where this whole nightmare had started, eighty-three resets ago.

"Cole." Ivy's voice, sharp. She was on her feet beside him, med pack still strapped to her back, eyes scanning the area. "This isn't the hangar."

"No." His voice came out flat. "It's not."

She looked at him. Her face was pale, breath misting in the cold air, but her hands were steady. "You know this place."

It wasn't a question.

He didn't answer.