The alarm reads 6:14 a.m., Thursday. Maren already knows the rain starts at 6:51. She has watched it begin forty times now. Ward C smells like cleaner and cold coffee when she clocks in. Same chart. Same silent man in Bed 9 who hasn't woken in two years. She is wiping his arm when his fingers twitch and grab her wrist, hard. He has never moved before. "Day forty-one," he whispers. "Don't let it reset."

Maren freezes. "You know about the loop?" The man's eyes open, clear and sharp. "I started it," he says. "My name is Sol. I'm trapped in here, and so are you. Help me sit up. We don't have long before 6:51." She checks the clock: 6:33. She decides to listen.

Sol grips the rail and pulls himself upright, shaking. "I was a researcher. I built a machine to repeat one safe day forever, so my dying daughter could live it again. It worked too well and swallowed the whole ward." He points at the wall clock. "The reset hides in there. At 6:51 it sends us all back. So we stop the clock." The clock reads 6:40.

Maren drags a chair under the clock and reaches up. "Wait," Sol shouts. "Don't smash it, or we're stuck at 6:50 forever. Spin the hands FORWARD, past 6:51, so the reset has nothing to land on." She spins them to 7:00. For a second nothing. Then the rain starts at 6:51 anyway, and the ward shudders like it can't pick a time.

Maren freezes, hand on the clock. "If I get this wrong, we're stuck at 6:50 forever?" She can't risk it. She steps down and grabs Sol's hand instead. "Then we ride it out, and next time I'll remember more." The rain begins. The reset takes them. But this time one new memory sticks: the clock is the lock.