The gunshot wound burned like liquid gold.
I collapsed against the lab's broken terminal, watching my blood pool across the floor—first crimson, then shimmering with flecks of light that shouldn't exist. Anya stood frozen in the doorway, her gun still smoking, her eyes wide with horror.
"I didn't—" she stammered. "Chen, I didn't *choose* to—"
The heir silenced her with a raised hand. His golden eyes darkened to black as he crouched beside me.
"Now you see," he whispered. "She was always the trigger."
Then he plunged his fingers into my bullet wound.
---
THE LOOP'S TRUE NATURE
The pain tore through me like a key turning in a lock.
Memories that weren't mine erupted behind my eyes:
- Mu strapped to a chair, screaming as a shadow with golden eyes forced her to design the first loop.
- The original Lu Chen, decades younger, sabotaging the lab's core—only to be rewound like a broken toy.
- Anya, real Anya, fighting through Black Sun operatives to carve that tattoo into her wrist.
The heir yanked his hand free, dripping my golden blood onto the floor. It sizzled where it struck, etching symbols into the metal:
**9-217-1**
The coordinates from the detonator.
"Mu didn't create the loops to perfect us," he said. "She created them to escape me."
---
SECTION 2: THE WAKE-UP CALL
Anya's gun clattered to the floor. She clutched her tattooed wrist, the ink now moving, rearranging into new words:
"IF FOUND, KILL CHEN"
The heir laughed. "Too late."
I understood then:
- The tattoo wasn't a message.
- It was a countdown.
- And we'd just hit zero.
Anya's body jerked upright, her eyes flooding black. When she spoke, the voice wasn't hers:
"Iteration 9,218: Subject Chen finally reaches the core. Proceed with harvest."
The lab's walls peeled away, revealing an endless corridor of glass chambers—each holding a *different version of me*, trapped in their own loops.
At the center floated Mu's corpse, preserved in golden fluid, her skull wired to a machine.
The heir stroked her glass coffin. "Meet the real prisoner."
---
THE ONLY WAY OUT
The original Lu Chen's words echoed in my mind: Win differently.
I looked at the heir—really looked. His golden eyes. His perfect mimicry. The way he had to follow the loop's script unless...
Unless I broke it first.
I grabbed Anya's fallen gun and pressed it to my own temple.
The heir's smirk vanished. "That won't—"
I pulled the trigger.
---
The bullet never fired.
Instead, the gun melted in my hand, reforming into a key.
The heir staggered back, his form flickering. "You—you cheated."
Behind him, every glass chamber shattered at once.
9,217 versions of me opened their eyes.
And the oldest one—a withered husk with golden pupils—whispered:
"Welcome to the end."