The Mandela effect

Chapter 1: The Forgotten

They say life hits hardest when you're standing still. That must be why I feel like I’ve been
catching punches since I was sixteen.

My name’s Eli. Twenty-one years old. If you ask my neighbors, I’m “that quiet guy upstairs.”
If you ask me, I’m just tired.
Tired of the noise. Tired of the silence.
Tired of waking up and not knowing why I’m even still trying.

March 14th was supposed to be another throwaway day.

Came home from the warehouse, peeled off my sweaty shirt, tossed it in a corner,
microwaved two-day-old noodles, and flopped onto my couch like a corpse. I fell asleep to
some late-night infomercial about non-stick pans.
3:14 a.m. I woke up.

Not to a sound. To nothing.

The power was out—again—but this time, the silence was wrong.
No buzzing fridge. No dogs barking. Not even the hum of the city.
It was like the world hit pause.

Then I saw it.

Through the blinds: the sky glowing in waves of impossible colors. Green folding into violet,
then into this deep red that made my stomach twist. Stars weren’t twinkling—they were
drifting, like they were being pulled by some invisible hand.

And then I heard it—except not with my ears.

> "You are not supposed to be awake."

It echoed in my skull, soft but heavy, like someone whispering through my bones. I stumbled
back and hit the floor hard.

I blinked—and the sky snapped back. Streetlights returned. Power hummed. My TV flickered
back to life like nothing happened.

But on the floor in front of me was a strange silver disc, spinning by itself. No wind. No string.
Just floating and humming like it was waiting.

I picked it up.

And that’s when my mind shattered.

Flashes hit me all at once—cities suspended in space, creatures made of light, entire
timelines being yanked apart like thread.
I saw Earth burn. Then reset. Then burn again.
I saw people erased—not killed—just wiped like chalk from a blackboard.
And then, I heard a final whisper, colder than the rest:

> “They’ve been resetting your world.”

> “No one will believe you.”

---
I woke up on the floor. My nose was bleeding.

The disc? Gone.

But the world felt... tilted.

At the store, I bought my usual cereal. The brand name looked off—like the letters had been
rearranged.
On the bus, everyone was singing some pop song I knew didn’t exist—but my mouth sang
the words anyway.
At work, I asked about Jenna—the girl with the loud laugh who always stole my pens.

Blank stares.

> “Who's Jenna?”

“We’ve never had a Jenna here.”

I started to panic.

I spent the whole night online, digging through Mandela Effect forums, watching shaky
YouTube videos, scrolling through Reddit threads full of people who remembered things
wrong—but were sure they were right.

Then I found something different. A hidden page buried behind layers of dead links and
broken code. Just black with plain white text:

> “You saw them. You touched the Key. They know.”

Then—

> KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

Three knocks on my apartment door. Slow. Heavy.

I crept to the peephole.

Two men in black suits. Pale skin. No emotion. Eyes like dead glass.

One of them looked directly at the peephole and said:

> “Mr. Manson… you need to come with us.”

Chapter 2: Static Men

---

I didn’t open the door. I just stood there, heart pounding in my throat, staring through the
peephole like it might save me.

Two men. Black suits. Clean faces. No emotion.

They weren’t breathing heavy. Weren’t fidgeting.
They looked like statues pretending to be human.

The one on the left knocked again. Same rhythm—three slow hits.
He didn’t blink when he spoke:

> “Mr. Manson… we won’t ask again.”

My mouth went dry. I backed away slowly and grabbed my phone.

No signal. No Wi-Fi. The screen flickered like it was infected.

I bolted to the back door of my apartment.

When I turned the knob—

I swear on my life—
one of the agents was already there.

Not running. Not breathing heavy.

Just standing still in the hallway, blocking the exit like he’d been there the whole time.

> “You touched the Key,” he said, monotone.

“Your memory is unstable. You need treatment.”

I slammed the door shut, locked it, grabbed my backpack and ran out the fire escape like the
building was on fire.
I didn’t stop running until I hit 7th and Main.

