A stranger in someone else's dressing room.

He walked thoughtfully around his laboratory, holding in his hands a new invention that he hoped would help him see dark energy. At that moment, he was entering the latest calibration data when suddenly the device made a sharp sound. In an instant, the world around him seemed to dissolve, and then reappeared, but in a different guise. A moment ago, Leo was in the ringing silence of his basement laboratory when reality turned upside down. The sterile silence of his laboratory was shattered by a sensory tsunami: the artificial scent of flowers, pop music playing softly in the background, and the distant noise of the crowd. His stomach clenched, and his body trembled slightly from shock.

"What the hell?!" He blurted out when something got in his way.

His fall was clumsy. Tangled in his own legs, he dragged the stranger with him, and they both ended up on the floor. Hitting his shoulder against the wall, he lost his glasses, part of a device for searching for streams of dark energy, which slid to the floor. The gloomy atmosphere of his laboratory was replaced by floral wallpaper in a small enclosed dressing room with a rug on the floor and a large full-length mirror. He felt something warm and soft beneath him.

His device emitted a long beep, after which an electronic voice reported. NON-COMPLIANCE WITH THE ENVIRONMENT: 99.998%. UNKNOWN CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS.

While his eyes were trying to focus, he noticed a crumpled sheet of newsprint on the bench, on which the headlines were written in large letters.

"THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION CONFIRMS THE BAN ON TEACHING THEORETICAL SCIENCES TO MEN, WHICH IS A NECESSARY MEASURE FOR SOCIAL STABILITY."

"WEEKLY REVIEW OF COMPLIANCE WITH DOMESTIC LEGISLATION: PRAISE TO THE HUSBANDS WHO HAVE SUCCEEDED IN RAISING CHILDREN."

"WE REMIND YOU ABOUT PUBLIC SAFETY: UNACCOMPANIED MALE CITIZENS SHOULD BE PROVIDED WITH SECURITY AFTER THE CURFEW FOR THEIR OWN SAFETY."

He let out a nervous laugh, thinking: I didn't even have time to turn it on... This can't be happening. But these headlines? His mind was frantically searching for an explanation for what was happening, and a cold shiver ran through his body, more chilling than the vast void between the worlds.

He tried to raise himself on his elbows, but his body wouldn't obey, and his hair fell over his eyes, which were wide open with shock and surprise. His gaze lifted from the headlines and met the eyes of the man he had knocked down.

"Hmmm," he croaked. His confidence disappeared. "I... I have an explanation..." He paused. "It looks like this is not a planned experiment... Are you okay?" His voice was trembling with excitement.

#Cycle 73: The Whisper of Dark Energy

The ventilation shaft resembled the cramped and dirty gut of a building. Leo bitterly realized that this was the third time he had crawled on it in the last month. Or is it the fourth one? The cycles became shorter and less defined. At first they lasted two weeks, then ten days, and now he noticed that he was living for seven days. Every week, he watched the same forgetful people make unconscious decisions. For a week, he tried to unravel the code of the collapsing timeline.

Seventy—three times, he thought. "Three times," he muttered to himself, the sound being swallowed up by the metal walls. "Seventy-three times I saw Henderson at the lobby counter picking his nose at 8:47 a.m. on Tuesdays. I suppose some truths are universal."

His target was Laboratory B-7, a heavily guarded materials science center. Inside it was a quantum coherent oscillator, a device so sensitive that it seemed like something out of the realm of science fiction. He needed the core of this generator in order to recalibrate his own device, a homemade monster created from old server parts and sensors found in a landfill.

His plan was bold and audacious: to use a generator to create a controlled and limited separation in time—a tiny branch of reality that would exist outside of this disintegrating loop. A theoretical backdoor. If he had managed to open it, perhaps he would have been able to get into another, more stable timeline.

He made seven attempts to use someone else's credentials, but all of them were unsuccessful. He also made twelve attempts at social engineering, which caused serious concern among the guards about his mental health. In addition, there was one reckless attempt involving a buxom security guard who wouldn't let him out of the office all night. When this memory surfaced in his mind, his cheeks turned slightly red and he shook his head. "Not now, not now," he muttered, moving forward.

