We are all in the game

Thunder rumbled outside the window, like a heavy boulder crushing the sky, making the windowpane vibrate.

On the coffee table, two notebooks lay open silently. One was a calm journal recording fifty-two deaths within the clouds; the other was a prophetic collection of drawings depicting various death scenarios throughout time. The cold words and chaotic lines confronted each other, as if silently questioning: Who is truly the prisoner trapped in this cycle?

"What makes me so sure?" Time repeated Yunxi's last rhetorical question, his voice dry. His fingertips unconsciously traced the lines of unambiguous records in his notebook—time, place, method—everything logically sound and irrefutable. This was his sole reliance throughout his fifty-two reincarnations, the foundation of all his actions.

But now, that foundation is crumbling.

He suddenly looked up, his sharp gaze fixed on the gap in the clouds: "When did you begin painting these pictures? The exact time."

Yunxi seemed to have anticipated his question. She calmly walked to her desk, turned on her computer, and brought up an encrypted folder. Inside were scanned paintings, each marked with a detailed creation date.

“The earliest one with a clear date is October 7th last year.” She pointed to the picture on the screen of Shi Xu wearing an unfamiliar school uniform lying on a street corner. “At that time, I had just started my second year of high school, had not yet transferred schools, and did not know you at all.”

October 7th last year.

Shi Xu's heart felt like it was being gripped tightly by an icy hand. It was the third day after he began his thirtieth cycle. In that cycle, he was indeed wearing the school uniform he had bought in the painting to sneak into the vocational high school next door, and he was indeed "accidentally" injured on that back street on the tenth day.

Everything matches up perfectly.

But how could that be? In the original timeline, Yunxi should have been living a peaceful life on the other side of the city, with no connection to his life!

“And this.” Yunxi clicked on another image, a sketch of the laboratory and the transparent capsule, dated three months ago. “When I drew it, I felt only fear and inexplicable confusion. But now it seems…” She paused, her gaze turning to the timeline with a complex expression, “Is that… you in some ‘future’?”

Time offered no answer. His mind raced, trying to piece together the fragments. A precognitive painting? A time paradox? Or perhaps…

An even more terrifying and absurd conjecture came to his mind.

He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down, and his gaze returned to his notebook. He turned to the pages recording the thirty-first cycle of reincarnation, his finger pointing to a line describing the manner of death within the clouds.

"The thirty-first time, you fell from the school rooftop, right?" he asked, his voice tense without him even realizing it.

Yunxi leaned closer to take a look and nodded: "On the screen... yes, the railing suddenly broke."

“But according to my records,” Shixu’s fingertips pressed heavily on the paper, “in that loop, I was injured in the previous loop and had difficulty moving, so I couldn’t get to the school in time. By the time I arrived, the accident had already happened. I didn’t witness the moment you fell.”

He raised his head, staring intently into Yunxi's eyes: "So, what you 'saw,' or what you 'dreamed', is this 'result' that I recorded, or... the 'process' that you personally experienced?"

This question is like a key, instantly breaking through that blurry window paper.

Yunxi's face paled slightly. She closed her eyes, seemingly trying to recall something. A few seconds later, she suddenly opened her eyes, her pupils contracting in shock.

“It was the process…” Her voice trembled slightly, “I ‘felt’… the wind blowing across my cheeks, felt weightlessness… and… the excruciating pain before landing…” She instinctively covered her arms and ribs, as if those invisible wounds were resurfacing.

A deathly silence fell over the living room.

If she had only passively received the "result" recorded in the timeline, then what she experienced would have been a vague concept of "death." But what she experienced was the "process," the sensory details of someone who lived through it!

This points to a chilling possibility—

"We..." Shixu's voice was so low it was almost inaudible, "maybe we're in the same cycle, just... from a different perspective."

He was not a detached observer, nor was she a passive target waiting to be saved.

They are prisoners in the same vast labyrinth of time, one recording the other's death, the other depicting the other's end, yet both believing themselves to be the only one who is awake.

The rain outside the window started falling again sometime earlier, tapping densely on the glass like countless whispers.

Looking at the girl in front of him, who was both familiar and unfamiliar, Shi Xu felt a chill run down his spine for the first time.

“Cloud Gap,” he spoke slowly, each word carrying immense weight, “in your 'premonition' or 'dream'... have you ever seen the ending where both of us... survive together?”

The gap in the clouds fell silent.

She walked to the window and looked at the world outside, blurred by the rain. Her figure looked somewhat frail.

After a long while, she answered softly, her voice blending into the patter of the rain:

"No."

Not even once.