---

I hid in an abandoned diner. You know the kind—dusty booths, broken neon, half-burned
menus still hanging by the register.
I ducked into the back kitchen, curled behind a freezer, and tried to breathe.

But my brain wouldn’t shut up.

That voice.

> “No one will believe you.”

They weren’t just after me—they were cleaning me up.

Like I was some glitch in the system.

And then I remembered something that made my stomach twist:

Jenna.

She didn’t just disappear from the office. She disappeared from existence.
I found an old photo on my phone from a company BBQ.

She was standing right next to me—laughing, holding a hotdog, wearing that dumb “I hate
Mondays” hoodie.

But when I clicked on the photo—she was gone.

The space where she stood? Just empty grass. Like someone photoshopped her out
perfectly.

They wiped her.

---

A loud buzz ripped through the diner. My phone screen lit up—no signal, no apps, just a
spinning triangle.

And then a new message appeared:

> "You are Resonant."

"Come to 215 Harbor Street. Midnight. Alone."

Then the screen shut off.

No name. No sender. No app.

---
Midnight came fast.

I borrowed a hoodie from a donation bin, kept my head down, and found the address.
215 Harbor Street wasn’t a building.

It was a ship.

An old cargo ship—rusted, rotting, docked behind a chain fence with a “Condemned” sign.
But someone had lit candles on the deck.

I climbed the ramp, heart racing. The metal creaked beneath my feet.

And then I saw her.

A woman—late 30s maybe, long black hair, eyes like she hadn’t blinked in years.

She smiled like she knew me already.

> “Hello, Eli,” she said.

“You’re not insane. You’re remembering the truth.”

Chapter 3: The Woman on the Ship

---

The ship stank of rust and oil.

Chains creaked with every gust of wind, swaying like dying vines. I stood on the deck,
eyeing the woman who’d summoned me here with a message that wasn’t supposed to exist.

She looked like someone who hadn’t slept in years—but not weak.
Sharp eyes. Steady hands. She didn’t flinch when I asked:

> “Who the hell are you?”

She smirked.

> “You’ll know soon enough, Eli Manson.

For now, just know this: You are not crazy.
You’re remembering what they told you to forget.”

I don’t know why I believed her.

Maybe it was the way she said “they.”
Like she’d tasted those lies herself.

---

Her name was Dr. Kira Nox.

Former quantum physicist.

Lead architect of something called the Continuity Engine—the very machine the government
uses to erase events and rewrite history.

She quit when she realized the truth:

> “They don’t fix the timeline. They own it.”

I followed her down into the ship’s belly, through metal corridors and hatchways sealed with
rusted locks. Eventually, we reached a room that looked like a Frankenstein lab built out of
junkyard tech.

Screens flickered with glitched images of reality—buildings that didn’t exist, presidents that
were never elected, war footage from countries no one remembered.

In the center sat a Time Key.

Just like the one I found… but humming louder.

> “This is a Resonant Amplifier,” Kira said. “It helps people like you see beyond the edits.”

She handed me a headpiece wired to the key.

---

The moment I put it on, I was nowhere.

Not asleep. Not awake. Just... drifting.

Time bent sideways.

I saw flashes:

A subway station collapsing into static

My childhood bedroom, but my parents were strangers

Jenna, screaming behind glass, reaching for me as a man in black pulled her away

> “Break the chain,” she whispered. “Don't let them reset it again.”

Then came a voice—louder than thought:

> “Timeline 4C breach detected. Terminate subject Manson.”

I yanked the device off.

Blood leaked from my nose.

Kira didn’t panic.

She was already packing.

> “They know you saw too much,” she said. “That wasn’t just a vision. That was a backdoor.”

> “A what?”

> “You touched a part of the original timeline. That shouldn’t be possible—not unless you’re
one of them.”

---

Before I could ask what “them” meant, the ship groaned violently.
Kira checked her screen—her face dropped.

> “They found us.”

Footsteps echoed above. Too heavy. Too in sync.

