Chapter 1130: ##### Part-2
What would one even feel… if they saw their own reflection move on its own?
Not mimicking them, not trapped in a mirror… but acting freely, with its own will?
Creepy, right?
That’s exactly what Aether was feeling right now—no, not just creepy. It was horrifying, surreal. Like something had snapped inside him.
His eyes were stretched wide in disbelief, almost refusing to blink, as he stared outside the house.
Standing there… was him.
Not someone who looked like him. Not a distant resemblance.
It was him.
He watched as that figure glanced around in confusion, just like how he himself had done mere minutes ago when he first stumbled into this bizarre place.
Aether’s breath hitched in his throat. His lips trembled as he whispered, “What the hell is going on…?” The words came out as a shiver.
He gulped hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing violently as his mind tried to catch up. “Who is he?” he asked aloud, though every fibre in him screamed the answer.
It was him.
But something inside refused to accept it. Part of him didn’t want it to be true. It couldn’t be.
But it was.
His legs carried him slowly toward the window as his trembling hands clenched the cold edges of the frame. Just then… the figure outside suddenly turned.
And looked straight at him.
Aether jolted back as if he’d touched something burning. His heart skipped. His breath caught. And then…
He saw that figure move—heading toward the house.
“No… no no no,” Aether whispered, stumbling back from the window in panic. His chest rose and fell rapidly, each breath shorter than the last. Before he even realized it, his legs sprinted to the entrance, and he stood before the door, hesitating.
’Do I open it? Should I even…?’
His fingers shook as he gripped the doorknob. Slowly, he turned it. The wooden door creaked open with an eerie, dragging groan. Aether peered out.
And froze.
There he was again. Standing just beyond the door, that other version of him.
Same face.
Same messy hair.
Same confused expression staring back at the house.
Aether’s lips parted in horror. “I-It’s… really me?” he muttered, his voice cracking, disbelief thick in his tone. His hand slowly raised toward the other him—as if touching him might break this nightmare.
But then… the other Aether stepped forward.
And walked straight through him.
Tick!
Aether’s entire body seized up as he stumbled backward, gasping like someone had dunked him in ice water. A shiver ran across his skin like cold fingers. “W-What the…?” he gasped out, his hand clutching his chest as if his heart had just been ripped out.
He touched his own arms, his stomach, his face—making sure he was still solid, still here. But everything felt wrong. His fingers were cold. His breaths were shallow. And when he turned around, he saw the second Aether walking deeper into the strange house, calm… like nothing had happened.
Like he had never been there.
Aether’s brows furrowed. “He can’t see me?” he muttered in disbelief. Then, almost on instinct, he stepped in front of the second Aether, waving his arms. “Hello? Buddy? Can you see me? I’m right here!” He flailed, shouted, and jumped.
Nothing.
No response. No flinch. No recognition. The second Aether walked right past him, moving like a recording on repeat.
Aether exhaled, frustrated and lost. “What’s going on here?” he muttered, his voice low, heavy. “Where the hell am I?”
He followed the second Aether closely, watching every step. Just like before, the other version went to the white room first… then the black room. And just like him, he came out disappointed, confused.
Aether stared at the mimicry. “He’s… doing exactly what I did,” he whispered.
Every motion was eerily precise. As if someone had taken his actions and played them back. Word for word. Step by step.
Then he saw it—the second Aether approaching the window… the exact same window he had looked through before.
And the second Aether suddenly froze—eyes wide with shock.
’No… no way…’ Aether’s blood ran cold. His pulse pounded against his ears.
He turned his head toward the window.
And there it was.
Another Aether.
A third one, falling out from the mist and landing on the ground… just like he had.
Aether’s stomach dropped. “Fuck!!” he screamed, eyes stretching in disbelief.
The second Aether backed away in shock, panicked, just like he had done. And then, as if obeying a script, he turned and ran for the entrance.
Aether chased behind, heart pounding in his chest, not wanting to see what came next—and yet unable to stop himself.
