For the first time in what felt like eons, there was no scream of space tearing apart.
No echo of dying timelines.
No loops.
Only silence.
The ship glided through open starlight. Not the fractured, glassy kind Kael was used to, but soft constellations and drifting nebulae, glowing gentle purples and distant silvers. The galaxy felt… new.
Maya stood at the observation deck, arms folded, watching a binary star drift apart like two lovers separating in slow motion.
"I almost don't trust it," she murmured.
Kael sat nearby, his legs pulled to his chest, arms wrapped around them like a child trying to stay warm in the aftershock of a storm.
"I don't either," he said quietly. "Peace like this always hides teeth."
Juro stepped in, arms freshly bandaged. "I checked the scans three times. No time fractures. No Root echoes. No Seed signal."
Revik walked beside him, blinking with surprise. "And for the first time since I've existed, the main chronoscanner is registering 'linear continuity.' One clean, uninterrupted flow of time."
Kael looked up at that.
"And yet I still feel the spiral."
Everyone turned to him.
He touched his chest.
The spiral still burned faintly—not like a flare anymore, but like a scar that hummed.
Maya approached. "Could it be… trauma? Phantom memory?"
Kael shook his head. "No. It's not fading. It's… waiting."
They all stared at him.
And that's when the lights dimmed.
The ship, previously humming like a gentle wind chime, groaned suddenly.
A ripple surged through the hall.
Kael stood.
"Something's here."
Juro drew his blade.
Revik activated emergency protocols.
The ship spoke in a trembling voice they had never heard before:"Something is wrong. Navigation is unresponsive. Identity… being rewritten."
"What?" Maya said, turning to the control panels. "What the hell does that mean?"
Kael's heart dropped.
He looked at the stars outside.
They were changing.
Not moving. Morphing. As if someone was redrawing the sky from memory.
The voice spoke again.
"Incoming data stream… non-chronological… anomaly designation: ORIGIN_000."
Revik's face turned pale. "That's not possible. ORIGIN_000 doesn't exist. It was the deleted base file. The first failed draft of this galaxy."
Kael whispered, "It's reaching backward."
The ship jerked violently, flinging everyone across the room.
Alarms blared. Lights flashed. Gravity staggered.
And then—
Everything stopped.
Frozen mid-frame.
Maya floated mid-step.
Juro's sword hung still in the air.
Revik, wide-eyed, was locked in a word he never got to say.
Kael was the only one who could move.
He blinked.
"...Maya?"
No response.
Even time had stopped breathing.
Then a whisper echoed—not through the air, but inside his mind.
"You left me behind."
Kael turned.
A man stood at the center of the room. Or what appeared to be a man.
His skin shimmered between forms. One moment he looked like Kael. Then like Revik. Then like a child with stars in his eyes. Then like… nothing at all.
Kael stepped back. "Who… are you?"
The entity smiled, glitching slightly. "I was your beginning. And you never buried me."
Kael's chest tightened.
"…The First Loop?"
The being nodded.
"You reset the spiral. But you never killed me. You never removed the spark that started everything."
Kael clenched his fists. "We killed the Seed. Broke the loops. You were part of that."
"No," the First Loop said softly. "The Seed was my child. My echo. But I… I was never inside the loop. I was before it."
Kael whispered, "Then what do you want now?"
The figure stepped closer. "You've made a new timeline. I want to know what happens… if I write it."
The ship groaned again.
Outside the window, the stars cracked.
Kael felt it—his scar spiraling, burning now.
The First Loop's hand moved, and time resumed—but only for Kael.
His friends remained frozen.
"You'll have to make a choice," the figure said. "Let me enter your spiral. Let me rewrite this galaxy with you as the beginning again. Or…" he waved a hand, and Kael saw a flash—
Maya.
Alone in a void.
Screaming for Kael.
"…watch your new origin decay."
Kael's mind raced.
"You're not offering a choice. You're offering blackmail."
The First Loop tilted his head. "I offer the truth: You were never meant to survive me. You were only meant to delay me. But you're strong. So I'll give you a throne instead."
Kael breathed in hard.
And reached into his own chest.
He touched the spiral.
Let it burn.
Then looked the First Loop in the eye.
"I don't want your throne."
He ripped the spiral from his chest.
A cry echoed through the cosmos.
Reality trembled.
The First Loop screamed—not in pain, but in rage.
Kael tossed the spiral into the air—and crushed it with a thought.
The room collapsed inward.
Then exploded outward.
Kael blinked.
He was lying on the deck again.
The others stirred.
Maya was first to wake, gripping his hand.
"You're back," she whispered.
He nodded weakly. "I think… we all are."
Revik gasped. "Ship is stable. Navigation reset. ORIGIN_000 signal gone."
Juro groaned. "Then what the hell was that?"
Kael didn't answer right away.
He looked out at the stars.
Still fractured in places.
But healing.
The wound was not fully closed.
But maybe that was the point.
He turned to Maya, voice barely above a whisper.
"We didn't end the spiral. We just stepped out of its reach. But it's still there. Watching."
Maya squeezed his hand.
"We'll face it when it comes again."
Kael nodded.
Then looked down at his chest.
The spiral was gone.
But a faint circle of stardust shimmered where it had been.
And somewhere, in the galaxy of Sobo…
A child drew spirals into the sand.
Smiling.
To be continued...