Fixers. Not human. Not anymore.

Kira shoved a small disc into my hand—the second Time Key.

> “Run. Don’t fight them. Don’t argue.
Because no one will believe you.”

She hit a switch.

The floor beneath me dropped.

---

I landed hard in a warehouse near the docks.

Lights flickered overhead.

Kira was gone.

The ship? Already burning.

But the disc in my hand buzzed softly, as if whispering,

> “Keep going.”

So I ran.
Again.

I didn't know where to go.

Only that I couldn’t stop.

Because this time, they weren’t just chasing me.

They were chasing what I remembered.

Chapter 4: Memory Wars

---

By the time I stopped running, I was somewhere outside the city.

I don’t remember getting on a bus or stealing a bike—but somehow, I ended up in the middle
of an abandoned train yard.

I sat on the edge of a rusted boxcar and held the second Time Key in my hand.
It hummed like it wanted to speak. Maybe it was alive.
Maybe it was just echoing the madness in my head.

---
That night, I dreamt of the other me.

Not a metaphor—an actual other version of myself, standing across a mirror-like floor,
dressed in black.

> “You're not supposed to be awake,” he said.

“We were meant to forget.”

I tried to speak but he stepped forward and whispered:

> “Every time you remember, someone else disappears.”

“That’s the cost of breaking continuity.”

---

I woke up sweating.
Not from heat—from pressure.

The second Time Key had activated on its own.

Floating just above my hand.

And then I saw it: a faint projection—a timeline fracture.

Cities flickered in and out.

People in newspapers changed names.
I saw Mandela alive. Then dead. Then president of a country that never existed.
I saw my own birthday blink out and come back wrong.

> "This isn’t memory loss," I whispered.

"This is… war."

---

Just then, I heard footsteps.

I reached for the broken crowbar nearby—but a girl’s voice cut through the dark:

> “Don’t panic, I’m one of you.”

I turned to find her: young, maybe 17. Hoodie, backpack, sharp eyes like Kira’s.
Her name was Rhea—another Resonant.

She was followed by two others:

Colton, ex-military with cybernetic implants—half man, half glitch.

And Milo, a hacker who claimed he once rewrote a timeline just to stop his sister from dying.

They were part of a group called The Untouched.

> “People like us,” Rhea said, “we remember things that were erased.
That’s why they hunt us.
Because every memory they delete creates a ripple.
And when enough ripples hit the same moment…
Time breaks.”

---

They took me to a hidden bunker—an old Cold War fallout shelter buried under a radio
station.
Inside were dozens of monitors showing glitches in the world:

A zoo where all the tigers suddenly vanished.

A schoolbook from 2004 that claimed the moon had two shadows.

Video footage of a different Statue of Liberty—holding her torch in the left hand.

> “These are Mandela Echoes,” Milo said.

“Side effects of forced resets. They show up when too many people remember what
shouldn’t exist.”

> “And the more we collect,” Colton added, “the closer we get to finding the Prime Timeline.”

I looked at the second Time Key.

It pulsed faster the closer I stood to a strange box at the center of the bunker.
Kira had called it a Resonant Amplifier.
But Milo? He called it something else:

> “It’s a Map. Not just to the truth.

To the original Earth.”

---

Then it hit me.

> “That’s what the Fixers are protecting,” I said.

“Not us. Not the people.
The lie.”

Everyone went silent.

And then the bunker shook.

Sirens screamed.
Monitors went black.

A voice crackled through the speaker:

> “Continuity Breach detected.

Target: Manson, E.
Response: Erase and reset.”

They found me.

Again.

Colton loaded a rifle. Milo began wiping the system.

Rhea grabbed my hand and said:

> “You either run again, or we fight.

But either way—this is memory war now, Eli.
And you just became the frontline.”

Chapter 5: The Prime Timeline

---
I used to think the worst thing was being forgotten.
But I was wrong.

The worst thing… is realizing you’re the only one who remembers.

---

The bunker didn’t survive the Fixers.

