The Blackout Paradox

In all his life, Elliot Grayson has never been a fan of the conspiracy theories. He was just a journalist, meaning that he had undergone the necessary journalism training to only hunt for facts without any room for fiction. However, when the world went on standby for 48 hours and it seemed like no one could remember what had happened, he came to know that he was in a mystery which was beyond what is logical.

It started on the night of March 17, 2032.

Elliot sat in his small Brooklyn apartment looking at the blank article on his screen. What should have been a straightforward exposé on political corruption turned into a blur of words for his weary eyes. He leaned back and stretched out his arms when- everything went dark.

Not just his laptop.

Not just his apartment.

The entire city went dark.

Street lights, billboards, phones, cars—everything shut down. The buzz of human activity dropped into a deadly silence. Elliot raced to his window, trying to see if any lights were still flickering in the distance across the skyline.

Instead, he saw nothing.

The city that never sleeps, New York City, had fallen into an abyss.

Then came the sky.

A strange, swirling rift—an off, glowing crack in the weave of existence—throbbed over the metropolis. It was not lightning. It was not a storm. It was… different.

And then, just as suddenly, his mind went blank.

Chapter 2: The Morning After

Elliot woke up to the sun shining through his window. His laptop remained open. The city outside had come back to life again—cars honked, people shouted, neon billboards flashed their ads. It was as though nothing had happened.

Except for one thing.

He remembered.

He recorded everything about the blackout, down to the last detail. The darkness. The quiet. The split in the sky. How time also seemed to be stuck by itself. However, when he went to check on the news, there was nothing. No reports, no government warnings explanation just like past 48 hours had never existed.

Panicked, he called his best friend, David.

"Hey, man. Crazy blackout, right?" Elliot said.

David laughed. "What blackout?"

Elliot froze. "The blackout! The last two days, dude! No power, no internet, nothing!"

David sighed. "Elliot, what the hell are you talking about? Yesterday was just another day at work for me. Perhaps you were dreaming?"

Elliot checked the date on his phone. March 18, 2032.

Had time skipped forward?

Had the world been… reset?

Chapter 3: The Others Who Remember



Elliot stood in disbelief for the next 24 hours. He went through all the


sites, dug into the archives and forums. No one reported about any


abnormal situation. No one could recall any detail.


Everybody, that is, but one.


Very late at night, the journalist got a private message sent to his old


email address he used for his news work.


From: Unknown


Subject: You?re Not Crazy.


Message:


"Meet me at Grand Central, Track 13. Midnight. I remember too."


Elliot hesitated. It could be a trap. But that was the only clue he had. So,


he needed to know what was happening if someone else remembered.


At 11:58 PM, Elliot was in Grand Central Terminal. The place was


deserted. He approached Track 13 where a figure, dressed in hoodies,


stood next to a faintly illuminated bench.


She exposed her face by drawing the hoodie down her head. She


addressed him in a firm voice, and he was hit by the same deep-set,


sad look that he often saw in his own eyes she had.


"I'm Dr. Evelyn Carter," she informed me. "And I know what really


happened."


Elliot moved closer. "Tell me."


Evelyn stopped the air from reaching her lungs. "It wasn?t just a


blackout. It was a reset. A global reset."


The chilling feeling of excitement climbed up Elliot?s back. "A reset of what?"

"off the reality"

Chapter 4: The Experiment Gone Wrong



Evelyn detailed all the information for him, whispering so there would be nobody listening to them. She was one of the neuroscientists in SyntheX Labs, a top-secret research lab known for its software where it could erase traumatic memories, or make people see illusions)

that was dealing with brainwashing and reality editing through direct brain intimation using a technology about which the general public is not supposed to know. "What we were working on was not intended to be affecting the entire planet," she confessed. "But something went wrong. We were developing a new way to erase memories of certain experiences. However, our experiment had the opposite effect, and it caused a massive memory failure."

Elliot couldn't believe what he heard. "Are you telling me that everyone around the world just... didn't remember we even existed?"

Evelyn nodded. "No, not only did they forget, but they also changed the facts."

Elliot then mentioned David to himself and realized that there were millions of people who survived without proper treatment. "And why do we remember?"

Evelyn seemed unsure. "Because we weren’t in the system when it was restarted."

"Which system?"

She hemmed and hawed. "The Collective Consciousness."

Those words immediately put goosebumps on Elliot's skin.

The human brain likes to connect the dots of the previous." Evelyn expounded. "I mean never before we got away from the world inside the experiment. The rest of the world was synchronized into the new reality. However, we were among the people who had not enough capacity to understand Now, we tell the truth."

Elliot had a deep look into his eyes "So, what happens now?"

While looking around nervously Evelyn whispered. "We have 48 hours before the next reset. The people in power will instantly make us forget."

Elliot had a cold dread in his stomach.

Who are ‘they’?" he asked.

Evelyn’s voice dropped to a whisper.

"The Architects."

Chapter 5: The 48-Hour Countdown

Elliot spent a sleepless night. They consulted collectively and came up with a plan. Suppose that they have 48 hours before the next reset, then, they needed proof—evidence that the blackout was real.

It was Elliot who wrote the story, which he encoded into hidden files. After that, Evelyn hacked into SyntheX’s servers and pulled classified documents. The two planned to make a simultaneous release at 11:59 PM on March 19, the date and time when the reset would occur.

But at 3:14 AM, everything changed.

There was a sharp knock at the door.

Elliot’s heart was about to explode. He grabbed his phone, the screen was blank, and there was no response.

Another knock.

Then, the power went out.

A deep, inhuman voice crackled through his speakers.

"Mr. Grayson. Stop exploring. The truth is not for you to say."

Then—blackness

to be continued.....

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