The blue alarms lit the corridors like cold flames, flickering off the metal walls. Every siren beat was a thump in Kei's chest. Something had changed.
Everything had changed.
He stepped out of his cell, and the hallway looked… older. As if it had aged backward, walls covered in rust, flickering lights hanging loose. The floor beneath him glitched—sometimes smooth, sometimes cracked—like time couldn't decide what year it was.
> [System Notice: Sector 17 entering Temporal Flux.]
[Survivability: 28%. Proceed with caution.]
Kei's eyes narrowed. "Great. Now even time has mood swings."
Suddenly, a voice echoed in his head—not the system.
Not the Faceless Man.
It was his own voice.
"You've already been here before. You just don't remember."
Kei stumbled back, gripping the wall. "What…?"
The shadows in front of him began twisting. Stretching. And from the end of the corridor, a group of figures emerged—guards. But their bodies jittered, phasing between versions of themselves.
Young. Old. Dead. Alive.
Stuck in loops.
One raised a baton. Another fell to their knees, screaming. A third stared directly at Kei… and mouthed something.
> "You're the reset."
Kei's instincts kicked in. He sprinted down the hall. The world flickered around him. Doors opened to nowhere. Clocks melted like wax on the walls. A memory flashed in front of his eyes—one he couldn't remember living.
—A child version of himself… crying inside a white room.
—A man's voice: "Erase his identity. He wasn't meant to happen."
—And a single word on the glass door: Prototype.
He gasped.
"Who am I?!"
The corridor ended.
Ahead stood a shimmering barrier—blue and pulsing.
Beyond it… he saw someone waiting.
A figure with a jacket like his, standing still.
Kei stepped forward, eyes narrowed.
But before he crossed the barrier, the system buzzed:
> [Warning: You are about to enter Chrono-Rift.]
[Your memory may fragment. Proceed anyway?]
Kei grinned, tightening his jacket. "Memory or not… I'll find the truth."
He stepped through the rift.
And everything turned white.