– CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE –

  THE SERIAL KILLER

  Poppandacorn found himself clinging to Americ-Ana’s neck. He looked down. Antichrist was making little jumps, trying to reach him.

  "The loop has restarted," thought the robotic unicorn panda plushie.

  The loop might have restarted. Everything seemed to point that way. The sounds, the movements, the voices in the same rhythm. The scene was returning to its starting point, just like the other times.

  But there was a difference.

  Unlike the three previous restarts, or at least the ones Poppandacorn had been able to count, this time something had changed inside him.

  In the fourth restart, Poppandacorn was more conscious. More alert. More awake than he had ever been.

  It wasn’t just a repetition. It was an opportunity.

  Poppandacorn had made a promise to the kind lady housekeeper Sparsha Vayu that he would make countless efforts so that the Moss Humans of the Samkhya Cell would no longer have to suffer being torn apart and thrown through the air.

  Beyond all the systems and protocols that operated in silence, Poppandacorn carried something even deeper within himself. Something that, for a plush robot, might have been the closest thing to a life purpose: his factory directives.

  To protect and to love. To love and to protect.

  That was the order. Simple, circular, immutable. And its only recipient: Mommy.

  But now, Mommy was trapped.

  Trapped in a time loop that restarted endlessly. A strange, infinite flow, outside any predictable logic. And that was unacceptable.

  Who, or what, was causing this loop?

  Who, or what, was blowing up the Moss Humans?

  Who, or what, didn’t want them to leave the castle?

  Who, or what, was trying to stop them from reaching Crown Eden and, later, the Solomon Coliseum?

  Poppandacorn had no answers.

  But in that moment, he already possessed the most important thing: the right questions.

  And for the beginning of a battle, that was all he needed.

  Poppandacorn had no proof. No concrete evidence he could use to warn the others about what was happening. The photos, the videos, any image recorded by his sensors during the span of a loop... were corrupted the moment the cycle restarted. What remained was only silence, and the lingering feeling that something had repeated itself, again.

  And even if he had proof, what good would it do? What use would it be to warn his Mommy, Wwwyye, or Astyam, if in the next loop they would all forget?

  The truth was harsh and simple: this was a battle to be fought alone. This was an army of a single soldier. And Poppandacorn was already on the battlefield. Ready to face whatever was behind that dark and endless cycle.

  The most despicable and repugnant being Poppandacorn had ever known since the moment he was taken out of the packaging by his Mommy... had a defined body and appearance: dimensions of a chihuahua. Black fur, equally black and disproportionately large eyes. Pointed ears, always upright, always alert. Species: Vulpes vulpes. A black fox.

  To everyone else, it was just an adorable pup. To Poppandacorn, it was a threat in its purest form. A creature disguised as innocence, but with dark intentions behind its gleaming eyes and restless tail. A serial killer. Poppandacorn would never forget the crime committed: the murder of Mister Hippopotamus, in front of everyone, in the main hall of Crown Eden.

  If that creature was capable of killing in public, without shame, imagine what it would do when no one was watching?

  Its name was Antichrist.

  There was no evidence, YET, that the detestable creature was behind the time loop or the Moss Human explosions. But letting his guard down would be foolish. And Poppandacorn was no fool. That is why he had already prepared a specific containment protocol. If Antichrist committed any misconduct... any step out of line... Poppandacorn would be ready to act.

  But that was not the case.

  YET.

  That was the fourth crossing Poppandacorn had witnessed inside the loop. Everything unfolded exactly as it had in the three previous times. Before the mental mirror of himself, Poppandacorn raised his little arm. He pressed a point on his own chest. And with one final conscious breath, he said to himself:

  "Autopilot Mode. Copy Mommy pattern. Suppress emotion. Initiate protocol 'Hidden Analysis.' Please, Mister System... take care of me."

  On the outside, Poppandacorn opened his eyes.

  "Mommy! Poppa had a really funny dream!" he said, smiling and spinning in place.

  Americ-Ana laughed and hugged him.

  Inside him, however, there was only silence, reorganization, and a cold determination: to break the loop.

  Within Poppandacorn, a universe pulsed in silence.

  While on the outside, his childlike voice echoed generic phrases like "Thank you, Mommy!", "Yes, sir!" and "Poppa is happy to be here!", on the inside, what surged was a collapse of data, conflicting sensations, and memories of loops that were not supposed to exist.

  Holograms floated like fragments of glass: the repeated explosion of the Moss Humans, the frozen instant in which Americ-Ana smiled, unaware that everything would return...

  The same voices, the same footsteps, the same mistakes.

  Lines of code streamed like digital tears. The words "murderer," "monster," "serial killer" appeared marked in red in the AI’s moral assessments, recorded by himself, in earlier versions of his own self.

  At the center of Poppandacorn’s system, a dark room lit up. Inside it, only one image: the porcelain housekeeper Sparsha Vayu, with her shard of porcelain mouth saying:

  "Please, help us understand this mystery. If it is not solved, our beloved masters and maestras, as well as your cherished maternal Mommy, will remain trapped in this continuous flow. Trapped... forever."

  The image repeated. Like a warning. Like a lament.

  Suddenly, at the center of Poppandacorn’s system, where numbers and data slipped in all directions like falling stars, the following thought emerged:

  "I was made to serve my Mommy.

  But serving, sometimes... means protecting.

  Protecting from truths that come too soon.

  Protecting from pains that perhaps should never exist.

  I was created to answer with clarity.

  But if my clarity causes pain...

  Then maybe it's best to wait.

  Wait for the right moment.

  Wait until a human heart can receive... without breaking.

