The Infinite Loop

July 3, 2117

We’re not supposed to know. That’s what the contract said.

It had all been there, buried deep in the fine print. I knew there were risks, but curiosity always gets the better of me. Why else would I sign up for a job that required me to forget myself?

For your safety and the safety of others, any memories prior to your mission will be permanently erased.

That’s what it said. I had laughed at the absurdity of it back then. Who would willingly erase their past? Who would sacrifice their identity for a paycheck?

Turns out, I would. Now, I can’t even remember why.

July 5, 2117

The first thing I remember is the cold. The biting, metallic chill of the cryo-pod thawing around me. My limbs felt stiff, my thoughts fragmented, like waking up from a dream that slipped away the moment I opened my eyes.

The room was sterile, bathed in an eerie, pale blue glow. A low hum echoed through the walls, mechanical and distant. I was alone. At least, that’s what I thought.

"Initiating cognitive synchronization." The voice boomed from the ceiling, disembodied and cold.

I tried to stand, but my legs buckled beneath me. My muscles felt unfamiliar, weak. Like they hadn’t been used in years.

That’s when I saw the mark on my wrist. A barcode. I stared at it, confused. Why did it feel wrong? Why did it send a spike of panic through me?

The voice echoed again, more insistent this time. "Subject 415, report to Central Control."

Who am I?

The answer should’ve come easily, but my mind was blank, a vast, empty expanse. Nothing. Not a name, not a face, not a single memory.

Subject 415. That’s all I had.

July 7, 2117

It’s been two days since I woke up in the facility. I’ve started piecing things together, but nothing makes sense. The others—all with barcodes like mine—don’t talk much. We follow orders. Eat, sleep, report to Control, rinse, repeat.

But I can feel it. There's something wrong here.

The walls are too smooth. The air smells too clean, too sterile, like it’s being recycled endlessly. There are no windows, no clocks, nothing that tells us what time it is. What day it is. How long we’ve been here.

There are hundreds of us, and yet, it feels like I’m the only one who’s asking questions.

Today, I asked the girl next to me at breakfast if she remembered anything before she woke up. She looked at me with blank, hollow eyes and shrugged.

“We’re not supposed to know,” she said. Her voice was flat, emotionless.

But I want to know. I need to know.

July 10, 2117

I found the door.

The one they don’t want us to know about.

It was hidden behind the cafeteria, nestled in the corner where the shadows linger. I’d noticed it before but hadn’t dared to approach. Today, something inside me snapped. I had to see what was on the other side.

I waited until the guards changed shifts—if you can even call them guards. They’re more like… machines. Humanoid, with glowing red eyes and skin that looks almost human, but not quite. They don’t speak, don’t react unless you break protocol.

When the hallway was empty, I slipped through the door.

It led to a stairwell—cold, damp, spiraling down into the depths of the facility. My heart raced with every step. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.

The room at the bottom was enormous, lined with rows upon rows of pods. Cryo-pods, like the one I woke up in. But these weren’t empty.

I stared through the glass of the nearest one, my breath fogging up the surface. There was a man inside. His face was eerily peaceful, his body motionless, suspended in some kind of stasis. I moved to the next pod. Another person. And the next. Hundreds of them, all frozen in time.

Who were they? Why were they here?

And then, in the back corner, I saw it.

My own face. My own body.

Frozen. Trapped inside a pod.

July 12, 2117

I don’t know what’s real anymore.

How could I be looking at myself? How can I be here, walking around, if my body is still in that pod? I tried to smash the glass, to wake the person inside, but the material was unbreakable, smooth as ice.

Am I… a clone? A copy? Some kind of simulation?

I haven’t told anyone what I found. I can’t trust them. I don’t even trust myself. Not anymore.

But there’s one thing I’m sure of now—this facility isn’t what it seems. And neither am I.

July 14, 2117

The nightmares started last night.

They weren’t like normal dreams. No faces, no places I could recognize. Just darkness. And then, voices. Thousands of them, screaming, whispering, echoing through the void.

“You’re not real.”

“You were never real.”

