Long-press a paragraph to send danmaku
"You left me in the acid pool."
Ada's voice came from behind, close enough that I felt the heat off her body. I didn't turn. My hand stayed on the wall panel, fingers hovering over the screen that showed a map of the prison—six floors, color-coded, exits marked in green.
"I don't remember that," I said.
"Loop four." She stepped closer. I heard the slide rack on her gun. "You pushed me in and ran for the stairwell. I melted for three minutes before the reset kicked in."
I turned slow. She had the barrel aimed at my chest, steady, professional. Her other hand gripped a folded piece of paper—some kind of schematic, edges burned.
"I've never seen you before today," I said.
"Liar." She took another step. The gun didn't waver. "You don't forget a face in here. You don't forget who killed you."
"Then tell me what I was wearing."
She blinked. The gun dipped half an inch.
"Tell me," I said. "If I pushed you into acid, you saw my face. You saw what I had on. So tell me."
Her jaw tightened. "Gray jumpsuit. Standard issue."
"Wrong." I opened my jacket. "I've been wearing this since loop one. Black tactical. No jumpsuit. Never had one."
She stared at the jacket, then at my face. The gun stayed up, but her finger slid off the trigger.
"Someone wore your face," she said.
"Or you're remembering wrong."
"I don't remember wrong." Her voice went flat, cold. "I remember every loop. Every death. Every face. That's the only thing that keeps me sane in this place."
I believed her. The way she said it—no emotion, just fact—that was the voice of someone who'd been counting kills long before the prison.
"Then we have a problem," I said. "Because the prison's lying to one of us."
She didn't lower the gun, but she tilted her head toward the wall screen. "What's that?"
"Map. Found it in the maintenance hall. Six floors, three stairwells, two exits."
"Exits don't exist."
"They do if you kill enough people." I tapped the screen. A counter appeared in the corner: Floor 1 Quota — 8/12. "We're four short."
Ada moved beside me, close enough that I smelled gunpowder and sweat on her skin. She studied the map, eyes scanning fast.
"That's not the layout," she said.
"What?"
"The layout's different." She pulled out her schematic, unfolded it on the panel. "Look. This shows five floors, not six. And the stairwell here—" she jabbed a finger at the paper "—doesn't line up with your screen."
I looked at both. She was right. The maps didn't match. Same prison, different architecture.
"When did you draw that?" I asked.
"Loop nine. I found a maintenance office on the second floor and copied it off a wall chart."
"This is loop ten."
She went still. Her hand dropped to her side, schematic crinkling in her fist.
"The prison changes," she said.
"Every loop."
"Not just traps. The whole structure."
I nodded. "And if the structure changes, memory's useless. You could swear you saw me push you into acid, but maybe the guy you saw was in a different version of this place. Different rules."
She looked at me, then at the map, then back at me. I watched her process it—the idea that everything she'd been holding onto, every mental note and scar and face, might be just noise.
"Then how do we get out?" she asked.
I pointed at the counter. "We finish the quota. We find out if the exit's real."
"And if it's not?"
"Then we burn the place down."
She almost smiled. Almost. "You talk like you've done this before."
"I've burned a lot of things."
She studied me, eyes sharp, calculating. I could see her running scenarios, figuring out if I was useful or just another body to add to her count.
"You want to team up," she said.
Not a question. A test.
"We need each other," I said. "You've got nine loops of intel. I've got the tactical background to use it. And if the maps keep changing, we need both our memories to cross-check what's real and what's fabricated."
"Or you put a bullet in my back the second I turn around."
"Could. But then I'd lose your schematic and whatever else you've been hoarding." I met her eyes. "And you'd lose the only person in here who's willing to believe your story about the acid pool."
She held my gaze for five full seconds. Then she lowered the gun.
"I don't trust you," she said.
"Good. I don't trust you either."
She slid the gun into her waistband, folded the schematic, and tucked it inside her jacket. "Where's the core room?"
"Core room?"
"The place that runs this whole thing." She tapped the wall screen. "Every system has a core. Every prison has a control center. If the layout's shifting, something's got to be generating the changes in real time."
I looked at the map again. There—center of the third floor, marked with a red icon I'd missed before. No label. Just a square with a blinking outline.
"There," I said.
"That's two floors down and past Lane's territory."
"Lane?"
