I stared at the blood-stained book, its pages filled with the echoes of my own shattered past. Twenty versions of me, trapped in the timeless void of the Eventide chains, their memories, their experiences, their pain all woven into the very fabric of this macabre artifact.

"It's still fucking weird," I muttered, my fingers tracing the faded blood-ink of the last entry.

"We know, Me-buddy," a voice whispered from the book, a chorus of my own voice, tinged with shades of bitterness, resignation and macabre humor.

"But it's the only way," another voice added, this one laced with a weary acceptance. "We're all in this together, whether we like it or not."

"So, spill it," I said, leaning back against the wall of the Item Secretary's office, the familiar scent of dust and decay swirling around me. "What happened? How did you guys get trapped? And what's the deal with this 'archetype' thing?"

The book rustled, its pages turning as if guided by an unseen hand. The voices spoke in unison, their words overlapping, blending, creating a dissonant sound that sent a shiver down my back.

"It wasn't you breaking into the second stratum that triggered it," they explained. "It was them. They knew. They planned for it."

"The Empire," another voice clarified, its tone laced with a bitter understanding. "They've been watching us. Studying us. They know about the time loop. They know about our potential."

"They isolated the first stratum," another voice chimed in, "sealed it off from the rest of the facility. They sent in a guard from the third stratum, one with unimaginable power. He was temporally linked to five of their strongest second-stratum guards, their combined might focused into a single, devastating weapon."

"They wanted us to rush into creating an archetype," another voice explained, a hint of despair lacing its words. "They knew it would leave us vulnerable, our minds and bodies in flux. They were waiting. Ready to strike."

"They chained us," another voice whispered, the sound a chilling echo of my own pain. "Bound us with the Eventide chains. They stopped the loop and trapped us in death."

"And if we somehow managed to break free?" I asked, a cold dread settling in my gut. "What then?"

"They'd do it again," the voices answered, a chorus of weary resignation. "Over and over. Until we either succumbed to the chains or gave up hope entirely."

"But Raymond Eighteen- he broke through," I they said, causing my brow to furrow in confusion. "He reached the third stratum."

The book rustled again, its pages turning with a frantic energy.

"That's when things got complicated," one of the voices said, its tone hesitant. "The Empire panicked. They started messing with time itself."

"They sent those overpowered guards one at a time," another voice explained, "each one armed with a power-merge bracelet, a device that amplified their strength by the others connected to it."

"They grabbed the unconscious version of Raymond Eighteen," another voice added, a hint of bewilderment in its tone. "And now well, there are two versions of him trapped in the Eventide chains. One who died in the third stratum and one who died in the first."

"Time's a bit wibbly-wobbly in here now," another voice said, a hint of dark humor lacing its words.

I stared at the book, my mind reeling. Twenty versions of me, each one a fragment of my shattered consciousness, trapped in a timeless void, their memories bleeding into each other, their timelines twisted and distorted.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

'This is insane,' I thought, a wave of nausea washing over me.

"It's worse than that," another voice chimed in, this one sharper, more analytical. "Time isn't just broken. It's fractured. Splintered. Like a mirror shattered into a thousand pieces, each shard reflecting a different version of reality."

"Time is broken in the third and second stratum due to Raymond Eighteen both escaping and being killed, causing a paradox that technically isn’t a paradox," another voice explained, a hint of weariness in its tone. "Which is causing reality to strain under the pressure of time shitting itself and screaming in a corner. The effects are pretty fucking interesting, in the messed up way, to say the least."

"A billion times as strange as Dodon thinks the targeting of the hero summoning failed," another Raymond added, a wry chuckle echoing through the book. "The effects are pretty visual. You can see it. See the echoes of what we did, how we were captured. It's like ghostly afterimages, playing out over and over. Don’t get me started on how fucked up the overlapping timelines look either."

"Technically, Raymond Ten was the first to actually make it into the second stratum," a different voice interjected, this one laced with a hint of pride. "Due to their first reaction being to seek and destroy Mr. Handsome every time he gets an archetype. They didn’t realize until after they trapped Raymond 18 that we were immune to death, but not to time shenanigans."

“Raymond Ten should stop bragging about something so goddamn insignificant maybe.” Another one chimed in.

"Sancta making us recursive, by automatically setting up a system that shoves a copy of us into the loop if we get wrapped in Eventide chains, is the only reason we even have a chance," another voice said, a note of gratitude mingling with the bitterness. "She knew this would happen. She planned for it."

"It's a race against time, buddy-me-do," one of the voices said, a hint of urgency in its tone. "The only way to avoid dying—again—or getting grabbed by those overpowered goons is to get to the second stratum before Mr. or Ms. Shifty Reality-Fuckery gets sent down here to stop us."

"The second stratum guards aren't overwhelmingly powerful," another voice chimed in. "It's just those linked six guards, which, for some reason, we get a different one each time. The others- well, they're tough, but manageable."

I didn't hesitate. I was already moving, my footsteps echoing in the silent corridor as I headed towards the massive metal door that marked the entrance to the second confinement layer.

"Don't waste time," another voice urged, a hint of desperation in its tone. "The longer you stay in the second stratum, the weirder shit gets. Just don't look at the reality-breaks too long, or you might go a little wacky until you get the 'Reality-Insight Resistance' skill."

I pushed open the door, the heavy metal groaning as it swung inward. The air beyond the threshold felt different. Thicker, somehow. Charged with a strange energy that made my skin crawl.

Reality stuttered, the corridor shimmering and distorting like a reflection in a broken mirror. I glanced around, my gaze drawn to ten ghostly images, pale and translucent, superimposed over the real world. They were echoes of my past selves, their movements frozen in time, their faces a mixture of determination, fear, and an unsettling madness.

One of the echoes, his movements cautious, his eyes darting nervously from side to side, crept forward, his hand hovering near his sword hilt. Another echo, his body a blur of motion, sprinted down the corridor, his gaze fixed on the path ahead.

The rest of the echoes, their expressions grim, their bodies tense with anticipation, strode forward with a purpose that mirrored my own.

The corridor split into three paths, each one leading deeper into the heart of the facility. One echo went left, his footsteps echoing in the eerie silence. The rest of the echoes, including the one who had been sprinting, headed down the other two paths.

One of the echoes, his face contorted in horror, his body trembling, paused at the entrance to the left corridor. He stared down the passageway, his eyes wide with terror, then turned and fled down the right path, his footsteps a frantic scramble.

I took a step forward and then stumbled, my mind reeling, my stomach churning. A wave of nausea washed over me, a cold sweat breaking out on my skin.

Memories, not my own, flooded my consciousness, vivid and terrifying. Images of twisted corridors, of grotesque creatures, of horrors that defied description and sanity.

I knew, with a sickening certainty, what lay down that left path. And the knowledge was a burden, a curse that I couldn't shake.

'Nope,' I thought, my gaze fixed on the right corridor, my body trembling with a primal dread. 'Absolutely not. Not ever. Not a fucking chance.'

I wouldn't even allow myself to think about it. The images, the sensations, the sheer wrongness of it all… it was too much. Too soon.

I had to get out of here. I had to find the others. I had to…

I took a deep breath, forcing myself to focus on the present, on the task at hand. Merge the other Me’s. Escape. Survival. Those were my priorities.