C92: Loop

“There is something in our sharemind, Izzy.” Isa looked over at her, her green eyes locking into hers. “They look like Izzy’s own, but…”

‘Strange?’

Izzy tilted her head slightly. Was there really anything strange in this mindscape?

To her, the mere existence of this place, a shared mental landscape between two versions of herself, was already unnatural enough. Compared to that, what could possibly count as strange?

“…”

Isa dove deeper into their mindscape, and Izzy followed without hesitation.

Soon, they found themselves in an open field of vibrant, colourful space.

Music echoed somewhere in the distance. It was cheerful, loud, and carnival-like, yet no one could be seen here. The rides stood tall and bright, painted in red, blue, and gold, but they were empty. The entire place felt like an amusement park abandoned in the middle of laughter.

Above them, a rainbow-colored river flowed through the sky like a reversed waterfall, bending and weaving between invisible currents. Beneath their feet, the ground was soft and white, like compressed clouds, spongy yet firm enough to stand upon.

Everything carried the texture of a childhood dream.

And it was exactly why this place made Izzy uncomfortable. It reminded her of something she preferred not to recall from her previous life.

Because of that, she rarely visited this section of their mindscape.

“There.” Isa pointed in one direction.

‘Hmm?’

Izzy followed the direction Isa pointed toward.

At the center of the amusement park, rising from the cotton-white ground, stood a massive black tower.

‘?’

It was an obsidian monument piercing upward into the painted sky. The structure absorbed the surrounding light instead of reflecting it. An alien monolith amidst the pastel chaos.

It resembled something she had seen in her past life. A tower built for memory.

A monument.

‘Why is this here?’

Izzy approached the black monument. The carnival music seemed quieter near it, as though sound itself hesitated to approach. She furrowed her brows.

“Where does this come from?”

“Isa doesn’t know,” Isa shook her head. “It appeared after we fought Gramp.”

“After we killed that old man?”

Izzy’s expression darkened slightly. She was certain that when she first entered this mindscape, the tower had not existed…or at least, she had not perceived it.

Was this tower really new? Or had it always been here, hidden beyond their awareness until their power reached a certain threshold?

‘This is pretty unsettling.’

Why did it appear after Benjamin’s death? Was it a reward for killing the old man? Besides his enormous essence?

Was this the reason why they lost their consciousness after killing that old man?

Izzy reached out and placed her palm against the surface.

The black tower felt neither cold nor warm. It felt heavy, oppressive, and…restlessness?

“You’re worried about this?” Izzy asked her young mind lightly, though her gaze did not leave the monument.

“No, not Isa. It's Izzy who will be more worried. Isa didn’t want her to be more worried…”

Isa’s gaze shifted toward her mature mind, flickering briefly toward Izzy’s head.

For a moment, Isa hesitated. Her fingers fidgeted together, as if nervous about something.

“Isa, Isa will do the clean up.”

Without further explanation, Isa disappeared from this layer of the mindscape, refocusing on tidying their recent “battlefield” in the mansion.

‘…’

Izzy winced her eyes, staring at the spot where Isa had been until she disappeared from their mindscape.

Something… Isa seemed concerned about something. But that girl had not told her.

‘This girl’s hiding something.’

Well, everyone had their little secrets. Izzy, too, had many secrets she didn't share with the younger mind. Like memories she tore away from the Theatre's script, carefully hiding them from Isa.

Izzy shook her head.

Maybe she was just overthinking it.

Isa was her young mind, after all. It wasn’t as though she would harm herself without reason.

Izzy flew slowly around the black monument, her attention fixed on the white text that glowed across its surface. The letters were suspended just above the obsidian stone, as if written in condensed light.

[“Who are you?”]

“Mmm, right.”

With just that first line, Izzy immediately understood why Isa had been concerned.

Izzy tapped her chin. Suddenly being asked by someone else in their own mind? Right, that was not normal. It made her uneasy, yet intrigued her to the core.

[“Are you the one creating this place?”]

[“What happened to us in the past few days?”]

‘What is this?’

Izzy’s expression slowly hardened. She continued reading, her eyes scanning the words.