They moved like shadows. Precise. Quiet. But what they did—it wasn’t killing.

It was erasing.

Colton tried to fight back. Shot three in the chest. They didn’t bleed—they just glitched,
flickered like bad pixels on a TV screen.

Then they touched Milo.

Not punched. Not stabbed. Just touched.

And Milo—

He didn’t scream.
Didn’t fall.
Didn’t turn into dust.

He just faded.

Like when you close one eye… and the world looks a little off.
Like there’s something missing but your brain won’t fill in the space.

Where Milo stood—there was now just air.

Not empty. Not full. Just wrong.

---

We escaped through a side tunnel.

Rhea was silent the entire way.
When we reached the surface, she looked back and said:

> “He’s not dead. He’s gone. That’s what they do. They make sure no one remembers you
were ever here.”
I nodded, but I didn’t tell her the worst part.

Because I still remembered Milo.

And that meant the Fixers didn’t finish the job.
That meant I was now the last echo of him in the universe.

---

Later that night, Kira returned.

I don’t know how she found us—or how she escaped the ship fire—but her coat was singed
and she looked even more haunted.

She pulled out an old drive and said:

> “I stole this from the Department years ago.

It’s what they call the Prime Log.
The map of all timelines before the resets.”

We watched it together.

7 timelines.
All failed.

Timeline 1A: Humanity discovers the truth.

Timeline 1B: Alien alliance ends in war.
Timeline 2A: The Department creates the first Continuity Engine.
Timeline 3C: Global memory virus.
Timeline 4B: Artificial reset loop collapses.
Timeline 4C: This one. Ours. Current... for now.

> “We were never the first,” Kira said.

“We were the latest attempt to get it right.”

---

And then…
She showed me something else.

A projection of the Prime Timeline.

Earth looked different. Cleaner. Older. Wiser.

Cities wrapped around mountains like vines.
Technology and nature lived side by side.

> “This was the last world before the Continuity Engine was activated,” she said.
“They locked it away—afraid we’d remember who we used to be.”

And that’s when it hit me.

> “The Mandela Effect… isn’t just a glitch.

It’s a scar.
From the Prime Timeline bleeding through.”

---

The second Time Key pulsed harder in my pocket.

It wanted to go back.
Not to a moment… but to origin.

Kira said there were five more keys, scattered in timelines that had already been erased.
If we found them all… we could open the path back to the Prime Earth.

> “But why would we?” Rhea asked.

“Why not just survive? Run? Hide?”

Kira answered with steel in her voice:

> “Because if we don’t restore what we lost…

There won’t be another timeline left to hide in.”

---

I stared at the sky that night.

Stars didn’t look right anymore.

One of them blinked out.

Not went dark—blinked out, like it had been selected and deleted.
And deep inside, I knew:
We weren’t just running from a corrupt system.

We were standing on a dying version of reality.

And every memory I kept alive…

Was one step closer to bringing the truth back.

Chapter 6: The Betrayal of the Untouched

---

Trust is a rare currency when the world resets behind your back.

But I wanted to believe The Untouched were different.

We were the last echoes of the real world.

We were supposed to be fighting the same war.

I was wrong.

---

We found the next key hidden in an old observatory on the edge of a collapsed
timeline—one where the oceans had vanished, leaving behind desert cities and broken time.

The moment I touched the key, everything went wrong.

A high-pitched frequency pierced my skull.

Rhea fell to her knees, screaming.

Screens inside Milo’s old decoder kit lit up, flashing three red words:

> “Continuity Breach Detected.”

Not again.
Not this fast.

Kira ran to shut it down.

Colton cursed, grabbing his gun.

I looked around the bunker. Something wasn’t right.

We had moved locations. We had masked signals. We were careful.

> Someone told them.

And this time…

they didn’t send Fixers.

They sent him.

---

He called himself: The Curator.

The man behind the erasures. The high priest of the Department of Continuity.

Dressed in white. Face smooth like it had been ironed out—no wrinkles, no lines. A smile
that didn’t blink.

