### **1.**
The screaming wasn't Jiya's.
It was his.
Ethan clawed at his temples as the world **split apart**—one moment standing in the dim glow of the radio, the next **hurtling through fragments of memory like shrapnel**.
Tires screeching. Glass shattering. A child's voice screaming *"Ethan!"*—not Lena's. *His.*
**"Wake up,"** the static twin had said. **"Before the truck—"**
But he was already there.
---
### **2.**
The truck's headlights seared his vision.
Ethan jerked the steering wheel—too late. Metal screamed as the impact **folded time itself**, throwing him into the **loop**.
*Again.*
*Again.*
*Again.*
Each reset sharper than the last. The dashboard clock flickered: **11:11 PM**, then **11:11 PM**, then—
**"BIG BROTHER!"**
Lena's voice. From the backseat.
*But she wasn't there before.*
---
### **3.**
The crash didn't come.
Silence.
Ethan gasped, his fingers white-knuckled on the wheel. The truck was frozen mid-impact, its grille inches from his windshield. **Time had stopped.**
From the radio, the glitching twin's voice:
**"You're getting closer."**
Ethan turned.
Lena—**seven years old**, in her dinosaur pajamas—sat cross-legged in the back. Her eyes were black. Not empty. *Full.* Like the static had pooled inside her.
**"You have to find him,"** she said.
**"Who?"** Ethan's voice cracked.
The twin answered instead: **"The other other brother."**
---
### **4.**
The world **snapped back**.
Ethan stood in his apartment, the radio dead. Jiya—*no, not Jiya, the stranger she'd become*—stared at him from the kitchen.
**"You okay?"** she asked. **"You look like you've seen a ghost."**
He had. *Himself.*
Ethan lunged for the hallway mirror—and froze.
**Three reflections.**
Him. The static twin.
And a **third figure**, barely visible, with Lena's wild curls and a smile that made his ribs ache.
**"Oh,"** whispered the twin. **"You weren't supposed to see *him* yet."**
---
### **5.**
The third brother pressed a hand to the glass.
**"They cut me out first,"** he said. His voice was Lena's, but deeper. Wrong. **"I was too real. Too *alive*."**
Ethan's breath fogged the mirror. **"Who are you?"**
**"The prototype."** The figure tilted its head. **"The one the System couldn't control."**
Behind him, Jiya dropped a glass. It shattered.
**"Who are you talking to?"** she whispered.
Ethan didn't answer. The third brother's fingers **pierced the mirror**, gripping his wrist—
---
### **6.**
—and yanked him **through**.
---
### **7.**
The other side was **all edges**.
Ethan stumbled into a corridor of fractured glass, each pane a **different memory**.
Him and Lena building pillow forts. (*Never happened.*)
Him holding a brother's hand at a funeral. (*He was an only child.*)
A version of himself **older, harder**, whispering to the static twin: *"We have to erase her."*
**"See?"** The third brother stepped into the light.
Ethan recoiled.
*His face. Lena's eyes.*
**"The System's first victim,"** the brother said. **"And its biggest mistake."**
---
### **8.**
A scream echoed through the glass.
*Lena's.*
Ethan spun toward the sound—just as a pane **shattered**, revealing the crash.
**Real, this time.**
Lena, twelve years old, braced in the backseat. The truck's shadow swallowing them whole.
**"Save her,"** the third brother said. **"And you'll remember *me*."**
Ethan reached for the glass—
---
### **9.**
—and woke up **bleeding in the wreckage**.
Rain sliced through the shattered windshield. Lena's hand was limp in his.
*No. No no no—*
Then her fingers **twitched**.
**"Ethan?"** she slurred. **"Where's Nico?"**
*Nico.*
The name **unlocked something**.
The third brother's voice, laughing in his ear: **"Told you."**
---
### **10.**
The System **ripped him back**.
Ethan gasped, sprawled on his apartment floor. The mirror was whole again. Empty.
Jiya—*no, the not-Jiya*—knelt beside him. **"You passed out,"** she said. **"You kept saying... Nico?"**
Ethan's pulse hammered. **"Who's that?"**
She blinked. **"I... don't know."**
But he did.
The radio crackled to life. The twin's voice, urgent:
**"They're coming. You woke up the wrong brother."**
Outside, the streetlights **flickered off**.
One by one.
---
**(End of Chapter 5 )**
---
### **TEASER FOR CHAPTER 6:**
- **Nico's Price**: The third brother offers a deal—**"Bring me back, and I'll show you who killed Lena."**
- **Jiya's Glitch**: The System's rewrite **falters**—she remembers *half* of her old life.
- **The System's Fear**: The static twin warns: **"It's not just erasing people. It's *replacing* them."**