Ep 5: “The Cycle Begins Again”

Asher didn’t sleep that night.

He tried. He lay in his small studio apartment, the journal propped beside his bed, its leather cover glowing faintly under the silver light leaking in through the curtains. But every time he closed his eyes, he saw flashes—glimpses of moments that weren’t his. A hand reaching for his across candlelit stone; the crackle of fire; a whispered name lost in the wind.

He shot up from bed around 3 a.m., drenched in sweat.

“I’m losing it,” he muttered, rubbing his face with both hands. “This is insane.”

But he couldn’t stop thinking about Ethan. About the journal. About the letters in the archive room that seemed to bleed with love and loss, devotion and desperation. They didn’t just feel like good writing—they felt like memories.

And worse still… they felt like his.

By morning, Asher gave up on sleep entirely and went back to the library.

The place was just opening, the sky outside a pale pinkish gray. Inside, it was nearly silent except for the hum of fluorescent lights. The usual librarian at the front desk offered him a tired smile. Ethan wasn’t there.

He wandered toward the back. Toward the alcove. The hallway that had once been hidden.

But this time, it wasn’t there.

The crates were stacked differently. The narrow passage behind them was gone, as if the wall had never shifted at all. Asher frowned and began pulling the crates aside, heart pounding harder with every one he moved.

Nothing.

Just a solid, cold wall of old brick.

“What the hell...?”

“Looking for something?”

Asher spun around. Ethan stood a few feet away, arms crossed, a curious smile tugging at his lips.

“You—” Asher breathed, “you knew that hallway wouldn’t be there.”

Ethan shrugged. “It shows up when it wants to. Or when you need it.”

“So now I don’t need it?”

Ethan stepped closer. “Now you need answers. Come with me.”

Again, Asher followed.

They didn’t go to the archives this time. Instead, Ethan led him up—past the public sections of the library, up a narrow staircase that creaked under their feet. At the top was a locked door. Ethan produced a brass key from a chain around his neck and turned it slowly.

Inside was a small, circular room with high, domed ceilings. The walls were lined with shelves of strange items: candleholders with half-burned wax, hourglasses with dark sand, small portraits in tarnished silver frames, and books with no titles.

In the center of the room was a pedestal.

On it sat a second journal.

Not the one Asher had found—this one was newer, or at least less worn. And on its cover, the same faint initials: A & E.

Asher stared. “There’s another?”

Ethan nodded. “This one hasn’t been written yet.”

Asher turned toward him, the truth dawning slowly. “You’re saying... we’re supposed to finish it?”

“I’m saying we always do,” Ethan said. “Every lifetime, we start over. Every lifetime, we try again.”

Asher’s hand hovered over the journal. “But why me? Why you?”

Ethan’s voice was steady. “Because the universe doesn’t care about time or rules. It cares about patterns. About gravity. And somehow... you and I are caught in the orbit of something bigger than just one life.”

Asher finally opened the new journal.

Blank pages stared back at him.

A canvas.

A chance.

He looked up at Ethan, and for the first time, he didn’t feel like a man lost in a story.

He felt like a man writing one.

......................

( To be continued)

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