Prelude to The Man Who Woke Up Twice
Editor's Note (Unverified Source)
This is not a preface. It is a reconstruction.
The original manuscript was found incomplete, with entries scattered, pages missing, and dates crossed out in red ink. These notes have been gathered from various marginalia, audio fragments, and recovered thought-logs.
If you're reading this, don't try to understand it all at once. This world is not linear. It's recursive. It folds into itself.
Memory is not truth. Time is not a constant. And identity?—That's the first thing to go.
I. The World Between
There are places that exist in the cracks of waking life.
Places that flicker when you close your eyes too slowly.
Rooms that remember you even when you've never been inside them.
People who greet you by name—but you've never met.
This story begins in one of those places.
Not a dream. Not a memory.
Something else.
A world where:
Time loops. But not always in circles.
Memory is inherited—sometimes from people you were never meant to be.
Reality reboots itself quietly, like a flickering light no one bothers to replace.
There is no clear boundary between what is imagined and what is forgotten.
And perhaps, that's the point.
II. What You Will Not Be Told
This is a psychological terrain.
Nothing here operates by the rules you know.
But there are… suggestions.
Not rules. Not laws. Just fragments of truths that may or may not help you understand what's coming.
The Suggestions of Unreality:
You may remember things you never lived.
You may meet people who know you too well.
Every mirror is watching. Every silence is loaded.
There are doors that do not lead anywhere.
You are not the only one waking up.
III. Fragments of the Lost
The Man Who Woke Up Twice
He is not named here. He has had many names.
But none of them were ever truly his.
They say he woke up in a room with no windows, a fading scar across his chest, and a single note:
"You died yesterday."
He doesn't know why he's still alive.
He doesn't know what he's trying to find.
But something—somewhere—has been waiting for him to remember.
Is he dreaming? Repeating? Escaping?
Or is he merely reading the end of a story that someone else began?
IV. Observers
Not all characters appear in the narrative.
Some watch from behind the veil of fiction, between chapters, outside the margins.
Two such figures are known only by rumor—recorded in whisper-like annotations in versions of the manuscript most readers never see.
Dr. Iles (Non-Participant Observer – Unconfirmed)
She does not exist in the story. But she is there.
Not as a character—but as a presence. A witness. A reader.
Some say she is a psychiatrist. Others say she is something older.
Her initials appear on redacted files, on forgotten psych reports, on scrawled notes found beneath the protagonist's bed.
She does not intervene. She documents.
She writes things no one said aloud. She notices when a scene shifts before it does.
Her presence is not narrative. It is forensic.
Readers may feel her gaze but will not know where from.
She never speaks.
But she may be the only one who knows how it ends.
The Author (Origin: Unknown)
He doesn't write stories. He rewrites memories.
Or perhaps he fabricates them.
Some pages have been changed. Some endings overwritten.
There are fragments that don't match—the same event written three different ways.
The town bends at the corners. The dialogue loops.
It is said that this story has many versions, and none are complete.
The Author does not appear in the narrative.
But his handwriting bleeds through the text.
Sometimes a word misspells itself on purpose.
Sometimes the ink stops halfway through a sentence—as if he remembered something too late.
He is searching too.
Or maybe he's trying to forget.
V. A Final Caution
This is not a beginning.
There are no clean starts in this world.
The story you're about to read has already happened.
Many times.
Maybe you've read it before.
Maybe you just don't remember.
But memory is fragile here.
And forgetting is… contagious.
Close the book if you're afraid of remembering.
But know this:
Once you begin… the world begins to change you back.