"Butcher Lane. Big guy, neck tattoos, loves using a pipe. He's camped out on the third floor with his crew. Four guys, maybe five now. They've been farming kills since loop six."
I pulled my knife, checked the edge. "Then we go through them."
Ada raised an eyebrow. "You really are spec ops."
"Was."
"And now?"
"Now I'm just a guy who wants out."
She almost smiled again. This time it stuck for half a second.
We moved fast, no talking, just footsteps and breath. The prison was quiet—too quiet. The kind of quiet that meant people were waiting.
We hit the stairwell, descended two floors. Ada took point, gun up, scanning corners. I covered the rear, knife ready. The walls here were older, concrete cracked and stained. Lights flickered. Somewhere below, I heard metal scraping metal.
"Lane's crew," Ada whispered.
We reached the third-floor landing. The door was propped open with a cinder block. Beyond it, a long hallway stretched into shadow. At the far end, a single red light blinked—emergency exit sign, or maybe the core room marker.
"Straight shot," I said.
"Too easy."
She was right. I could feel it—the setup, the ambush, the trap we were about to walk into.
"We don't have a choice," I said.
She looked at me, then at the hallway. "If this goes bad—"
"It's going bad either way."
She laughed, low and bitter. "Yeah. Okay."
We stepped into the hall. The door slammed shut behind us. Locks clicked. The lights went out.
I heard Ada's breath hitch, felt her move closer. Our shoulders touched. I could feel her pulse through the fabric, fast and hard.
"Victor," she said.
"Yeah."
"If I die in here, I'm coming back for you."
"I know."
The lights snapped back on. We were surrounded—five men, pipes and shivs, Lane in the center with a grin that showed too many teeth.
"Fresh meat," he said.
Ada fired first. I moved second. Lane laughed and charged.
We carved through them. Ada put two down before they closed the distance. I took the third with the knife, fast and dirty, throat to ribs. Lane swung the pipe at my head. I ducked, came up inside his guard, drove the knife into his gut. He grunted, grabbed my wrist, twisted. The knife clattered to the floor.
"You're the new guy," he said, blood on his teeth. "Everyone wants to meet you."
He headbutted me. I staggered back. Ada shot him twice in the chest. He dropped.
The hallway went silent. Just our breathing and the hum of the emergency lights.
Ada reloaded. I picked up my knife, wiped it on Lane's shirt.
"Core room," she said.
We ran.
The red light led us to a reinforced door, keypad lock, no handle. Ada pulled out a small metal tool from her pocket, started working the panel. Thirty seconds later, the lock beeped. The door slid open.
Inside was a single room, white walls, no windows. A massive screen covered the far wall, lines of code scrolling too fast to read. In the center of the room, a steel podium with a touchscreen interface.
I walked up to it. Ada followed, gun still in her hand.
The screen flickered. Text appeared:
**INSTANCE-00010 / CORE ACCESS GRANTED**
Below that, a list:
**VICTOR KANE — DEATH COUNT: 24** **ADA FROST — DEATH COUNT: 31** **LANE GOMEZ — DEATH COUNT: 18** **[REDACTED] — DEATH COUNT: 112**
I stared at the numbers. Twenty-four deaths. I'd only remembered ten loops.
"Victor," Ada said, voice tight.
I looked at her. She was staring at the screen, face pale.
"That's not the loop count," she said.
"What?"
"The loop count is ten. We're in loop ten." She pointed at the numbers. "But your death count is twenty-four. Mine's thirty-one."
I read the list again. The numbers didn't match.
"We're dying more than once per loop," I said.
Ada's hand tightened on the gun. "Or someone's killing us and resetting us before the loop ends."
The screen flickered again. New text:
**WARDEN ACCESS: REPLAY AVAILABLE**
Below it, a button: **PLAY LAST DEATH**
I reached for it. Ada grabbed my wrist.
"Don't," she said.
"We need to know."
"No. We don't." Her grip was tight, almost painful. "If we see it, we can't unsee it. And if someone's been killing us without us knowing—"
The screen changed on its own. Video footage appeared—grainy, night-vision green.
It showed me. Asleep on a cot in a cell I didn't recognize. The door opened. A figure stepped in, face hidden by shadow.
The figure walked up to the cot. Leaned down. Put a hand over my mouth.
I watched myself wake up, struggle, go still.
The figure stood, turned toward the camera.
Ada's face filled the screen.