Title: The Endless Echo
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I awoke to the screeching of my alarm clock, a sound I despised but had grown used to. Groggy and disoriented, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and rubbed my eyes. Another mundane Wednesday—or so I thought.
The morning unfolded predictably: I spilled coffee on my shirt, missed my bus, and barely made it to work in time. The day dragged on until, mercifully, it ended. I trudged home, ate a microwaved dinner, and collapsed into bed.
But when I opened my eyes, it wasn’t Thursday.
It was Wednesday. Again.
I stared at the clock in disbelief. I repeated the day’s routine, feeling an eerie sense of déjà vu. Same coffee spill, same missed bus, same office small talk. By the time I fell into bed that night, unease gnawed at me.
And then it happened again.
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By the fifth loop, panic set in. I tried everything to break free. I called in sick, quit my job, even attempted to leave the city—but no matter what I did, the day always reset. It wasn’t just repeating; it was self-correcting. Every time I deviated too far from the script, something would nudge me back on track: a sudden storm forcing me to miss a trip, a random stranger blocking my way.
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On the 14th loop, I started experimenting.
I memorized every detail of the day, from the patterns of birds in the sky to the exact number of coffee beans spilled on the floor. I learned to predict every conversation and perfected witty responses, amusing myself with my growing omniscience. But the novelty quickly wore off, leaving me hollow.
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It wasn’t until the 27th loop that I noticed the crack in the pattern.
At precisely 3:17 p.m., a woman I had never seen before appeared at the corner café. She didn’t belong. I knew everyone and everything by now, but she was a disruption.
Her name was Mira, and she was trapped too.
“How long?” I asked, sitting across from her at the café on the 30th loop.
“I stopped counting after 87,” she said, stirring her coffee with a vacant look. “I thought I was alone until I saw you. That’s... new.”
We spent several loops together, comparing notes, trying to piece together the rules of the loop. Mira was sharp, with theories about time fractures and causality violations. She believed something—or someone—was causing the loop.
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By the 50th loop, we discovered the source: an abandoned research lab on the city outskirts. Inside, we found a machine pulsing with unnatural energy, surrounded by cryptic notes about temporal anomalies. Mira deciphered most of the equations, concluding the machine had accidentally torn a hole in time.
“We have to shut it down,” she said.
The problem? Every time we approached the machine, reality seemed to resist us. Electrical surges, collapsing floors, even bizarre temporal distortions—one time, I aged a decade in seconds before the loop reset.
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On the 73rd loop, we made it to the core. Mira worked the controls while I held off a freakish security drone that seemed half-metal, half-shadow. As the machine powered down, the air shimmered, and a deafening roar filled the room.
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I woke up to the screech of my alarm. Thursday.
Mira was gone.
I searched everywhere, but she had vanished without a trace. Had she been real, or just another part of the loop?
The days went on, each one linear and painfully normal. Yet, every so often, I’d catch a glimpse of someone at the corner café—a fleeting figure with Mira’s unmistakable silhouette.
Was she still out there, in another fragment of time?
The thought kept me awake at night.