> “I’m not here to destroy you, Eli,” he said.

“I’m here to make you forget… willingly.”

He stepped through the flickering door like he owned time.

The ground around him warped.
Grass turned to stone. The stars blinked, then reappeared in different constellations.

He looked at Kira.

> “You still think the Prime Timeline was paradise?”

“You’re wrong. It wasn’t perfect. It was untamed.
Full of chaos. Full of freedom. That’s why we had to bury it.”

---

He offered me a deal.

> “Hand over the keys, Eli.

We’ll give you your old life back.
A family. A history. One you won’t question.”
I stared at him.

> “And if I say no?”

His smile didn't change.

> “Then you become a virus.

And like all viruses… we’ll debug you.”

---

Suddenly—gunfire.

Colton had seen enough.

Bullets passed through the Curator like he wasn’t even real.

No… he was real.

But he wasn’t here.

He was sending a reflected version of himself from a stable timeline.

This was a warning.

A demonstration.

And then he dropped the real bomb.

> “How do you think we find you every time?

Did you really think none of your ‘Untouched’ friends would sell you out?”

Silence.

Eyes darted.

And then Kira turned—slowly—to Colton.

> “You…” she whispered.

He didn’t even flinch.

> “I made the deal the first time we reset.
I gave them just enough data to protect the rest of you.
But Eli? You’re not like us. You’re the spark. They said if you burn out, we all get to live.”

I moved before I could think—slammed him into the wall.

> “You don’t get to decide who’s real.”

But Colton just grinned through the blood.

> “Neither do you.

That’s the point of continuity.”

---

Rhea stunned him with a jolt gun before he could draw.

Kira re-routed the Time Key’s energy into a jump pulse.

We had to run. Again.

But this time…

We left behind more than a place.

We left behind our trust.

---

As we disappeared into the next location, Kira whispered:

> “The Curator's right about one thing.

The original world wasn’t perfect.
But it was ours.”

I nodded.

And deep inside, I swore something:

> I’ll burn every fake memory down if it means giving the real ones back.

Even if I don’t survive it.

Even if I’m the last one who remembers.

Chapter 7: The City That Remembers

---

They said there were no sanctuaries left.

But they were wrong.

There was one place the Continuity Engine couldn’t reach.

One place where time fought back.

We called it: Aurelia.

---

No one knew where it came from.

Some said it was part of Timeline 2A. Others said it was a hallucination formed by collective
trauma.

All I knew was this:

The moment we crossed into Aurelia’s borders, the second Time Key screamed.
Not in fear—in recognition.

> “This place is older than the Department,” Kira whispered.

“It’s where the first memory glitches were recorded. Where people remember things they
never lived.”

And the weirdest part?

Everyone in Aurelia knew my name.

---

The streets were surreal.

Skyscrapers made of mirrored stone.
Old vending machines that sold cassette tapes of memories.
Street signs that changed languages mid-sentence.

People stared as we passed.

Not with fear.

With… familiarity.

> “Eli Manson?” an old woman said. “Didn’t you already pass through here in 2019?”

I had never been here before.

But apparently—I had.

---

We were brought to a cathedral-like structure in the center of the city.

Inside, the ceiling was made of shifting light, like water ripples captured in glass.
At the center: a massive tree made entirely of ticking clock parts—its roots pulsing into the
floor.

It was here that we met Orrin, the city's keeper.

> “You’ve fractured more timelines than most governments,” he said, amused.
“You’re the chaos theory made flesh.”

I asked him how Aurelia had survived so long without erasure.

He tapped the tree’s trunk.

> “We don’t resist time. We let it overlap.

We remember every version.
We live with the noise.”

---

They called it the Archive Tree—a living organism that absorbed memories across timelines.
It pulsed with alternate lives.
A version of me who became a teacher.
One who never learned the truth.
One who died at 16 in a car crash that never happened.

Orrin offered me something that shook me to my core:

> “If you sit with the Tree, Eli…

it will show you the truth you’ve been avoiding.”

