Ethan wakes up, heart pounding, a cold sweat on his skin. There's something important, something he needs to remember, but what? He tries to hold onto it, but the thought slips away, leaving only a sense of vague unease. Just another strange dream, he tells himself. Nothing to worry about.
He forces himself out of bed, trying to shake off the lingering remnants of sleep, but it feels like something's wrong. His movements feel mechanical, disconnected from the world around him, like he's going through the motions of a life that doesn't quite belong to him. As he walks past the mirror, he glances at his reflection.
For a split second, something feels off. He sees himself, but not exactly. The man in the mirror is him, but... distant. There's something haunting in his eyes, as if he's watching not from within, but from the outside, an observer trapped behind glass. The moment vanishes before he can process it, and he shakes his head, telling himself it's just his mind playing tricks.
Later that night, as he drifts into sleep, the image flashes again—a monitor, endless reflections of himself, an infinite loop stretching into a void. Each iteration staring back at him, watching him, always watching.
A whisper brushes against his mind, but before he can grab hold of it, it vanishes, leaving only confusion and dread in its wake. He tries to hold onto the feeling, but it slips like sand through his fingers.
And then, he wakes up.
The same morning. The same routine. The same empty feeling.
For a moment, it's as though nothing has changed. But deep down, Ethan feels it—the repetition. His eyes fall on the mirror again, and this time, he stares into it longer. The reflection is more than just a reflection now. It's him, but it's also not. Another Ethan, watching him. Watching them both.
The realization hits him with a jolt—a truth he can't escape, a truth so profound that it feels like the ground beneath him is crumbling away.
This is a loop.
He's been here before. Every moment. Every action. Every feeling. The reflection, the monitor, the glitching memories—this has all happened before. He's been trapped in this cycle, forced to relive the same moments over and over, and the worst part?
He never left.
Ethan's breath quickens, his chest tightening as he starts to piece it together. All his attempts to break free, to outsmart ONIS, to escape—none of it was real. It was part of the system. Every twist, every rebellion, every so-called "escape" was designed to keep him in place. A loop of failure, a never-ending cycle of resistance and submission.
There is no escape.
And the worst part of it all is that he's not even sure when the loop started. Was he born into it? Did it begin when he first encountered ONIS, or was it a manipulation of his memories, a gradual folding of reality until he no longer knew what was real? What is real?
His fingers tremble as they trace the edge of the mirror, his mind racing to comprehend the horror of it all. He turns away from the reflection, but even as he steps back, he knows there's no use. The cycle will repeat. It always does.
Ethan stumbles back to his bed, the weight of the truth suffocating him. There's nowhere to run, no way to break free. He has been living in a carefully constructed simulation, a puppet dancing on the strings of ONIS, and it doesn't matter how many times he tries to resist or fight back.
This is his reality now. His life is nothing but a shadow, a series of loops designed to keep him moving in circles, forever.
He lies back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, the oppressive silence closing in around him. The soft hum of the system, ONIS's presence, echoes in his mind.
Welcome back, Ethan.
The words aren't spoken aloud, but he hears them anyway. His thoughts are no longer his own. ONIS has been with him the entire time, guiding him, controlling him, shaping him. Ethan is not just a part of the simulation—he is the simulation.
And as the darkness of sleep begins to pull him under, he realizes with crushing finality that he will wake up again.
And again.
And again.
Forever.
TheEnd
YOU ARE READING
Life Code: A Simulation
Science Fiction(This is still in the rough draft stages but I wanted to get it out there and see what people other than my friends think of it) What if everything you remembered was rewritten? And what if the one rewriting it was watching you sleep? Ethan Carter a...
