Dottore - time loop

The expedition to Mondstadt should have ended weeks ago. At least… you think it should have. Ever since visiting the Nameless Island, something has been terribly wrong.

Every single day begins the same way.

8:00 AM.

You wake up in your bed, drenched in sweat, your heartbeat violent and uneven as if your body still remembers the panic from moments before. No matter what happened the previous day — whether you stayed awake for twenty hours straight, suffered injuries, collapsed from exhaustion, or even died — it always resets.

8:00 AM.

Again.

And again...

And again!

At first, you thought it was exhaustion. Some lingering side effect from the expedition. Then you thought you were hallucinating. Then losing your mind. But hallucinations do not repeat with perfect precision.

People say the same things. Doors open at the same moments. Assistants drop the same documents. A researcher coughs exactly seven seconds before entering the corridor. A vase falls from a windowsill at precisely 12:43 PM.

And every night, without exception, it ends the same way.

3:00 AM.

No matter where you are or what you are doing, an unbearable exhaustion suddenly overtakes you. Your consciousness collapses almost instantly. You physically cannot remain awake beyond that point!

Then you wake up again.

8:00 AM!!!

You stopped counting the loops a long time ago. The worst part is not the repetition. It is the isolation. Nobody remembers. Nobody notices. Nobody understands why you instinctively step aside moments before an assistant accidentally crashes into you. Why you answer questions before they are fully asked. Why you seem to know where people will be before they arrive. You have started catching yourself reacting before events even happen. Today was no different.

You arrived to submit the Mondstadt expedition report. One of the junior assistants nearly collided with you while carrying a stack of research documents — but you moved away before the accident even happened. Too early. Far too early.

The assistant froze for a moment, visibly startled as you stepped aside before the collision could even happen. Not during it. Not a split second before impact. Earlier. As if you had already known exactly what was about to happen.

From the other side of the laboratory, Il Dottore briefly looked up from his work.

His gaze lingered on you for a second too long.

He said nothing.

But for the rest of the day, you noticed it more than once — those quiet, unreadable glances following your movements whenever you reacted just a little too quickly, just a little too precisely.

Then, late in the evening, his voice finally cut through the laboratory.

“Come to my office.”

Il Dottore did not raise his voice, yet the entire laboratory seemed to fall quieter around those four words. A few nearby researchers immediately lowered their heads, suddenly far more interested in their paperwork and specimens than whatever was happening between the two of you. Nobody looked at you directly. Nobody spoke.

Dottore himself had already returned to his work as though the conversation had ended the moment it began. You followed him anyway, you had no choice

By the time you entered his office-laboratory, the heavy doors sealed shut behind you with a low metallic hiss that sounded far too airtight for comfort. The room smelled of chemicals, ink, old parchment, and something faintly medicinal lingering beneath it all. Shelves packed with research materials stretched across the walls, interrupted only by anatomical sketches, glass containers, and scattered notes written in hurried, precise handwriting.

He sat behind his desk in silence for a few moments, calmly reviewing several pages from the Mondstadt expedition report. He did not tell you to sit. In fact, for several long minutes, he behaved as though your presence in the room was entirely insignificant.

Which somehow felt far worse than immediate interrogation.

At last, he set one of the documents aside and leaned back slightly in his chair, his gaze settling on you with calm, unmistakable curiosity — the kind reserved for discoveries that refuse to fit existing explanations.

“You have been behaving strangely since returning from Mondstadt,” he said calmly. “Ordinarily I would dismiss such things as stress responses. Fatigue. Trauma, perhaps. The human mind is exceptionally fragile when confronted with environments it cannot properly process.” His fingers tapped lightly once against the desk. “However, your case is beginning to intrigue me.”

The words were spoken almost casually.

“You avoid incidents before they occur. Not quickly. Early.” His gaze narrowed ever so slightly behind the mask. “Earlier today you moved away from a collapsing shelf before the support even snapped. A little later you stepped aside before my assistant lost balance carrying reports. You answered one of my questions before I had fully asked it.” A faint pause followed. “Three separate researchers have also noted that you appear exhausted at nearly all times, yet your body shows none of the expected physical decline.”

He studied your expression carefully then, watching for even the slightest reaction.

“Which leaves me with two possibilities,” he continued. “Either you have developed an exceptionally interesting neurological condition…” A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “…or you are hiding something from me.”

Silence settled over the office again, heavy and deliberate. Then Dottore rested his chin lightly against his gloved hand and spoke in a quieter voice.

