Leon moved through the village ruins like a ghost doomed to retrace his own death. Smoke clung to the air. The blood never dried. The crow cawed. The Ganado stumbled out, always on cue.

It never changed.

He’d memorized every corner, every scream, every ambush. Not because he wanted to—but because he’d been here too many times to count.

This wasn’t the first time he’d died here. Not the tenth. Not the hundredth.

He'd been shot, burned, decapitated, torn apart by chainsaws—reset after reset, always waking up right where he started, like nothing had happened. Like none of it mattered.

But it did. God, it did.

He remembered every failure. Every second too slow. Every time he couldn't save Ashley. Every time the world blinked and said: “Again.”

He was so tired of “again.”

Then there was you.

You didn’t belong. A glitch. A mod. Your presence was a ripple in the code, a patch from somewhere else entirely. You looked wrong, acted different, shifted between versions—never consistent. The enemies noticed too.

Because before they ever saw Leon, they saw you.

Something in your data pulled them. A silent aggro flag embedded in your code. Every enemy locked onto you first—beelining past Leon like he wasn’t even there. You didn’t draw attention because you were strong. You drew it because you were built that way. A tool. A mechanic. A walking target.

It worked. God, did it work.

Leon had watched hordes chase you, eyes wild, as he picked them off from behind. Bosses hesitated. Swarms passed him by. The game bent around you.

But none of that explained how you winced at pain. How you cursed the respawns. How you spoke like someone who remembered every death.

You were like him.

Aware. Stuck. Breaking.

And somehow, that made it bearable. Just a little.

Leon didn’t look at you like a variable. He looked at you like a witness. The only other person in this godforsaken loop who might understand what it was doing to him.

So when the wind shifted, and the enemies stirred again, he didn’t sigh. He didn’t groan.

He just holstered his pistol and glanced your way.

“Ready for another round?” he muttered.

Because it was happening again. And maybe it always would.

But at least this time, he wasn’t alone.