Chapter 4 — The Fourth Survivor

Chapter 4 — The Fourth Survivor

The journey from the bunker to the ruins of Arkbridge took nearly two days.

They moved in silence. No fires. No tech.

Not after what happened with the generator.

Milo was quieter now, haunted eyes flicking to every tree, every sound. Cole kept to the rear, rifle always ready, always locked. Rayn led them — not because he wanted to, but because the notebook stopped giving directions.

Whatever had been guiding him was now... silent.

But the spiral symbol kept showing up.

On crumbled road signs. On burned-out buildings. Etched into car doors, drawn in ash.

A message left across the bones of the world.

And then they found the radio tower.

It rose out of the forest like a steel skeleton, half-collapsed, draped in cables and ivy. At its base: an old outpost, long abandoned, the windows shattered and walls smeared with old blood.

Rayn stepped inside.

Static greeted him. A faint hum from an old broadcast system — somehow still alive.

He turned the dial.

Voices.

But not human.

Garbled. Repeating.

> "…he's not supposed to…"

"…loop failed again…"

"…adjust cycle… target unstable…"

Then — silence.

Then — a voice he recognized.

His own.

> "You're not alone, Rayn. You never were."

He froze.

Milo staggered back. "That was you—but from—when?"

Cole moved forward, checking the equipment. "There's no feed. No tape. It's not playing a recording."

Rayn stepped closer. The mic was still hot. Still transmitting.

And then someone spoke.

Live.

> "Took you long enough."

The voice was calm. Crisp. Female.

Not robotic. Not monstrous.

Just… tired.

A figure stepped out from the back hallway.

She looked about Rayn's age — early twenties. Wearing a scavenged tactical coat, gear strapped tight, dark eyes under a cracked visor.

Her neck bore the same spiral mark, faint and pulsing.

Rayn raised his crowbar. "Who the hell are you?"

She didn't blink. "I'm you."

Silence. Thick and absolute.

Rayn's grip tightened. "Wrong answer."

"Not really," she said. "You just haven't gotten to this cycle yet."

Cole swore softly behind him. Milo muttered something about time fracturing.

Rayn didn't move. "Explain."

The girl — the other Rayn — sat on a broken console. "This world isn't post-apocalyptic. It's pre-reset."

Rayn frowned.

She continued. "It collapses. Over and over. You die. You restart. Slight variations each time. New people. New choices. But the mimic always finds you. The notebook always finds you. And the gate—" she pointed at the spiral on her neck "—is always watching."

Rayn's mind reeled.

"You're saying I've done this before?"

"I'm saying you never stopped."

She tossed something at his feet.

A notebook.

Identical to his.

Only older. Torn. Blood-stained.

Inside: pages filled with notes in his own handwriting. But hundreds of pages. Far more than his own copy had.

Rayn opened the last page.

It read:

> "Don't trust her. She's the final mimic."

He looked up.

She was already moving.

A blade extended from her wrist.

Cole shouted.

Milo screamed.

Rayn reached for his crowbar—

But it was too late.

The mimic smiled.

> "Welcome back, Rayn."

A blade extended from her wrist.

Cole shouted.

Milo screamed.

Rayn reached for his crowbar—

But it was too late.

The mimic smiled.

> "Welcome back, Rayn."

Time fractured.

Rayn barely ducked as the blade slashed where his throat had been a second ago. Sparks flew as it scraped the steel console behind him. He rolled, crowbar swinging up, but she — no, it — moved like fluid, unnatural in its grace.

Cole fired. One shot clipped her shoulder.

The mimic didn't even flinch. It blurred toward him.

Rayn's instincts kicked in. He lunged, slamming his crowbar across its back. It staggered but didn't fall. Instead, it turned its head completely around, eyes wide and smiling, voice still Rayn's but distorted.

> "I always hated being slow."

Then she leapt — not at Rayn, but at Milo.

"No!" Rayn screamed.

Milo barely raised his arms before the mimic crashed into him. They went down in a heap. Her blade came up—

But Cole tackled her mid-swing, gun forgotten, fists flying.

Rayn moved. No time to think. Just move.

He grabbed the mimic's head from behind, yanked it back, and drove the crowbar straight into her eye.

