Echoes of the Fallen: Awakening

There are other loopers. But not all of them want Zareth to win.

He didn't hit the ground.He hit flesh.

It breathed beneath him. Twitched. Groaned.A battlefield alive with the memories of things that should never have walked.

Screams carved the sky. Smoke bled upward in reverse, pulled back into a tower that twisted sideways through time. Bone-wrought beasts charged through the air, their mouths filled with contracts, their wings made of grave-silk and regrets.

And standing atop a mound of bodies—

—was a girl with blades for wings.

Not feathers. Not machines.Swords. All of them burning with slow, deliberate time.

[System Sync: Incomplete][Temporal Layer Conflict Detected][Loop Count: 3 – Confirmed][System Warning: You Are The Anomaly Now]

Zareth choked. His hand still bled. His mind still bled more.

But it wasn't the battlefield that shook him.It wasn't the beasts or the tower or the sky that screamed.

It was her.

The girl with burning wings turned. She looked straight at him.

And her face——was already crying.

She stepped toward him. Not fast. Not slow. Not quite moving through this moment, but weaving between them.

He tried to speak. The system choked.

[Memory Cross-Contamination Detected][Interference Source: Unknown Looper Class – Designation ✦Burned Echo✦][Warning: Timeline Synchronization Unsafe]

"I hoped it wouldn't be you this time," she said softly.Zareth froze. "You… know me?"

She smiled. It looked shattered."I knew a version of you. A version who never wore that crown."

She gestured to his head.Zareth reached up. He hadn't noticed.The crown was still there.

Not gold. Not silver. Not even thorns anymore.Just red. Soaked. Still dripping.

The girl flinched.

"That crown," she said, "should've never existed."

[Timeline Fracture Alert][Echoborne Class Interference Level: High][Designation: ✦Burned Echo✦ – Loop Origin: Locked][System Authority Clash Detected][Anchor Instability: 76%]

"Who are you?" he asked, stepping closer.

She didn't answer.Instead, she looked up at the battlefield—then down at the thing beneath it, the living flesh that pulsed under their feet.

"You made a different choice this time," she whispered. "That means the rest of us have to start again."

Zareth felt the weight of her words. The pressure of a truth too large to understand."What are you talking about?"

She looked at him. And for a second, her eyes flickered—not flame, not time, but loss.

"I burned a city to kill a version of you," she said.Then paused."But I also saved a world for one."

[Memory Link Request Denied][Echo Conflict Detected][Glitch Severity: Level Red][Warning: Inter-Looper Trust Is Not Advised]

Zareth's breath caught.

"You're from a different loop," he whispered.

She nodded. "No. I'm from many."

The sky above twisted. Something was watching. A system glitch twisted the sun into a mirror and cracked it. A thousand Zareths bled out of the sky. None of them wore the crown he did.

Only one looked up. Only one smiled.

It was him. But older.

And his eyes were white.

[Echo Priority Override: Looping Entity Detected – Designation Unknown][System Note: This Zareth Has Survived Too Long][You Are Being Watched]

The girl backed away.

"If you see the version of you with white eyes," she whispered, "don't trust him."

"Why?" he asked.

Her eyes burned again. Her wings unfolded. The swords on her back sang with time unspoken.

"Because he remembers how this ends. And he likes it."

Then the moment shattered.

[Timeline Shift Imminent][Anchor Reset – Countdown: 3...][You Are Slipping Into Another Loop Layer]

Zareth opened his mouth—

But the sky cracked again.

The girl was gone. The battlefield was peeling away. Time screamed backward.A tower fell forward and reversed into mist.

And from the smoke:

A figure stepped out.Wearing Zareth's face.Wearing Zareth's smile.But with white eyes.

The system flickered. Screamed.

[Next: Chapter 5 – The Mirror That Lied First]Some truths were never meant to be looped. Especially the ones hiding behind your own smile