The air inside the core shifted. The hum of the system faded, replaced by a silence that wasn't empty—but waiting. The Time Loop Bank had always been a mechanism, a machine designed to maintain control over existence itself. Now, that control no longer belonged to them. It belonged to Ethan.
Cassandra's voice was sharp. "What did you change?"
Ethan turned from the terminal, his expression unreadable. "Everything."
Lyra's console flickered wildly. She tapped a few keys, scanning the data streams that had once dictated the structure of time. Her breath hitched. "The loop… it's rewriting. Not erasing, not resetting—restructuring."
Aiden smirked. "That's what happens when you change the foundation instead of breaking it."
Cassandra wasn't convinced. "And what does that mean for the people who were erased? The ones who were never supposed to be gone?"
Ethan exhaled. "It means they were never erased at all."
The system pulsed. A wave of unseen energy rippled outward, expanding through the network, stretching beyond the core, beyond the vault—beyond the city itself. Every timeline, every erased name, every forgotten existence was being restored in real time.
Lyra's voice was barely above a whisper. "You're rewriting history."
Ethan met her gaze. "No. I'm fixing it."
Aiden studied him carefully. "And what about the people who built this? The ones who used it to control everything? They won't just let this happen."
Ethan's pulse remained steady. "They don't have a choice anymore."
For the first time, the Time Loop Bank wasn't the one making the rules.
Cassandra exhaled, shaking her head. "And what about us?"
Ethan's jaw tightened. "That depends on what happens next."
The system vibrated again. A signal activated—a pulse sent out into the city, an announcement to those who once held power. The Time Loop Bank would realize what had happened. They would come for him. But this time, he wasn't trapped inside their game.
This time, he was the one writing the rules.
Ethan turned toward the exit, his voice calm. "Let's go."
They weren't running anymore.
They were walking into a world where they were no longer ghosts.
Where the past had been restored.
Where the people who thought they controlled time… were now out of time themselves.