Kira tried to stop me. Rhea said it was suicide.

But I couldn’t run anymore.

I had to know.

---

When I touched it—

Time broke open like a wound.

I saw the Prime Timeline again—but clearer.

Not the perfection Kira hoped for.
Not the clean order the Curator claimed to preserve.

It was raw. Chaotic. Free.

People remembered every version of history.

They wore their past lives like scars.
No resets. No edits. Just… truth.

And in the center of it all, I saw something else—

> A child. My child.

Not in this timeline.

Not in any I had known.

But a version of me…

that had chosen love over survival.

---
I collapsed, shaking.
Rhea caught me.
Kira looked at me with something close to guilt.

> “You saw it, didn’t you?” she whispered.

I nodded.
The war wasn’t about preserving truth anymore.

It was about choosing which truth was worth saving.

---

Before we could leave Aurelia, Orrin gave me one last thing:

A fragment of an erased memory—recovered from the Tree.

It was a name.

One I hadn’t dared to think of since the resets began.

> Jenna.

And below it, coordinates burned into my skin.

> "She’s still out there," Orrin said.

"But not for long."

---

I left Aurelia not as a runner…

But as a witness.

The world was dying, yes.

But memory?
Memory was fighting back.

Chapter 8: Memory Lock

---

I’ve walked through shattered cities.

Watched people dissolve like static.
Jumped timelines with nothing but a stolen key and a desperate will.

But nothing—nothing—prepared me for what I saw at those coordinates.

Because I didn’t find Jenna.

I found a trap.

---

We arrived at a quiet town.

Sky frozen in golden-hour light.

Children laughing. Dogs barking.
The kind of perfect day that never ends.

At first, I thought we hit the wrong location.

But the closer I walked, the more wrong it felt.

Every person I passed smiled the same way.

Same timing. Same words.

> “Beautiful weather today, isn’t it?”

> “Beautiful weather today, isn’t it?”

> “Beautiful—”

I shoved the last guy. His smile didn’t break.

He just reset like a glitching NPC.

> “Beautiful weather today, isn’t it?”

Kira’s voice crackled in my comm:

> “Eli. You’re in a Memory Lock. It’s not real—it’s synthetic nostalgia. A looping pocket
timeline built to preserve someone the Department can’t erase.”

And at the center of it—

Jenna.

---

She was sitting at a café table.

Exactly how I remembered her.
Wind catching her hair. That laugh. That damn laugh.

I ran to her.

> “Jenna!”

She looked up. Blinked.

For a moment… she knew me.

> “Eli?”

I touched her hand.

The world shimmered.
But then her eyes glazed.

> “Would you like coffee? It’s a beautiful day today, isn’t it?”

No. No no no.

They hadn’t erased her.

They had trapped her in a perfect memory.

On repeat.

Over and over and over.

---
Kira found the relay point.
The Department had hooked her mind into a false loop—feeding just enough data to keep
her alive but inactive.

> “They couldn’t kill her,” Kira said.

“She’s part of the original Prime. She’s connected to the Source Code.”

Source Code.

That’s what Orrin was hiding.

What the Department feared.

And what Jenna might still hold inside her.

> “We unplug her,” I said, “she wakes up?”

Kira shook her head.

> “We unplug her… she might die.

Or worse—she might remember everything at once. That kind of feedback could shred her
mind.”

Rhea stepped forward.

> “And if we leave her like this?

Then we’ve lost. We’re just one more version that let the world be rewritten.”

---

I didn’t hesitate.

I reached behind the memory construct, into the interface pulsing under the ground.

The second Time Key glowed hot.

The system fought me—hard.

Flashes of my worst moments poured through:

My mother crying during the reset.
Colton’s betrayal.
Milo fading.

But I held on.

> “Jenna,” I whispered.

“Come back to me.”

---

The sky cracked like glass.

The town glitched.

Rain fell upward.
Dogs barked in reverse.
Buildings twisted in on themselves.

And Jenna—
She screamed.

A scream so human, so raw, it broke the loop.

