The First Kieran leaned forward, his cybernetic eye flickering as he spoke.
"This world isn't real."
Kieran's jaw tightened. "I know that much."
The older version of him shook his head. "No. You don't." He gestured around the dimly lit room, at the old technology and failing machinery. "What you're experiencing—the resets, the rewrites, the doppelgängers—it's all part of a containment loop. A failsafe."
Kieran frowned. "Failsafe for what?"
The First Kieran exhaled sharply. "For me. For us."
Kieran stiffened.
"What do you mean?"
The older man gave a grim smile. "Because if we ever break free... the entire system collapses."
The words hit like a hammer. Kieran felt the weight of them settle deep in his gut.
"You're saying this whole simulation... it's designed just to hold you here?"
The First Kieran nodded. "Not just me. All of me. Every iteration, every version. You." He tapped his temple. "Each time you get too close to the truth, the system resets. But it can't erase me completely. So it does the next best thing—it duplicates me. Over and over again, cycling through versions, rewriting memories, keeping us trapped in loops."
Kieran's mind raced. The resets, the repeated failures—it wasn't just about control.
It was about containment.
"But why?" Kieran pressed. "Why go through so much effort to keep us here? What are we to them?"
The First Kieran's expression darkened.
"Because we aren't supposed to exist."
Silence stretched between them.
Kieran took a slow breath. "You mean... we were erased?"
"More than that," the First Kieran said. "We were deleted. We were meant to be wiped from reality itself. But something went wrong. A fragment of me—of us—survived. And the system's been struggling to contain it ever since."
Kieran clenched his fists. He wasn't just trapped in a simulation—he was evidence of something that should have been erased.
And the system would never let him leave.
"Then how do we break it?" Kieran asked.
The First Kieran's cybernetic eye flickered again.
"You don't break it," he said. "You overwrite it."
Kieran stiffened. "What?"
The First Kieran gestured to the failing servers around them. "The system can rewrite us—but we can rewrite it, too. If we can take control of the core code, we don't have to escape." His gaze locked onto Kieran's. "We can take over."
Kieran's mind spun. Rewriting the simulation itself?
It was insane.
It was impossible.
It was also his only chance.
The First Kieran reached behind him, pulling out a small drive. He held it out.
"This contains the last piece of the puzzle," he said. "The final failsafe. The root command that will let you overwrite the system itself."
Kieran hesitated for only a moment before taking the drive.
The instant his fingers closed around it, alarms blared.
The walls trembled. The simulation was fighting back.
"You need to move," the First Kieran said urgently. "Find the core access point. Use the drive. End this."
Kieran turned toward the door.
Then hesitated.
"What about you?"
The First Kieran gave a tired smile. "I'm already gone. This body won't last much longer. But you? You're the last one. The final version." His cybernetic eye dimmed. "So make it count."
Kieran's throat tightened.
Then—he nodded.
He turned, gripping the drive tight. The alarms grew louder, the walls of the room beginning to collapse.
And Kieran ran.
Straight toward the end.
Straight toward rewriting reality itself.