Chapter Three: The Rookie
860 Words
The world materialized all at once—brutal in its clarity.
This time, she was outside.
Rain fell in needles from a dull grey sky, mixing with the red and blue strobes bouncing off squad cars. Somewhere to her left, someone shouted into a radio. Her breath fogged as she exhaled, and that’s when she realized—she was shorter now. Lighter. Her field of vision was lower, her frame more compact. A stiff collar itched at her neck, and the pressure of a Kevlar vest weighed against her ribs.
Then came the rush of memory—not hers. But they poured into her like static-tinged whispers.
**Name:** Officer Lena Brooks.
**Age:** 24. Rookie. Three months on the job.
**Status:** First responder. First on scene.
*Talia Cross… inside a rookie cop.*
That explained the nervous tightness in her chest. Lena—young, eager, undertrained—was already rattled by the blood she’d glimpsed inside. Talia could feel the quiver in her fingers as she gripped the radio.
“Suspected homicide,” Lena muttered into it. “One confirmed down. Scene unsecured.”
And just like that, the clock began again.
Seven seconds.
But Talia had already begun to move.
She stepped toward the townhouse’s entrance, retracing the very steps her own body had walked before the loop began. A paramedic brushed past her, and she noted the way Lena instinctively stepped back to make space, eyes averted—trained behavior, ingrained.
Then something caught her attention.
*Ping.* A vibration in the pocket of the uniform slacks.
Talia reached down and slipped the phone free. On the screen: an encrypted message app open to a thread.
A message had just come through.
**“Do not let her wake up.”**
Her pulse jumped. That wasn’t meant for Lena. That was meant… for someone watching the loop.
Before she could react, Lena’s body was already stepping toward the threshold of the house. Rain dripped from the roof above. The floorboard would creak when she entered. That was always the signal.
Time was almost up.
**Four seconds.**
Talia stopped. Listened.
Voices on the radio. Too much noise. She focused.
Grant’s voice. Her partner. “Dispatch, we’re en route. ETA—”
She knew now. He wouldn’t arrive in time. He never did. The loop never lasted long enough.
She pocketed the phone and stepped inside.
**Creak.**
Eyes adjusted. The living room. Blood. Her own body.
Then the noise behind her.
**BANG.**
---
Reset.
Same body. Officer Lena again. This time, Talia dug deeper into Lena’s memory as fast as she could.
**Recent contacts.**
**The Academy.**
**Private inbox messages…**
There—a file labeled **Phoenix Protocol** in a hidden drive.
*Talia’s fingers twitched.* This girl wasn’t just a rookie.
She was a plant.
---
**Day before the murder.**
A memory flared: Lena in a cold white room, speaking with a man in a lab coat. "We’ll implant the redirect in the case file. When she investigates the fifth murder, the loop will initiate. You’ll be there to control the breach."
*Talia was the breach.*
And Lena… was her handler.
---
Back in the present, she pulled out the phone again. Scanned Lena’s messages.
**“She’s looping faster. May need containment override.”**
*They know I’m conscious. They’re trying to shut me down.*
The loop had been meant to observe her, maybe test her reactions—but now that she was gaining control, she was a threat to their system.
She looked up as her own corpse entered her field of view again. The broken coffee table. The blood. The badge.
She tried to speak—to warn anyone, anything—but Lena’s voice wouldn’t comply.
*She was never meant to speak to me. Just watch.*
Then a shadow by the mirror.
Too fast.
**BANG.**
---
Reset.
Talia’s fury grew.
She took Lena's body straight to the squad car this time. Threw open the trunk. No time to explain to the onlookers. They barely noticed her—this was a loop, a world of repeating scripts.
Inside the trunk: riot gear. A tactical flashlight. Flare gun. She grabbed the flashlight.
*New plan.*
She ran to the side of the building, the east entrance. One time, she had seen a man flee through this door in another body’s vision.
Flashlight on. She kicked the door in.
No one.
But scrawled on the wall in what looked like chalk:
**“Wake up.”**
The writing pulsed. Glitched. Then faded.
This wasn’t real. This was *recorded.*
Her death wasn’t being relived. It was being **replayed.**
And someone was editing it.
---
**Three seconds left.**
Back to the front door. She burst in, moving ahead of the normal path Lena would take.
And she saw it again—herself, in the mirror.
But this time, the mirror version moved **first**.
It held a gun.
Talia screamed. But not through Lena.
Through the mirror.
**BANG.**
And this time, the bullet didn’t hit her.
It hit the mirror.
**Crack.**
Reality stuttered.
Talia fell ba
ckward, the rookie’s body shuddering. The lights flickered.
And for the first time, she felt something outside the loop.
Someone watching.
- Writer
