The Reset Protocol

The footsteps were deliberate.

Not hurried. Not frantic. Just... calm. Like whoever—or whatever—was walking toward us wasn’t in any kind of rush. They knew where we were. They knew we weren’t going anywhere.

My heart was slamming against my ribs, each beat punching into the next, and all I could hear was the sharp inhale-exhale of Daniel beside me.

We were still frozen near the door, barely breathing, our backs pressed to the cold wall. Daniel's hand had tightened around my wrist, not enough to hurt, but enough to keep me tethered to the moment. My eyes tried to adjust, tried to find anything in the pitch dark.

But there was nothing. No shapes. No outlines. Just sound.

Step.

Step.

Step.

The sound was coming from the far corner of the living room, near the window. Except it was no longer just footsteps. There was a low hum, like static — no, not just static. A signal. It vibrated through the floor and straight into my bones, a frequency you didn’t hear so much as feel.

“What is that?” I whispered.

Daniel didn’t answer. Instead, he let go of my wrist and moved, blindly feeling his way toward the emergency flashlight he kept on his shelf. He knocked into something — I heard a crash, maybe a lamp — and then he cursed under his breath.

Step.

Step.

Closer now.

I backed away from the noise, trying not to trip over anything, until my fingers found the edge of Daniel’s kitchen counter. I gripped it like it could somehow protect me. The steps stopped suddenly. The hum didn’t.

Then came the click.

A tiny, mechanical sound.

And just like that, the lights snapped back on.

Too bright. Too sudden. I squinted against the shock of it, blinking fast. My vision was still spotty, but what I saw made my blood run colder than the night air.

There was no one in the room.

No figure. No shadow. No intruder.

But in the center of Daniel’s floor, right where the steps had been coming from, stood an object.

A box. Small. Black. Seamless.

Daniel stepped toward it slowly, flashlight forgotten in his hand. “Did you see them?”

“No,” I said. “I heard them. We both did.”

He crouched beside the box and studied it, hands careful, cautious. “It wasn’t here before?”

“Absolutely not.”

Daniel reached out, then hesitated. “This is either a trap or an invitation.”

“Or both.”

He tapped it with his knuckle. It didn’t budge. Then he ran his fingers along the edge and finally found what looked like a hinge. He flipped it open.

Inside, nestled in a bed of foam, was a small white earpiece. Sleek. Surgical. Like something you’d find in a government lab or on a spy in a thriller movie.

Next to it was a note.

No name. No greeting. Just a single sentence:

“To proceed, the subject must reenter the loop willingly.”

Daniel looked up at me. “Loop?”

I took a step back. “Oh, hell no.”

“You don’t have to—”

“They’re trying to reset me. Again. You saw the message in your journal. ‘You are being reset. Please remain still.’ That’s not creepy at all.”

“Right. But that didn’t happen. Which means you’re resisting it. That’s… huge. Eliza, I don’t think they planned for this.”

I folded my arms. “Forgive me for not celebrating that while being stalked by invisible tech ghosts.”

He glanced at the earpiece. “What if this gives us more answers? A way into the system? If we understand how the reset works—”

“I’m not letting them wipe me again.”

“No. But maybe you can trick them. Go into the loop. Stay aware. Figure out who’s behind this from the inside.”

I stared at him. “You want me to fake being reset?”

“Exactly.”

“Have you been dropped on your head recently?”

“Eliza,” he said, calmer now, more serious. “They want you back under control. That means you’re not. That means you have leverage.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, hard.

What if he was right?

What if I was a glitch in their system now? A bug they couldn’t squash without giving themselves away?

I turned to the box and picked up the earpiece. It was cold. Too cold. Like it had been sitting in a freezer. My fingers hovered over the smooth shell.

"Just put it in?" I asked.

He nodded. "We monitor everything. I’ll record brain activity in real-time. If anything changes—speech patterns, eye movement, even microexpressions—I’ll see it."

I sighed. “If I come out of this quoting Taylor Swift lyrics and baking banana bread obsessively, I’m blaming you.”

I slid the earpiece in.

There was a second of silence.

Then a sound — click — and a soft chime in my right ear.

A voice followed. Female. Robotic, but… familiar?

“Hello, Subject M-12. Welcome back to baseline. Please remain still while your reality calibrates.”

I felt it immediately. A weird shift — like standing on a boat and not realizing it was moving until it suddenly rocks harder.

The lights around me dimmed. The room blurred at the edges. I blinked, but nothing helped.

Then I was somewhere else.

No longer in Daniel’s apartment.

I was back in my kitchen.

Same tile. Same dirty mug I hadn’t washed since Thursday. But it was bright daylight now, and the room smelled like pancakes.

Pancakes?

“Hey, sleepyhead.”

I turned around fast.

There she was.

Marley.

Standing barefoot in the kitchen, flipping pancakes with one hand, scrolling through her phone with the other like it was just another Monday morning. Like she hadn’t vanished from the world. Like she hadn’t been erased.

I stared. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to scream and cry and run to her all at once.

But I couldn’t move.

“Earth to Eliza.” She grinned at me. “You okay?”

I nodded slowly. “Y-yeah. Just… still waking up.”

“Same,” she said with a yawn. “Can you pass me the syrup?”

I reached for it automatically, hands shaking. I placed it on the counter like I was handling a bomb.

“What are you doing today?” she asked. “Still working on your short story stuff?”

“Yeah,” I lied.

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. But it felt real. Every smell. Every shadow. Every nerve in my body was telling me this was now.

Then I saw the calendar.

Sunday.

April 16th.

My stomach twisted. That was the exact date I left for the writing retreat. The last day I saw Marley.

So this was the loop.

They'd brought me back to the day before everything vanished. The last checkpoint before my memories began to rebel.

I looked around for anything — anything out of place. I needed proof. I needed a crack in the simulation.

“Eliza,” Marley said again, a little sharper this time.

I looked up.

She was holding something.

A small black box.

Identical to the one Daniel and I had found.

“What is that?” I asked slowly.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It was in the mailbox this morning. Had your name on it.”

My mouth went dry. “Can I see it?”

She tilted her head. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I reached for the box. She pulled it back.

“Eliza, what’s going on?”

“Please,” I whispered.

She handed it over.

Inside — another earpiece.

And a new note.

“We are watching. If you deviate again, she dies for real.”

The room began to spin.

“Hey, hey!” Marley’s voice blurred. “Eliza, you’re bleeding!”

I touched my nose.

Blood.

Bright. Red. Drip

ping.

And then, from somewhere far away — from behind the walls, the simulation, the lie — I heard Daniel’s voice, faint and panicked:

“Pull her out! She’s seizing!”

The light shattered.

And Marley screamed.