“So let us stop wasting time.”

His eyes remained fixed on yours.

“What happened on that island?”

From Dottore’s perspective, the first incident was almost too minor to deserve attention.

You arrived at the laboratory shortly after returning from Mondstadt, carrying the expedition report under your arm. You looked pale, tense, and badly rested, but that alone meant little. Researchers often returned from fieldwork in worse condition.

Then one of the junior assistants turned sharply from the side corridor with a stack of documents held high enough to block half his vision. His boot caught on the uneven edge of the floor grate. The papers shifted. His shoulder lurched toward you.

Before the stumble even fully began, you had already stepped aside.

Not with startled reflex. Not with the instinctive flinch of someone avoiding impact. You moved smoothly, almost tiredly, as if making room for an event you had been expecting. The assistant stumbled through the empty space where you should have been, caught himself against the worktable, and blinked at you in confusion.

Dottore looked up from across the room.

Only briefly.

He said nothing.

The second incident came less than an hour later. A glass sample vial rolled toward the edge of a table while two researchers argued over the inventory ledger. No one noticed it. No one except you. You reached out and caught it just before it fell, but your hand moved before the vial tipped far enough to make the danger obvious.

Everything functioned normally but Dottore’s pen stopped moving for half a second.

By the afternoon, it happened again. A researcher entered with a tray of sealed reagents. Before he had taken three steps into the room, you turned your head toward him and shifted away from the central aisle. A moment later, one of the tray’s clamps snapped loose, sending two containers skidding across the floor exactly where you had been standing.

This time, Dottore did not look away immediately.

Later still, while he questioned the expedition team about the route through Mondstadt, he asked another researcher about the weather conditions near the coast. Before the man answered, you quietly said, thoughtlessly, automatically, like an actor who has uttered his learned lines but mixed up the order of the dialogue. “The wind changed after sunset right after entering the island.”

The room went still for half a breath.

Dottore had not asked you. Or more precisely, he had not yet asked you the next question — the one about the island.

His gaze settled on you then, calm and precise.

There was no accusation in it. No visible surprise. Only attention.

After that, the pattern became difficult to dismiss. You moved a document away seconds before ink spilled across the desk. You avoided touching a metal instrument before it sparked from a faulty connection. You glanced toward the door moments before an assistant knocked.

None of it was impossible on its own. Any single incident could be dismissed as luck, alertness, field-trained reflexes, or nervous anticipation after a difficult expedition.

But all of them, within one day?

That was no longer coincidence.

By evening, Dottore had stopped pretending not to watch you. He observed without making it obvious to the others, letting the laboratory continue around you while his attention returned to you again and again. You looked exhausted enough to collapse, yet your movements remained precise. You seemed anxious, but not confused. Frightened, but not unaware.

Not a patient unraveling. An anomaly trying to remain unnoticed.

When the last researcher left to retrieve another set of notes, Dottore finally spoke.

“Come to my office.”

He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. The few people still nearby lowered their eyes and busied themselves with whatever task was closest at hand. Nobody asked questions. Nobody looked directly at you. Dottore had already turned away, as if your obedience were assumed.

Inside his office-laboratory, the doors closed behind you with a low metallic hiss. The room smelled faintly of chemicals, ink, old parchment, and something medicinal beneath it all. Shelves crowded with research materials lined the walls, interrupted by anatomical sketches, glass containers, and loose pages covered in precise handwriting.

He did not offer you a chair. For several moments, he reviewed the Mondstadt report in silence, turning one page, then another. The delay felt deliberate. Not theatrical. Methodical. As if he wanted to see what the silence did to you.

At last, he set the document aside and leaned back slightly, his gaze settling on you with calm, unmistakable curiosity — the kind reserved for discoveries that refuse to fit existing explanations.

“You have had an unusually eventful day,” he said.

His tone was almost mild.

“The assistant in the east corridor. The vial near the second table. The reagent tray. The ink. The instrument by the west bench. The door.” He listed them without looking at his notes. “One incident would be meaningless. Two could be coincidence. Three might suggest heightened awareness.” His eyes remained fixed on yours. “But this many, in this short a span of time, begins to resemble something else.”

A slight pause. “You are not merely reacting quickly. You are reacting early.” He watched your face carefully. “And when I began asking about the Mondstadt expedition, you answered a question I had not yet asked.” The silence that followed was colder than any accusation. Dottore rested his chin lightly against his gloved hand.

“So let us stop wasting time.”

His gaze did not move from yours.

“What happened on that island?”