What if every seven days, you became a stranger to your own life?

Elira wakes up in new lives every week—different names, unfamiliar places, yet the same haunting questions. With memories that don’t belong to her and a face she can’t forget, one man stands at the center of it all: Kael.

He claims to be her anchor—the keeper of her lost past. But as Elira uncovers fragments of truth, she begins to question everything: Kael’s intentions, her friends’ loyalty, and the very nature of her identity.

In a world where memory resets and nothing is what it seems, Elira must choose: reclaim who she was… or risk everything to become who she was meant to be.

"Tethered"

Somewhere in the distance, alarms wailed—machines roared to life like beasts waking from slumber. And above it all, the sky pulsed with veins of electric blue, webbing through the night like cracks in a reality about to break.

Christine slammed the door shut behind her. "They're rebooting the core loop. We have minutes—maybe less."

Elira barely blinked, still clutching the shattered memory tablet. Her hands were trembling, but her eyes—those were steel.

"How many shards did you activate?" Christine asked, voice laced with a strange mix of awe and panic.

Elira didn't answer right away. She looked at Kael.

"You stored them inside me," she said. "All thirteen."

Kael nodded once. "Fragments from every cycle. Every version of you."

"And now," Elira whispered, "they're all awake."

Outside, the world flickered. Not just the lights—reality itself. Skyscrapers glitched like broken images. Streetlights bled color. People froze mid-stride, locked in place by Mnemosyne's emergency sync.

The Reset War wasn't just code or memory anymore.

Inside her mind, Elira felt the chaos surge.

Thirteen voices. Thirteen selves. All screaming, crying, fighting to take control.

And one—deep beneath the others—calm, focused, watching.

The one who planted the fail-safe.

The one who knew this day would come.

"Elira," Kael said, voice strained. "If they reach the Mnemosyne core first, they'll erase your fragments. You'll revert to Version Zero. Blank slate."

"Not happening," she said, stepping forward.

Christine looked torn, shifting between Elira and Kael. "Then we hit the core first."

"You're helping us now?" Elira asked flatly.

Christine's smile was thin. "Let's just say... loyalty is complicated."

Outside, a shadow passed overhead. Drones. Dozens of them. All blinking red.

Kael's hand tightened around the device on his wrist. "I'll run interference. You two—take the side route to the core chamber."

"You're splitting up?" Christine asked.

He looked at Elira. "They're not after me. Not this time."

Elira stepped toward him, and for a moment, the noise fell away.

"But if I do—remind me who I am."

Kael gave the faintest smile. "You already are."

Through alleys warped by memory spills. Past frozen faces of strangers caught mid-reset. As they reached the perimeter of the Mnemosyne facility, Elira stopped.

A shimmering doorway stood in their path—code made visible. Behind it, a room pulsing with white light.

Christine swore under her breath. "It's locked by cognitive imprint."

The door responded—not to her, but to all of her.

As it opened, the scream hit them.

Thousands of lives surging through a core on the brink of collapse. And in the center?

Christine's eyes widened. "That's the seat of the Observer. Whoever takes it controls the resets."

Elira stepped forward, breathing hard.

And the voices in her head… stilled.

The core pulsed. Code spun around her in fractals of fire and light.

And in that moment, Elira remembered everything.

But inside, Elira was no longer a victim of it.

Chapter 17 – The Reset War: Echoes Unleashed