“I guess the world is punishing me now.”

  Kazeem whispered the words aloud, not because anyone was there to hear, but because the silence was starting to feel too thick.

  He’d been curled up in his room for over an hour, knees hugged to his chest, face still damp with sweat. His breathing had finally slowed. The whispers had receded, reduced to faint echoes clawing at the corners of his mind. But the headache hadn’t left. And neither had the hunger.

  A gnawing kind of hunger, not for food, but for gb?.

  He had no idea what that even meant anymore. Was it time? Was it fate? Was it something buried deeper than both?

  He wiped his face with his sleeve and sat up. The world was going insane… or maybe it was just him. But if he was going to be crushed by the loop again, he wouldn’t go down without understanding why.

  He dug under his bed and pulled out a half-used notebook, one meant for school, with his name written in messy ink on the front. He tore out a few old pages and set it on his lap. His hand trembled a little as he picked up a pen.

  “Know your enemy better than your friends.”

  His mother used to say that during tense meals, usually while talking about men who smile too much.

  If the world was now his enemy, he had to understand its rules.

  He started to write.

  1. I’m in a loop.

  It sounded stupid, even on paper. But writing it grounded him. If this was all in his head, then so be it. But if not… then he needed proof. Something real. Something to hold on to.

  2. The loop has a core structure: scenes.

  He remembered it clearly now. The major scenes, the meal with his mother, the scavenger’s cart, the merchants’ fight, the child’s fall… those happened with or without him.

  When he wasn’t there, they still occurred, just with less flavor. Less detail.

  When he was there, it was like the scene acknowledged his presence. Dialogue changed. Actions shifted. But the plot stayed the same.

  3. Some scenes are considered more “important ” than others

  Those are the scenes that he needs to change.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  He had observed and interacted in many scenes, making them different almost each day but they didn’t change anything.

  But who or what decides which event is important ?

  4. Interfering directly causes backlash.

  The merchants.

  The fight.

  The scream he never finished.

  The pain.

  The blood.

  He shuddered. His breath hitched at just the memory.

  Too much interference, and the world fights back. Not figuratively. Not symbolically.

  It hurts.

  Sometimes a headache. Sometimes a hallucination.

  Sometimes… almost death.

  The punishment scales with how much he tries to change. That much was clear.

  5. You can’t intervene right as something is happening.

  That seemed to be the key. Every time he acted during a scene or right before he paid for it.

  With his mother.

  With the scavenger.

  With the merchants.

  It was like the script had already been handed out. He was just an extra who had no lines.

  Try to speak… and the stagehand breaks your legs.

  6. But you might be able to act before the scene.

  This rule wasn’t tested yet, but it lingered in his mind like a possible loophole.

  Could he seed a change earlier in the day?

  Could he plant something hours before a scene and let it ripple?

  He didn’t know. But maybe that was the path.

  7. The loop can be broken.

  It happened once. The scavenger didn’t get injured. That day ended differently.

  That night, he didn’t loop.

  He remembered feeling something strange… a kind of fullness, like he had swallowed a part of the day.

  He wasn’t sure how or why.

  But the loop can be broken. He was sure of it.

  He remembered, when he tried to talk to his parents.

  what happened that day wasn’t a vision or a premonition… it really happened.

  He lived this scene , he was sure of it.

  8. It seems like I can go back in time without the day finishing.

  Sometimes just a few seconds.

  Sometimes… all the way to the beginning.

  But how? What triggers it?

  Emotion? Instinct? Guilt?

  This needs to be studied.

  9. When the loop ends, I feel… full. But not like from food. It’s more like…

  He paused, then leaned closer to the paper.

  He knew the word.

  Gb?.

  That’s what he was supposed to write. That’s what he felt.

  He brought the pen down. And stopped. His hand refused to move.

  He tried again, gently, deliberately. The moment he began to shape the g, a sharp pain shot across his temples. He gritted his teeth and forced it.

  The pen scratched half of a curve before the pain exploded.

  “Agh!”

  He dropped the pen, pressing both hands to his head.

  A splitting headache.

  Worse than the first one. The kind that makes you forget what breathing is supposed to feel like.

  He curled forward, hunched over the notebook like it might protect him. It didn’t. For thirty full minutes, the pain gripped him. Then just like that, it vanished.

  He wiped the sweat from his brow, panting.

  His mother’s words returned like a ghost:

  “Don’t say that word carelessly.”

  He swallowed. “I guess thinking about it is okay… whispering it gives a little sense of heaviness… and writing it is impossible. For now.”

  He stared at the notebook. Then, carefully, wrote a substitute line.

  9. Breaking the loop = eating time

  10. Certain objects disappear after interaction.

  He thought of the blade his father gave him, gone.And the rusted blade from the trench also vanished.

  In both cases, that strange fullness returned.

  Some items carried weight… maybe even a piece of time.

  He didn’t know how or why. But they weren’t normal.

  11. The mask saves me.

  He wrote it reluctantly.

  Because he didn’t want to rely on it.

  Because he didn’t understand it.

  Because deep down, he feared it.

  But it had saved him. Twice now. When the chaos got too loud, when he was about to break… it appeared.

  Like it knew.

  Like it wanted him to survive.

  He leaned back, letting the pen drop from his fingers. His hand was cramping. His headache still buzzed like a dying fly. But he felt… lighter.

  He read over the list again. It wasn’t perfect. But it was something.

  A framework.

  A base.

  His first page in a war journal against time itself.

  While staring at the page, a bitter thought crept in.

  “…If I don’t escape, all I wrote will vanish, right…?”

  He looked down at the notebook, the messy handwriting, the faint smudge of his palm dragging across the ink.

  “Well… I guess I’ll just write it again tomorrow, heh…”

  There was no humor in the laugh. Only fatigue.

  This chapter is the longest that I wrote until now but it’s also one of the most important.