[“Are you me, from the past? From the future?”]

‘...’

This sounded a lot like Izzy’s own internal voice, exactly like something she would write when thinking through an anomaly.

“Am I the one who has written this?”

From when?

Izzy tapped her chin, contemplating.

“Don’t tell me…”

A hypothesis formed in her mind, but the more she examined it, the more absurd it felt.

“No, It feels too illogical to be true.”

She resumed reading.

[“There is something wrong with the village.

You can’t leave this place.

Asking the inspector for help might be a good idea.”]

‘Village?’

Did that refer to Winterin Village? The one outside the mansion?

“You can’t leave this place…”

What did that mean?

And the Inspectors?

Who were they?

Had Benjamin mentioned them before? She searched her memories but found no reference to ‘Inspectors.’

‘Whoever wrote this, at least be more specific!’ Izzy suddenly had an urge to hit someone in the face already. The vagueness was infuriating!

She kept reading.

[“Madam’s maid is dangerous, beware of her.”]

[“That church guy, need to take back the coin from him.”]

Izzy stopped for a moment.

“Hah, it was me, no denying it.” Izzy shook her head, a wry smile tugged at her lips.

Take back the coin? There were all these strange and eerie warnings up there, but this? Take back the coin? Really?

That petty, pragmatic streak was unmistakably hers.

“Madam, the maid, the Church.”

They must be the people from the village.

[“Be careful of Mary.”]

Mary.

Izzy noted the name in her mind. She wasn't familiar with it, but she suspected Mary would be an important piece of information.

Izzy looked down at the rest of the text. There was more text, and it was long, as expected.

“It’s my writing.”

It resembled her investigation notes, the way she usually sorted and categorized information.

What was the logic behind this?

Izzy hovered in front of the monument, her eyes narrowing slightly.

Either—

“This monument was constructed by my mind, copying my cognitive pattern to generate information for me.”

Or…

“Someone else gave me the information.”

And that someone else…

“Me.”

From the past, or the future.

Izzy slowly lifted her gaze back to the line etched near the top.

[“Are you me, from the past? From the future?”]

‘...’

She conjured another color.

A thin trail of purple light gathered at the tip of her finger, glowing against the black surface of the monument.

Izzy moved her hand and wrote beside the white text.

[“I’m… Raven”]

In the previous world, only “him” alone had the nickname: “Raven.” The Center Authority had personally named “him” that.

This was to ensure the “white text” would recognize Izzy as authentic. If the one who wrote it was truly her, of course.

And purple was “his” color.

[“Who are you? Are you me?”]

The purple letters lingered in the air for a second before embedding themselves onto the monument’s surface.

If her deduction was correct, then there shouldn’t be any answer, of course.

Still, she wrote again, just in case.

[“You are my past.”]

That was the most logical conclusion she could reach.

And with these pieces of information in hand, the most rational hypothesis was—

“Were we trapped in a loop?”

They were trapped here, in a cycle, without any retained memory from the previous “iteration.”

‘This is complicated.’

Izzy pinched the bridge of her nose. Even as a mind divided into two, she felt a mental strain creeping in. She was not used to all this magical, existential stuff, let alone this colossal, unsettling revelation.

She still wasn’t sure about this assumption. Was it too fast to come to a conclusion like that?

‘I need some time to digest all of this.’ Izzy sighed as she gazed back down at the long text—

‘Izzyyy.’

Right at that moment, Isa whimpered in their shared mind, pulling Izzy from her thoughts.

‘?’

Izzy withdrew her awareness from the monument and peeked out of their mindscape.

‘I’m done cleaning. What do we do with her?’

‘Right.’ Izzy tapped her chin in thought.

The unconscious girl was still there. The monument held no information about her, so Izzy assumed she wasn’t important enough to be included in it.

“Bring her into the room.”

“Okee!”

Isa obediently maneuvered the marionettes to drag the limp form inside without waking her.

Izzy cast one last look at the monument and shook her head lightly.

‘Let’s investigate this later.’

She still needed to confirm whether the information on the monument was genuine. If it was true, she would need a different strategy to approach them.

And they would know about it tomorrow.

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