"A Life in Reverse"

"A Life in Reverse"

My throat is holding my breath as I scream when I wake up. Once more, my hands are covered in blood. Despite the fact that I don't remember how it got there, the crimson stains are reminiscent of a recurring nightmare from which I can't get out. I don't look like the face in the mirror, or at least not the one I remember. The eyes that are looking back at me are too haunted, too old, and they are full of questions that I never asked. The time is 7:03 p.m. on the clock. I know, with absolute certainty, that I was dead at "7:04 p.m." That’s the only thing I’m sure of. The rest is a blur.

"Gregory Pack" is my name. I was a physician. I believe I was, at least. Or maybe I was worse than that. A killer. a monstrosity. As if time itself is rewinding me against my will, the lines are disappearing and my memories are unraveling in reverse.

# "6:59 p.m."

I’m standing in the hospital basement, a scalpel in my hand. A man lies bleeding at my feet, his breath ragged. "Why... Gregory?" he gasps.

I'm not sure. I don’t remember coming here. My hands act before my mind can catch up—I drop the scalpel, stumbling back, whispering apologies to ghosts whose names I can’t recall.

"6:45 p.m."

Nurse Eliza confronts me, her face twisted in anger. She’s holding a file—one I thought I’d burned. "How long have you been playing around with them?" she demands. “They were patients, Gregory.”

Patients? Experiments?

I laugh, but not because it’s funny. Because it feels like a lie. Because none of this makes sense. What is causing my memory to vanish over time?

"6:00 p.m."

The basement lab is filled with tubes, notes, and medical charts—all labeled “Project Lazarus.” The photos show faces that look like mine, but not quite. A child. an elderly man A woman. All me, yet not me.

What the hell is happening?

"5:30 p.m."

A man in a suit calls himself my handler. He says I’ve gone rogue. “You were never meant to remember,” he tells me. “You’ve reset too many times. Your own echos are bleeding into you. "Reset? Echoes?"

"4:00 p.m."

I watch surveillance footage—dozens of lives playing out at once. Me as a cleaner. A pianist. an official. I die at precisely "7:04 p.m." in each video. I don't have a life. I’m reliving fragments of lives that aren’t mine.

"2:00 p.m."

The first glitch happens.

A mirror doesn’t reflect me. A boy walks past and calls me “Father.” However, I do not have any children. "Or do I?"

I wake up with more information and fewer questions each hour. No—"the other way around."

"12:00 p.m."

A room full of monitors, each labeled “Subject: Gregory Pack.” A voice loops endlessly: “This is the final cycle. At 7:04 p.m., the service will end. I’m not a person. I'm in a loop. A simulation.

"7:04 p.m."

White light. After that, darkness. And then I wake up.

I'm being watched by a nurse. She states, "Subject 17 just rebooted." "Let's begin the memory integration all over again." A man beside her nods. “This time, disable emotional feedback.”

She sighs. “What about the twist ending protocol?”

“Scrap it. He keeps writing himself out of the simulation.”

They turn away.

I'm smiling. "I remember everything now."

They think I’m still trapped inside the loop.

But I wrote this "after" I escaped.