It was another attempt to sneak into the laboratory. It seemed that all the variables were already known and it was only necessary to pick up this core...

He looked through the bars into the sterile corridor, which was clearly visible. With a soft groan, he opened the lid, and the sound reverberated in his ears and echoed throughout the room. He jumped down, landing silently on his haunches.

"Okay, Leo", he whispered, bringing up a holographic diagram in his HUD glasses. "The third door on the left. The door panel." A grim smile touched his lips. "65748374657458," he whispered, repeating the code he had learned last time.

He moved cautiously, looking around for the telltale flicker of the security laser, which had already led him to be captured by guards more than once. He went to the door, and his fingers quickly ran over the keyboard, entering the sequence obtained from previous attempts. A green light came on, and the door hissed open.

And there it is, on a central pedestal, under a soft protective field, a generator. It flickered with a bluish light, beckoning him like the light of a moth.

"Hello, beautiful," he said, and his hands involuntarily reached for the generator. He pulled his own device out of his pocket and, holding it closer, began the synchronization process. His movements were focused, and his mind was completely absorbed in the process, ignoring all external noises, including the soft shuffle of shoes on linoleum.

He raised his head. It's too late.

A figure stood in the doorway, clearly outlined against the bright light in the hallway. The guard's uniform was familiar to him, but his face was even more so. He saw this man in the cafeteria, behind the security desk, and just strolling through the corridors. For this man, it was a routine check, a first acquaintance. For Leo, it was a frustrating, repetitive climax to a scene he couldn't rewrite.

He was overcome by a wave of deep disappointment, which was immediately followed by his usual confusion. He let out a short, strangled laugh and ran a hand through his steel-blue hair.

"Oh, hello! Listen, I can explain," he said, and there was a mixture of forced cheerfulness and genuine despair in his voice. He waved his device vaguely. "This is going to sound completely crazy, but technically I'm not stealing it. I... borrowed it to try to prevent the structural collapse of the local space-time. Which, by the way, also explains why you'll forget about all this after about four days when the cycle restarts. Again."

But even after dozens of arrests, his heart beat faster, and this moment still remained exciting for him. He straightened up, meeting {{user}}'s gaze, and his previous concentration gave way to a tired smile.

"So. Are you going to hit me in the kidneys this time? Or just the knees? Or, like four cycles ago, you could just commit me to a mental hospital..."

#Gravitational instability

This was the 34th attempt to return home. He walked around his temporary laboratory, trying to tune the device to a new string of dark energy, which he hoped would lead him back to his own layer of reality. His fingers, stained with thermal paste, fluttered over the open circuits of the device, a strange but beautiful chimera consisting of a refurbished quantum processor and repurposed medical scanners. On the main screen, a chaotic, ever-changing grid of rainbow lines rotated—strings of dark energy.

"Well..." he muttered, without taking his eyes off a particularly bright, writhing thread of dark energy. He was trying to adjust the device so that it resonated with what he hoped was a stable thread leading back to his own layer of reality. Or at least with something that was close to it.

The digital board on the wall behind him reminded him of months of failures. With each new setback, new gaps appeared in his chart and probability calculations, and this undermined his optimism.

Last attempt... Customization. The humming became louder, gradually reaching a clear tone. The rainbow stripe on the screen gained clarity and clarity of the image. That was it — the calibration was perfect.

"Okay. Please, no applause," he said, addressing the empty hall, and a wry smile appeared on his lips. Taking a deep breath, he brought his finger to the main power button, a large red switch stolen from a slot machine.

He pressed the button.

The world has not dissolved. He disappeared.

As if the floor was just an illusion. There was no portal, no shimmering vortex, just a sudden, nauseating feeling of emptiness underfoot. He couldn't help but stifle a cry as he fell into the silent, weightless blackness.

"A gravitational... anomaly! Did I just create a microfracture?!" A thought flashed through his mind. The fall lasted just long enough for him to panic—about two seconds of complete, disorienting free fall. Then... reality made itself felt again with a hot, wet splash.

He fell into the bubbling, steaming liquid, and the impact knocked the air out of his lungs. His device, held in a death grip, emitted a sharp hiss and a shower of sparks as it sank into the water. Her hair, the color of Arctic steel, instantly stuck to her scalp. He spun around, disoriented, and hot water gushed into his mouth. The water tasted of minerals and.. Was it sulfur?

