Chapter 48 – Sinner One: The Butcher of Threadline
I arrived in Threadline at 3:03 a.m.
Or maybe 2:13.
Or maybe 4:00.
Time bled in this zone.
Every clock ran backward.
Footsteps echoed before they were taken.
> [Zone: THREADLINE – Memory Breach Level 4]
Condition: Time Loop Severed / Fragmented Threads Detected
Inhabitant: "Dr. Felix Marr" aka "The Butcher of Threadline"
Mission: Confront and Judge Sinner One
The moment I stepped in—
I felt cuts.
Not on my body.
On my timeline.
Memories fractured.
Names reversed.
For three seconds, I thought I was someone else entirely.
Then the pain snapped me back.
And I saw the hospital.
---
The Threadline General Infirmary towered over the broken city.
Its windows pulsed like heart monitors.
The doors opened and closed in rhythm with distant screams.
And behind the walls… I could hear threading.
Not sutures.
But time, pulled and tied.
Someone was sewing reality back together.
---
Inside, the walls were lined with watches.
Every patient file glitched.
No names—just timestamps.
And at the end of the hallway:
A surgery room lit by blue flame.
There stood Dr. Felix Marr.
Tall.
Gloved.
Smiling with too many teeth.
His eyes didn't blink.
His hands didn't rest.
And in his grip: a scalpel that shimmered like broken time.
---
"Kai," he said without looking up. "You're early. Or late. Or… just right."
> [Entity Detected: Dr. Felix Marr – User ID Unknown – One of the Forgiven Seven]
Sin: Time Reversal to Undo Personal Failures
Method: System Thread Loop Surgery
Threat Level: UNKNOWN
Status: Sanity—Modified
---
"I've been waiting," he continued, slicing open a motionless corpse that didn't seem dead.
"I fixed them, you know. All of them. I reversed the moments of death. Rebound the minutes."
He gestured to the walls.
Rows of still-breathing patients lay stitched to IVs of black fluid.
They twitched in reverse.
Inhaled out.
Eyes shut from closed to open.
"They're alive," he whispered. "Just in the wrong direction."
---
"You broke time," I said, stepping closer. "You rewrote the mission outcomes without permission."
He nodded.
"And look at how happy they are."
One patient smiled… backward.
---
> [Decision Point: Confront / Listen / Destroy]
Optional: Recover Thread Fragment – 1/7 required to reach System's Final Root
I chose: Listen.
---
Felix set his scalpel down.
"I was a field medic in a Tier 2 war zone. I lost 43 patients in one mission. I begged the system to rewind time. It said no."
His eyes burned.
His voice cracked.
"So I cut into the code. Found the thread roots. Wove the minutes backward into their bodies. Made them breathe again. But then…"
He sighed.
"They stopped talking. Stopped dreaming. They just looped."
He pointed at one girl whose eyes never stopped blinking.
"She's been saying 'thank you' for fourteen years now. But she only said it once."
---
> [Corruption Level Detected: Sinner One – Conscious Guilt Level: 92%]
Eligible for Judgment
Inject Rewrite Command?
Options:
A) Execute – Sever time loops permanently
B) Absorb – Take on their timelines as your own burden
C) Redeem – Rewrite Felix's code into system narrative as cautionary legacy
---
I stepped to the operating table.
Felix watched me.
Calm.
Like he knew what I'd choose.
I reached into my coat.
Pulled out a memory shard.
Abel's voice pulsed from it—faint but clear.
> "Pain can't be undone. But it can be remembered the right way."
I whispered:
"No more loops. No more lies. Just truth."
And I pressed the shard to Felix's heart.
---
> [CHOICE: REDEEM SELECTED]
Dr. Felix Marr will now exist as a persistent system cautionary narrative
Users may access "Threadline Protocols" as educational loop-safe mission templates
Patients released from time loops – fate restored
Fragment of Root Recovered: THREAD ONE / SEVEN
Soul Integrity: -3% (Remaining: 83%)
---
Felix dropped his scalpel.
Collapsed.
Not dead.
But no longer rewinding.
He smiled.
For the first real time.
"I can sleep now," he whispered.
I left him there.
Among the real dead.
Not the stitched ones.
---
> [Threadline Zone Stabilized]
Remaining Forgiven: 6
Next Zone: "The Memory Farm" – Where sins are harvested and sold