The first disruptions were astronomical.
At least, that’s what the station’s announcements said.
The density of the background radiation had shifted.
The time-synchronization error had grown by a few nanoseconds.
Long-range communication channels were functioning unstably.
Residents were advised not to take any action.
The system would adapt.
It always adapted.
A week later, contact with Earth was lost.
There was no drama.
No farewells.
One morning, a sentence appeared on the information feed:
Due to relativistic effects, response time will temporarily increase.
The word temporarily stayed hanging there for several days.
Then weeks.
No one commented on it anymore.
Arenas found himself standing by the outer dome more and more often.
The stars looked unusually still.
They used to drift slowly.
Not anymore.
It seemed only the station was moving.
Or only his eyes.
He tried to memorize the position of one bright star.
The next day it was in the same place.
And the day after.
As if the whole universe were holding its breath.
One evening, Lina said:
“Strange day.”
“Why?”
“It feels like I’ve already lived it.”
Arenas looked at her.
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe in a dream.”
He didn’t answer.
He’d already heard this conversation.
He just couldn’t remember when.
The next morning, in the mess hall, Mira asked:
“Did you try the new tea?”
“No.”
“Strange. Yesterday you said it was too sweet.”
“We weren’t here yesterday.”
Mira laughed.
“Of course we were.”
She gestured at the window.
“We were sitting right here.”
Arenas looked at the table.
There was a barely visible scratch on it.
He remembered having seen it yesterday.
Or he only remembered remembering it.
The days began to resemble one another.
Not in their events.
In their shape.
The same announcement in the morning.
The same corridor.
The same technician carrying the same toolbox.
The same child running down the central gallery.
The same two women arguing by the elevator.
The next day, everything repeated.
Almost.
One woman’s sleeve was unbuttoned.
The child ran slower.
The technician carried the box in his other hand.
The changes were so small they could just as easily have been memory errors.
Arenas began keeping a journal.
On the third day, he noticed some entries had already been written.
In his own handwriting.
Dated by his own hand.
He didn’t remember writing them.
One page held only a single sentence.
“Tomorrow the same thing will happen.”
That evening he connected with Lina.
“How was your day?” she asked.
He felt a strange unease.
“You already asked that.”
“Of course.”
“Not today.”
She smiled.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m almost certain.”
“What did you answer?”
Arenas was silent.
He didn’t remember.
She leaned closer.
“You see?”
For the first time, something like sadness sounded in her voice.
“What?”
“Even if we repeat ourselves, we still don’t remember.”
A few days later he began watching others.
No one noticed anything.
People laughed.
Worked.
Argued.
Fell in love.
Broke up.
As if time were moving forward.
Only to Arenas did it seem that everyone’s conversations began not at the beginning.
From the middle.
As if every sentence were the continuation of something that had already happened countless times.
He opened the archive again.
The most recent conversations were already tagged.
Duplicated model.
Another.
Matches previous sequence — 98.4%.
Another still.
Repetition requires no correction.
He began scrolling faster and faster.
The numbers kept climbing.
99.1.
99.4.
99.8.
99.97.
It seemed the system was no longer creating new conversations.
Only replaying old ones with ever-greater precision.
That night he returned to the window.
The black expanse beyond the glass seemed closer than ever.
The stars still stood in place.
They no longer shone.
They simply were.
It suddenly struck him that maybe it wasn’t the station moving.
And not the universe.
Maybe it was the observer himself who was moving.
In an ever-smaller circle.
Believing, each time, that he was moving forward.
Returning, each time, to the very same place.
Only no longer able to recognize it.