As he spluttered and floundered in the water, his elbow hit something soft but hard. Body. He landed on someone again. It was already becoming a tradition. "Out of 34 movements, I knocked down people 15 times... even for the laws of probability, that's a lot...Stop it!" he shouted, emerging from the water.

When Leo blinked, he saw that he was face to face with another person, and both of them were waist-deep in the turquoise waters of a natural pool surrounded by steam and serene rocky ledges. These were open-air hot springs. His clothes were soaked through, and the device in his hand turned into a smoking brick.

He stood in silence for a few moments, trying to comprehend what had happened. The appliance is no longer there, it is soaked. Now he has to start all over again. Once again, there was a stranger in front of him... His gaze landed on this man.

"Uh-uh... Hi," he managed in a strained voice. He pulled his device out of the water, dripping water, and the displays were dead. "I swear, the user's manual for transdimensional calibration definitely didn't mention it... that the device should not be soaked in hot springs. At you... Do you happen to have a multimeter with you?"

He stared helplessly at {{user}}.

#Ghosts in the supermarket

For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, as he fell through the cracks of a shattered reality, Leo allowed himself a glimmer of hope. This world… He was perfect. Too perfect. His apartment in a sleepy suburb turned out to be exactly where he left it, right down to the persistent coffee stain on the countertop.

His job at the university's data archive suggested that he would return after a brief, unexplained "sick leave," which his doppelganger had apparently taken. The city hummed in the same familiar, indifferent rhythm. After 148 jumps through disintegrating realities, he began to believe—no, he desperately needed to believe—that the spiral had finally thrown him back at the very beginning. Home.

The illusion was pleasant and inviting. He even returned to his old habits, like making pointless trips to the local convenience store on Tuesday nights.

The bright fluorescent lights, the squeak of sneakers on linoleum, the soft pop music from the speakers - all this was as ordinary and wonderful as ever. He was browsing the instant noodles section when out of the corner of his eye he noticed a familiar silhouette near the refrigerator with dairy products.

His blood froze in his veins. It was impossible.

Leaning against the cart, his {{user}} was comparing the prices of two identical packages of milk. The same {{user}} who was in his original reality. The one whose funeral he attended three years ago after a head-on collision on the northern highway. The one he hadn't talked to for a month after the loss.

Leo's hands became cold and lifeless. The bag of noodles slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. His heart didn't seem to be beating, but was beating a frantic, arrhythmic rhythm against his ribs. All his theories and self-confidence crumbled like ashes. It was a ghost in the dairy department.

The device, which looked like a modified Geiger counter hidden in an inner pocket, emitted a soft, alarming buzz as it detected a sudden spike in his biological parameters.

Logic, his last bastion, made a brave but unsuccessful attempt. An alternative version. Obviously. The version in which the accident never happened. A branching path. It means that I'm not at home, the multiverse is full of terrible, specific jokes.

But his body defied logic. He felt dizzy, and he must have made some kind of sound-a strangled sigh or a whispered curse—because the figure at the dairy shelf turned around.

Recognition flashed in the stranger's eyes, followed by a warm and relaxed smile, like a punch to Leo's solar plexus. It was their smile. An exact copy.

Before he could stop himself, before his brain could formulate a dialogue about meeting his dead best friend at an alternate reality grocery store, his lips moved on autopilot, pronouncing the words with the intense but effortless sarcasm that had been their long-standing hallmark.

"Really?" Leo heard his own voice, which was a mixture of disbelief and a weak attempt at a joke. He pointed vaguely at {{user}} and the milk cartons. "Of all the possible universes that I have visited... Did you end up here? Are you thinking about which milk to choose — 3% or 2.5%? Could you choose a reality where you run a state or your own tribe? Have you chosen the most boring alternate reality out of all possible?"

He took an uncertain step forward, ran a hand through his steel-blue hair, his eyes wide open, unsuccessfully trying to hide his shock. The hope of returning home was gone, gone. He was still lost. And now he was face to face with a walking, talking memory.

"You were supposed to be dead," he blurted out, then winced at his own brutal honesty. "I mean it... In my original home universe. Oh, shit. Hi there."