The second Aether opened the door slowly… and standing there…
Was the third Aether.
Tick!
Without pause, the third Aether passed right through the second. Just like before.
Just like what happened to him.
Aether’s legs weakened, his balance wobbled. His face drained of colour. “…Am I in a time loop?” he whispered, voice hollow, distant, like he was no longer speaking to himself.
A creeping chill ran down his spine like ice water seeping into his bones. Slowly, he turned around, breath shallow, hands clenched. His body trembled, not because he was cold, but because he knew something was deeply wrong.
His mind spiralled. If this was a time loop… then who was he now?
Which one of them was the real Aether?
And more importantly… how many of them were here right now?
Sweat dripped from his forehead, stinging his eyes. He wiped it off with his trembling sleeve.
“I need to leave this place,” Aether said under his breath, his voice serious, grounded. A command to himself. He didn’t know what the others would do. He didn’t want to know. But staying here any longer felt dangerous. Wrong.
He grabbed the door and yanked.
It didn’t move.
He frowned, then pulled harder.
Still nothing.
“What…?” he growled.
His hands sparked with energy, blasting the frame—but the door didn’t even flinch.
Unbreakable.
Only the latest Aether could open it. The one still playing his part in the loop.
“No, no, no!” he shouted, banging the wood. “Let me out! I’m still here!”
But no one came.
Aether’s face twisted in panic. ’Am I stuck here forever? If this is a loop, then… will I just keep watching this forever?’ His lips trembled as his knees hit the floor, then the bed. He sat down, burying his head in his hands.
’I need to think… calm down… don’t lose it now. Not now.’
His mind raced,
’If I’m in a loop… then there must be a start point. Let’s assume the moment I entered the house, the loop began. I roamed around, checked the rooms… then after about five minutes, I saw another version of me appear outside. If that moment outside got reversed back five minutes—then when that version entered, the cycle restarted. But I wasn’t here before that five minutes… so I couldn’t see the future me. But I can see my past self… which means…’
“Time is… zero?” Aether whispered.
His voice was low, filled with horror and confusion.
He stood up immediately from the bed, legs stiff and joints aching slightly from how long he had been frozen in thought. But his mind wasn’t calm. Not even close.
His gaze swept across the room, and what he saw sent a sharp jolt down his spine.
It was full—completely filled—with versions of himself.
Not two or three.
Not ten.
At least fifty Aethers.
Fifty different versions of him, each pacing around, repeating the same exact actions he had done before. Some stared out the window. Some checked the white room. Others moved toward the black room with anxious steps. Their faces mirrored the same confusion, fear, and spiralling questions he had just experienced.
It was like watching a living timeline—cut into segments and stuffed into one single space. Every movement was familiar. Every breath, every step, every frustrated expression… he recognised it all.
They were him.
All of them.
“I’m inside a memory… inside a loop… no, inside myself,” Aether whispered as he watched the crowd of his own reflections continuing their roles. None of them noticed him. None of them looked at one another. They simply… followed a script.
His own script.
He walked forward, weaving through his copies. He didn’t touch them—he couldn’t. They were echoes, like ghosts. Passing images of what once was, doomed to replay endlessly.
Then something shifted.
From the crowd near the front of the room, the 51st Aether moved toward the door.
And at that very moment, Aether’s heart skipped a beat.
He rushed forward, knowing what was about to happen. He’d seen it over and over now. The loop was preparing to repeat again. The next Aether was about to arrive.
The 51st reached the entrance, opened the door with trembling hands.
And right there—
Stood the 52nd Aether.
Another him.
“Outside… every five minutes, time reverses,” Aether murmured. “Inside… every five minutes, time progresses forward…”
He squinted, eyes twitching as he tried to wrap his head around it. His mind worked rapidly, the equations forming mentally without needing numbers. He could feel it now. Like waves—one flowing upward, one crashing downward.
A pulsing rhythm.
“It’s like a waveform… a pulse between two forces. Five minutes forward, five minutes backward… perfect opposition… They cancel each other.”