There was a sound like a bursting beehive and steam escaped from the wound.

The mimic howled.

Not in pain.

In frustration.

She flailed, threw Cole off with inhuman strength, slammed her fist into Rayn's chest — he heard a rib crack — but still he held on. He twisted the crowbar and slammed it again.

Her body jerked.

Convulsed.

Twitched.

Then went still.

Everything was quiet.

For a full ten seconds, no one moved.

Then Milo groaned.

Rayn collapsed beside him, ribs aching. "You okay?"

"I think… I think she dislocated my shoulder," Milo muttered, blinking up at the broken ceiling. "And possibly my soul."

Rayn let out a weak laugh. "You'll live."

Cole sat up a few feet away, nose bleeding, eyes locked on the mimic's body. "She wasn't trying to kill you," he said.

Rayn looked over. "What?"

Cole pointed. "She went for Milo. She could've gutted you in one move. Instead, she hesitated. Like she wanted you to watch."

Rayn's stomach turned.

The mimic's smile had been too familiar.

Too real.

Like she knew what would hurt most.

And the worst part?

> She did.

They spent the next hour barricading the outpost.

The sun had dropped low behind the tower, casting long shadows through broken windows. The mimic's body had started to decay unnaturally fast — melting into a black, sticky sludge that stank like ozone and ash.

They burned it. Just to be sure.

Then, they found it — in the mimic's coat.

A notebook.

Identical to Rayn's.

Same cover. Same spiral on the front. Only older. Scratched. Some pages torn out.

Rayn opened it with trembling hands.

The writing inside?

His own.

Same messy scrawl. Same diagrams. Same survival notes. But these notes were different — more desperate. More paranoid.

> "Cycle 48: Failed. Cycle 49: Failing. Mimics adapting.

They are starting to remember previous cycles."

Rayn flipped through page after page, heart hammering.

Drawings of creatures he'd never seen.

Maps of cities long gone.

Diagrams of machines that hadn't been invented — or maybe forgotten.

One entry stood out:

> "If you're reading this, you've survived the mimic's test.

But survival isn't the goal. It's the filter."

That night, none of them slept.

Cole stood watch with his gun across his lap.

Milo lay quietly, shoulder bandaged, but silent.

Rayn sat by the window, notebook in hand, watching the treetops sway. The cold wind carried no birdsong. No insects. Just the faint crackle of static from the radio room down the hall.

The mimic's voice echoed in his head.

> "Welcome back, Rayn."

And worse, what she said before that:

> "You're not alone."

By morning, Rayn had read every page in the old notebook.

What it revealed made his blood run cold.

There had been others.

Other Rayns.

Some survived weeks. Some only hours.

But each time the cycle restarted, a version of him was placed back into the world — a slightly different world — with the same goal:

> Reach the center. Find the source.

Break the loop.

But the spiral, the creatures, the resets — they were all part of it.

Worse still…

The notebook ended with a line he hadn't written.

A different handwriting entirely.

Sharp. Clean. Almost printed.

> "Rayn (v50): Pattern deviation confirmed.

Watch for behavioral instability.

Monitor exposure to past iterations."

Cole read over his shoulder and frowned. "What does that mean?"

Rayn shut the book. "I think it means... I wasn't supposed to survive."

Milo coughed. "You mean we?"

"No," Rayn said. "Me."

Later, they went to check the mimic's body again.

It was gone.

No sludge. No ash. No bones.

Just a faint spiral burned into the stone floor.

And something else:

A handprint.

Human-sized. Pressed into the wall like molten metal.

Rayn stared at it, heart racing.

Milo stepped back. "Tell me that wasn't there before."

"It wasn't," Rayn whispered.

Then something in the back hallway clicked.

Cole raised his gun. "Movement."

Rayn stepped forward, crowbar raised, heart thudding.

A shadow shifted near the entrance.

Not walking.

Crawling.

Then a voice whispered — soft and broken, like it was coming through a hundred layers of static:

> "Rayn… it's me…"

A figure emerged.

Half-covered in blood.

One eye missing.

His face twisted with pain.

But there was no denying it.

It was Rayn.

Another one.

Breathing. Alive.

And he was terrified.

> "You have to kill me… before it wakes up."

End of Chapter 4