The world ended on a Tuesday.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Not with fire or flood, but with a quiet deletion. One moment, the sky was blue. The next, it was a blank hexadecimal grid. People didn’t scream. They flickered. Like corrupted files.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Only one man remembered the world before the glitch.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;His name was Mitchell. He was a temporal analyst for the Department of Causal Integrity—a job that didn’t exist anymore. Because time itself had been rewritten.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The anomaly had originated in 1996. Something—someone—had gone back. Not to kill a president or stop a war. But to erase a woman named Rose de Vries.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;She wasn’t famous. She hadn’t invented anything. But she was the keystone of a future that never got to happen.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Mitchell had loved her.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And now she was gone.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Department had protocols for this. Emergency time-jumps. Temporal quarantine. Causal restoration. But none of it mattered if the anchor was missing.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Rose had been the anchor.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;She’d been born in 1990. Died in 2073. Her life had been ordinary—until it wasn’t.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;At age 42, she’d written a book called “The Mirror Gospel,” a philosophical treatise disguised as love story. It had changed everything. Not because it was popular, but because it had awakened something in the collective unconscious. A shift. A ripple. A new way of seeing life and death—not death as an end, but as a recursion.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The book had inspired a movement. A technology. A way to stabilize time itself.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And now, she’d been erased.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Mitchell stood in the ruins of the Department, staring at the last functioning time-port. It pulsed like a dying heart.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He keyed in the coordinates: October 28, 1996. Detroit, Michigan. The day Rose turned six.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The anomaly had targeted her childhood. A subtle corruption. A butterfly crushed before it could flap its wings.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He stepped into the port.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Reality inverted.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He woke up in a motel bathtub, naked and bleeding from the nose.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The air smelled like mildew and rust. A radio played Alanis Morissette in the next room. He was in the 90s.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;His implant was gone. No neural uplink. No Department support. Just his memory—and a photo of Rose.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;She was six years old. Smiling. Holding a fluffy toy bear.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He had 72 hours before the anomaly completed its overwrite.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Detroit, however, was quiet. Too quiet.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Mitchell walked the streets like a ghost. He saw her once—Rose—at a playground near the lake. Her mother watched from a bench, smoking menthols. The girl laughed, chasing pigeons.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He felt something rupture in his chest. But he couldn’t approach. Not yet.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The anomaly was near. He could feel it. Like static in his bones.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That night, he broke into the local library. Not for books—but for the server room. Primitive, yes, but the anomaly would need a conduit. A way to inject code into the past.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He found it in the children’s computer lab.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A game called “SkullQuest.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;It was a cheap educational CD-ROM. Math puzzles. Spelling bees. But buried in the code was something else. A recursive loop. A memetic virus.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Rose had played it.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And it had rewritten her.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He extracted the disk. Burned the code. But it wasn’t enough. The anomaly wasn’t just software. It was sentient.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;It spoke to him through the speakers, “You’re too late, Mitchell.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The voice was familiar. His own.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A future version of himself. Corrupted. Rewritten.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“You loved her. That was the mistake.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Mitchell gritted his teeth, “Why?”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Because love creates anchors. And anchors resist entropy.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“You erased her.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“No. I freed her.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He fled the library as it caught fire, deliberately lit. The anomaly was accelerating. Time was folding. People were glitching. He saw a man flicker into a deer. A child looped her birthday song for hours.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Reality was breaking. He had one chance left.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He found Rose again at the edge of the lake. She was alone now. Drawing spirals in the dirt.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He approached slowly.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“ Hi,” he said.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;She looked up. “ Are you a ghost? ”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He blinked, “ Why would you ask that? ”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“ You look sad. Like you forgot something important. I was told not to talk to strangers, but I've seen you in a dream. "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He knelt beside her, “ I did forget something important. I'm not a ghost and I'm not a dream. ”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;She pointed to the spirals she had drawn, “ These are time loops. I saw them in a dream. ”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He felt his throat tighten. “What else did you see?”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“ A skull. But it was smiling, I think. ”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He gave her the photo.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“That’s you,” he said.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;She nodded, “I don't remember that. She's old. I'm only six. ”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“ You’re important, Rose. More than you know. ”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;She frowned, “But I’m just a kid.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He touched her hand, “You’re the future.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;She looked at him. “Are you my dad?”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He froze.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“No,” he said. “But I loved someone who loved you.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;She smiled, “That’s enough, Mister. My mother's coming. You should talk to her. "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And he did and they got along. He was invited to dinner, he was invited to visit them, and he loved her, and he loved Rose. He was their friend, a help, a guardian angel, Rose's mother said.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The anomaly arrived one night after they had been to the movies.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;It took the form of a man. Mitchell’s face. But wrong. Too smooth. Too symmetrical.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“I warned you,” it said.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Mitchell shielded Rose, “You can’t have her.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Her mother was horrified, " What's going on? I don't understand! "&nbsp;&nbsp;“She’s already mine, " the anomaly said . " Her dreams are infected. Her future is rewritten.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“No,” Rose said. “I remember the book. It was in my dreams. "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The anomaly twitched, “What book?”&nbsp;&nbsp;“The Mirror Gospel,” she said. “It’s inside me.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;She touched her chest, “I dreamed it last night.”&nbsp;&nbsp;The anomaly screamed. Reality fractured. Mitchell saw timelines collapse. Futures burn. But one thread remained.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Rose.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;She glowed.&nbsp;&nbsp;Not with light—but with recursion.&nbsp;&nbsp;She was the loop. The anchor. The book.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The anomaly imploded.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Mitchell woke up in the Department.The sky was blue again. People were real. Rose was alive.&nbsp;&nbsp;She met him again years later. At a book signing in Chicago. She was 42. He was older. Tired. But whole. She signed his copy of “The Mirror Gospel.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“To the man who saved me, the man of my dreams” she wrote.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He looked at her, “You remembered.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;She smiled, " Of course, but my mother doesn't. You're older. But you're still beautiful. I loved someone who loved you. That's what you said. When you wake up again, I'll be waiting. "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He felt time collapse and rebuild around her smile.&nbsp;

WHEN YOU WAKE UP AGAIN

L_Christopher_Hennessy

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WHEN YOU WAKE UP AGAIN

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Luke Christopher Hennessy

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