His voice trembled as the truth dawned.
“That’s why time isn’t moving. That’s why everything feels stuck.”
He paused, blinking, staring at the 52nd Aether as he prepared to walk through the threshold.
“But something’s… off,” Aether muttered, narrowing his eyes.
And then—
Tick!
A single sound.
Aether’s body jolted.
He hadn’t heard that sound before. Not once in the entire nightmare.
A faint ticking noise, almost like the ticking of a clock, echoed inside his skull—not outside, but within his own ears. Like something had finally started to beat again.
His ears flinched. “That’s new…”
“Yeah… that’s right,” he muttered, now certain. “The threshold… crossing it is triggering something.”
He felt it—not just in his ears but in his soul. A subtle pressure. A shift.
The ticking was proof that time had come to a zero.
He clenched his fists tightly. “If I want to get out of this… I have to disrupt the timing. Even for a moment.”
Aether smiled, a wild, dangerous glint lighting his eyes. “If I can stop the next Aether from opening the door—just delay him by a few seconds—then the wave will desync. The cycle will break.”
His smile faded slowly, swallowed by doubt.
“But how the fuck am I supposed to do that?” he muttered, frustrated. “I can’t touch them… I can’t talk to them… I can’t even stand in their way. They walk through me like mist.”
His hands trembled. He felt helpless again. Powerless.
Just then, an old memory sparked in his mind.
’Wait… I’ve felt this before,’ he thought. ’Time slipping…..’
He clenched his jaw.
“My bloodline,” he whispered. “My time abilities… that strange flicker between moments… My blood always reacts first. If there’s something messing with time—it’s in me.”
He raised his hand, staring at his trembling fingers. “But… can I even bleed here? This isn’t my real body.”
He knew it.
He was somewhere else. His true body—wherever it was—was still alive. Still breathing. This place… this loop… it was spiritual.
A prison of consciousness. A forced projection.
But if his mind and soul were here… his will could still shape it.
He closed his eyes.
’Come on… concentrate. You’re still linked to your body. You’re not dead. This isn’t death—it’s displacement. I am still me. Still connected to the real me. I just have to reach across that thread…’
His muscles tightened. Sweat poured down his back. His breathing became shallow.
His nerves screamed.
And still, he brought his hand up, opened his mouth… and bit down hard on the skin of his index finger.
Silence.
No pain.
No feeling.
Nothing.
But then—
Drip…
A single droplet of red slid down from his fingertip and fell to the floor.
His heart skipped.
The blood… was real.
The 52nd Aether flinched.
He looked around suddenly, his voice low and wary. “What the…?” he whispered. “Hello? Is anybody there?”
His confusion was different.
Aether grinned. “He noticed… It’s working.”
He moved quickly, crouching by the wall and dipping his finger into the still-warm blood. Without hesitation, he began scrawling jagged letters onto the white wall. Each word carved with urgency, each stroke filled with desperation.
A message.
Not to himself.
To the next one.
To the ones still asleep.
To the ones watching.
Across the room, the fifty Aethers, still repeating their loops, suddenly paused.
They didn’t speak.
They didn’t move toward him.
But their eyes—his eyes—watched.
They saw the blood.
They saw the writing.
And something in their expressions changed. Slightly. Subtly.
Like some distant understanding was crawling its way into their minds.
Meanwhile, the 52nd Aether continued walking forward. He looked around the house just as all the others did. Checked the rooms. Searched the window. Confused. Lost.
Then it happened again.
Another Aether—53—fell from the mist.
Same scream. Same drop. Same reaction.
And just like that, the loop tried to continue.
But this time… it didn’t.
As 52 ran to the entrance, ready to follow the script, he stopped.
His eyes widened.
He stared at the bloody letters on the wall.
“Stop… Time… Loop… Don’t open… Wait…”
He read the words aloud, his voice cracking with confusion.
“What the fuck…?” he whispered again, frozen in place.
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