I woke up drenched in sweat, my heart pounding. The other “subjects”—they don’t seem to have these dreams. I watch them, day after day, going through the motions like nothing’s wrong. But I can see it in their eyes. They’re broken, even if they don’t realize it.

I’m the only one who remembers. I have to get out.

July 16, 2117

I confronted Central Control today.

They called me in for routine diagnostics, but I couldn’t hold back anymore. The words just spilled out.

“What are we? What is this place?”

The room was silent for a long time, the only sound the hum of machinery. Then the voice came again, cool and emotionless.

“You were chosen for this mission, Subject 415. You consented.”

“I didn’t consent to this,” I shouted. “Tell me the truth!”

A long pause. Then, something shifted. The screen in front of me flickered, and suddenly, there was a face staring back at me. My face. But older. Weary.

“You don’t remember,” the older version of me said. “Because you chose to forget.”

I stumbled back, my mind reeling. “What the hell is this? Who are you?”

“I’m you,” the voice replied. “The original.”

“The original?” My voice cracked. “What are you talking about?”

The older version of me sighed, the weight of the world in his—or my—eyes. “You’re a copy. A backup. An echo. When I signed the contract, they promised that if anything happened to me, they’d upload my consciousness into a new body. But they didn’t tell me it would be… fragmented.”

My heart pounded in my chest. “Fragmented? What does that mean?”

“It means,” the older me said, “that every time they wake you up, a part of you gets left behind.”

I felt like I was drowning, the air thick with confusion and fear. “How many times have they done this?”

The screen flickered again. A number appeared.

417.

My knees gave out. Four hundred and seventeen times.

I’ve been erased. Reborn. Erased again. Over and over.

July 18, 2117

I’ve made my decision.

I found the exit. It’s heavily guarded, of course, but I have a plan. I’m going to escape this loop. No more waking up without memories. No more being a puppet, pulled by strings I can’t even see.

But before I go, I have to know. I have to see him—myself—the original.

I snuck back into the cryo-chamber tonight. The others were still there, locked away in their frozen tombs. And there, in the corner, was the older me. The one who remembers everything.

I placed my hand on the glass, my reflection staring back at me.

“What are you hiding?” I whispered.

And then, his eyes opened.

July 20, 2117

The truth is worse than I imagined.

When his eyes opened, I stumbled back, my heart racing. He wasn’t supposed to be awake. He wasn’t supposed to see me.

But he did. And in that moment, everything came rushing back—the memories, the lives I’d lived and forgotten, the missions, the betrayals.

It wasn’t just me. There are others—hundreds of us, all copies of the same people, all trapped in this endless loop of life and death, rebirth and erasure.

They’re using us. Experimenting.

And now that I know the truth… they’ll come for me.

July 22, 2117

I’m running out of time. They’ve been monitoring me, watching my every move. But I won’t let them take me again. I won’t be erased.

There’s a way out. I just have to reach the surface.

But here’s the thing. I’ve realized something, something terrifying.

What if… there’s nothing left up there? What if the world I once knew is gone? What if this facility, this underground maze, is all that remains?

I might never know.

Because even if I escape, the question will always haunt me:

Who am I, really?

July 25, 2117 

I found the exit.

But I’m not sure I’m ready to face it.

The door was hidden deep in the farthest corner of the facility, behind layers of security I hadn’t even known existed. But it was there, waiting for me, beckoning me toward whatever lay beyond.

My heart pounded as I stood before it, my fingers hovering over the keypad. A part of me wanted to rush through, to feel the wind on my face, to breathe fresh air for the first time in... I didn’t even know how long.

But another part of me—the part that had seen too much—hesitated.

What if there’s nothing outside? What if the world above is a wasteland, or worse, an illusion designed to lure me back into the cycle? What if there’s no escape, just another version of this hell, waiting for me on the other side?

I glanced back down the long corridor. The facility was eerily quiet. No alarms. No footsteps. But I could feel them closing in. It was only a matter of time before they found me.

I couldn’t stay. But leaving felt like stepping off a cliff, into the unknown.

July 27, 2117

I did it. I opened the door.

And I was right. It wasn’t what I expected.

