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.

"Why me?" Maren asks. "Why do I remember and nobody else?" Sol coughs. "You touched me the exact second the rain started, forty days ago. That linked us. You're the only one who can break it." He presses a folded paper into her hand. "Shutdown code. There's a panel behind my bed. Type it before the rain." The clock reads 6:42.

Maren swings open the panel behind Bed 9 and types the code with shaking fingers. The machine beeps, then asks for a second code she doesn't have. "Sol, it wants more!" He goes pale. "I never finished the second half. I hoped you'd remember it from a past loop." The rain starts. She has seconds.