She collapsed into my arms, crying and shaking.

> “I remember,” she gasped.

“God, Eli—I remember everything.”

---

She looked at me, really looked.

> “They were going to use me,” she said.

“My memory… my code. I was part of the prototype that birthed the Engine.”

> “Then that means you’re—”

> “—the last anchor to the Prime Timeline,” she finished.

“And if they find me now… they’ll wipe all of you just to keep me silent.”

---

We didn’t get to rest long.

Not thirty seconds after her awakening, every screen in the synthetic town lit up.

One face.
The Curator.

> “You’ve gone too far, Eli.”

> “You’ve broken sacred continuity.”

> “There’s no coming back from this.”

I smiled.

> “Good.
Then let’s burn it all down.”

Chapter 9: The Final Reset

---

I used to dream about waking up.

Now, I can’t tell if I ever did.

---

We didn’t sneak into the Department of Continuity.

We stormed it.

Rhea rerouted a collapsing timeline to crash into theirs.

Kira embedded a virus into the Time Key.
Jenna, fully awake now, carried the Source Code like a ticking bomb in her veins.
And me?

I was just a broken man with nothing left to lose.

---

The Continuity Engine wasn’t a machine.

It was a city.

Floating in fractured space.

Built on layers of erased versions of Earth.
Think a skyscraper made of lives that never happened.

> “This is where they rewrite history,” Kira whispered.

“Every time you say, ‘Didn’t that used to be different?’—it’s because of this place.”

Reality shimmered around us.

Children vanished mid-laugh.
Signs rewrote themselves.
A man near the entrance screamed—then turned into a tree.

---

The Curator met us at the core.

Surrounded by archivists in white.

Timeline renderers buzzing.
Billions of lives being processed like emails in the background.

He didn’t flinch.

> “Eli Manson.

Every time we erase you, you come back differently.
Angrier. More unstable.
And always… alone.”

I stepped forward.

> “Not this time.”

Jenna’s voice cut like a blade:

> “You made me forget. You rewrote my pain. You used me.”

The Curator sighed.

> “We gave you peace. We offered you a version of life without loss.
You broke the loop. You chose grief.”

> “Grief is real,” she snapped.

> “So is consequence,” he said—and flicked his fingers.

Suddenly—Rhea was gone.

Not dead.
Erased.

Just a silhouette of dust in the shape of her last step.

---

I screamed.

Kira launched the virus into the Engine’s mainframe.

Lights cracked. Memories poured out like blood.

> “Shut it down!” she yelled.

“Eli, the Key—now!”

---

I ran to the console.

Time distorted.
I saw myself—ten, twenty, a hundred versions.

Some crying. Some screaming. One of them smiling like a lunatic.

I slammed the Key into the core.

> Boom.

A wave of light tore across the city.

The tower cracked.
The machinery shrieked like it was alive—and dying.

And then—it stopped.

Silence.

---

The Engine was gone.

History was loose.

And reality?

It fractured.

---

Jenna was the first to go.

Not erased—but scattered.
Her form split across timelines like shattered glass falling in slow motion.

> “No—Jenna—please—”

Her voice echoed through me like radio static:

> “I’ll find you again, Eli… somewhere.”

Then nothing.
---

Kira pulled me into the jump ring.

We had one pulse left.

I asked her where we were going.

> “Anywhere but here.”

We jumped.

---

I landed in a field.
Cold. Empty. Sky burning red.

The Earth looked familiar—but it wasn’t mine.

No cities.
No people.
Just ruins of forgotten futures.

And me.

Just me.

---

No one remembers what we did.

No one remembers me.

The world turns.

People live their perfect lies.

But sometimes—when something feels off, when a street name is wrong or a song lyric isn’t
how you remember it—

That’s me.

A ripple.
A shadow.

A man who’s still running.

---

> “They erased my name.

But I remember yours.”
“My name is Eli Manson.”
“And this isn’t over.”
“Prepare yourselves.
Because the real battle hasn’t even started yet.”