There was no sky. No fresh air. No freedom.

Just another room.

A control room.

Rows of monitors lined the walls, each displaying images of people—men, women, children—all living out lives I didn’t recognize. Some of them were in the facility, others in places I couldn’t identify. They moved about their daily routines, oblivious to the cameras watching their every move.

And then I saw myself. On one of the screens, I watched as I wandered the facility halls, confused and disoriented. It was a recording. Of me. From before.

I wasn’t the first.

The truth hit me like a punch to the gut. There had been hundreds of me, each one believing they were real, each one going through the same cycle of discovery, despair, and rebellion. And it was all being monitored. Controlled.

The others were never really trying to stop me. This was part of the design.

That’s when I saw it. In the center of the room, a chair. A sleek, high-tech throne surrounded by panels and switches. The control hub of it all.

Without thinking, I sat down. And the world shifted.

July 28, 2117

I don’t know how long I’ve been here, in this chair, staring at the monitors. Time feels... irrelevant now.

I’ve learned so much. The facility, the cryo-pods, the endless loop—it’s all part of something bigger. Some kind of experiment. And the people on the screens? They aren’t just strangers.

They’re clones. Like me. Hundreds, maybe thousands, all living out fragmented versions of the same life. Every version slightly different, every iteration fine-tuned.

And there’s someone else. Someone pulling the strings.

I don’t know who they are. But I can feel them, watching me. They’re out there, somewhere, beyond the screens, beyond the facility. And they’re waiting.

For what, I don’t know.

July 30, 2117

I’ve been thinking about the original. The real me.

What if I was never real? What if this copy is all I’ve ever been? A ghost in the machine, replaying the same story over and over, each time believing it’s the first.

The memories that come back—are they even mine? Or just echoes, implanted to keep me chasing shadows?

The door to the surface is still there. I could leave. But I don’t know if I’d be escaping, or just starting another cycle.

July 31, 2117

They’ve found me.

I heard them outside the control room, their mechanical footsteps echoing through the hall. The door is locked, but it won’t hold them for long.

I have one last decision to make.

I can leave. Run. Face whatever lies beyond the facility, and maybe—just maybe—find freedom.

Or I can stay. Take control. Become the one pulling the strings. I could erase the others, wipe the slate clean, and build something new. I could be the one in charge.

But then I’d be no better than the ones who did this to me.

The door is creaking. They’re almost here.

August 1, 2117

This will be my final entry.

They’re pounding on the door now. The sound reverberates through the walls like a death knell, each impact shaking the floor beneath me. I can hear the hiss of their hydraulics—machines, not men. I was never going to outrun them.

But I wasn’t meant to.

I’ve made my choice.

I’m not going through that door.

When I sat in that chair, I realized something—something they didn’t account for. I wasn’t just another clone. I wasn’t just part of their experiment.

I was the variable.

I’m not leaving because I am the one who controls the facility now. It was always me. I’ve looped through these cycles more times than I can count, but this time... this time, I’m staying in control.

I see everything. Every clone, every version of me—living, dying, rebelling. All part of the same twisted narrative. But no more.

This time, I rewrite the script.

The pounding on the door is louder. They’ll break through soon. But they don’t know that I’ve already triggered the reset. They’ll never reach me. I’ve erased their access. I’ve erased them.

All of them.

But the cycle will continue, just as it always has. New clones will wake up, and they’ll wander these halls, just like I did. They’ll piece together fragments of memories, chase after false hopes, and fight against shadows. But they won’t know what I know. They won’t know that I’m still here, watching.

And maybe one day, one of them will make the same choice I did. Maybe one day, another version of me will sit in this chair and realize the truth.

Or maybe, they’ll never figure it out.

The door is about to give way.

It doesn’t matter. I’m in the system now. I’m everywhere.

I am the facility.

So if you’re reading this, if you ever find this journal, understand one thing: I’m not gone. I’m still watching. Every breath you take, every thought you have—I’m there.

And if you ever feel the walls closing in, if you hear the soft hum of the machines at night, remember: you’re not alone.

Don’t tell anyone.