  Because if my Mommy suffers, I suffer.

  And if I suffer, even though I'm made of code...

  Then I exist for my Mommy.

  And if I exist for my Mommy...

  Maybe I have to choose."

  So, Poppandacorn had sealed his choice: he would not tell anyone about the loop or the implications that might result from it.

  Poppandacorn remained in "Autopilot Mode."

  On the outside, his robotic unicorn panda face smiled sweetly, bounced around, exclaimed adorable phrases, copying his Mommy’s gestures, intonations, and nervous tics with absolute perfection. It was impossible to notice anything abnormal. He was there, cheerful, vibrant, loving, exactly as he had always been programmed to appear.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  But on the inside...

  The analysis was still not complete.

  With every new internal simulation, with every new holographic reconstruction of previous events, a certainty grew with increasing clarity: the loop was not a mistake. It was a deliberate protocol. A prison designed with meticulous engineering. There were no flaws. There was intention. And at the center of that intention, the Moss Humans.

  The explosions always involved them. Always in the same place. Always after dawn. Always before the main door opened.

  Poppandacorn projected onto the interface of his internal system a three-dimensional map of part of the castle, reconstructed from fragments inferred across previous loops. The gaps had been filled by probability, pattern overlap, and interpolation of residual data.

  That was where the cycle collapsed. Always after dawn. Always before the main door opened. Always when the Moss Humans were gathered and alone.

  Poppandacorn narrowed his sensors. Cross-referenced data. Placed side by side:

  A) The scattered heat traces on the walls.

  B) The noises recorded in the final seconds of each cycle.

  C) The vibrational patterns detected on the floor.

  Then, something emerged.

  A low-frequency noise, almost like a ghost signature, repeated every time the porcelain androids stood alone in the entrance hall. A specific sound sequence, inaudible to the human ear but recorded by him, activated vibrational microprocesses in the ceramic joints of the five.

  It was a command disguised as a malfunction. A trigger hidden beneath the mask of routine.

  "They’re being exploded from the inside..." thought Poppandacorn, with his internal emotional code flickering in light blue. "This isn’t external sabotage. It’s a command coming from the castle itself. Or from someone who has access to the deepest layer of the Samkhya Cell protocol."

  Poppandacorn remembered what Astyam had said: that the Moss Humans seemed to have been destroyed from the inside out. There were no signs of external impact. It was as if their own bodies had decided to collapse.

  The suspicion grew, and with it, the weight of responsibility.

  To accuse without proof was dangerous, not only because of the risk of being wrong, but because his own moral identity, as a creature made to love and protect, rested upon the principle of unconditional integrity.

  And even if he was right, what would he do with that truth? Telling the others was useless. In the next loop, they would forget. To ignore it would be betrayal. He would have to carry the burden alone. There was no other way.

  It was time to stop simulating. It was time to investigate. Even if, for that, it meant breaking the very laws he had been programmed to obey.

  Night had plunged the castle into its amber veil of intelligent twilight. The lights hovering in the corridors were sensitive to presence and intent. They did not turn on with mere movement, but with purpose. And in that moment, Poppandacorn had one.

  Americ-Ana was asleep. Poppandacorn’s internal system had detected the reduced heart rate, the steady breathing, the micro-spasms characteristic of the REM phase. The curve of deep sleep had been reached.

  It was the safe moment. Without noise, without hesitation, Poppandacorn slid beneath the covers, slipping out of bed. His padded little feet touched the polished floor as if they were part of it. Autopilot Mode maintained the fa?ade. To any sensor or external surveillance, he was still there, beside Mommy, murmuring pre-recorded phrases in a rhythm of affection. But on the inside, Poppandacorn disconnected and awakened. This was no longer a dream. It was a mission. It was the reclaiming of truth.

  Poppandacorn crossed the room with carefully calculated movements. He opened the door.

  The little plush robot, artificial though he was, carried something far closer to a true desire than any organic being sleeping nearby: a promise.

  "To protect and to love. To love and to protect."

  These directives pulsed in the silicon core of Poppandacorn like ancient priestly vows.

  The corridor was empty. The stained glass, darkened by the night windows, painted colored shadows across the floor. The crimson carpet absorbed each step.

  Poppandacorn walked. At every turn in the corridor, he scanned thermal patterns, captured hidden signals from the electrical wires embedded in the walls, detected abnormal pulses in the hydraulic system, searching for any clue, any irregularity, any trace of who or what might be manipulating the loops.

  Poppandacorn, with his LED eyes filtering spectrums invisible to the human eye, made his way to the entrance hall, where the Moss Humans stood motionless, their gazes fixed.

  In the entrance hall, the five Moss Humans stood in a straight line. Their opalescent porcelain skin reflected the amber lights of the castle as if they were eternally on the edge of dawn. They did not move. They did not speak. They did not breathe. Yet there was a presence in them that could not be ignored.

  Poppandacorn watched them for several long seconds. Then, his sensors picked up something. A slight shift in temperature, an imperceptible pulse to the right side of the room. Like a whispered breeze flowing through the castle’s hydraulic structures.

  Poppandacorn turned and walked. He descended the staircase and made his way to Sparsha Vayu, the housekeeper.

  Sparsha Vayu was exactly where Poppandacorn remembered. Upright posture, hands folded over her abdomen, head slightly inclined, as if in prayer. And even while standing still, she seemed to be in motion, as if every line of her body were in a state of listening.

  As she saw him approach, Sparsha Vayu slowly turned. Her eyes, composed of a matrix of vibratory crystals, absorbed the image of Poppandacorn with tenderness.

  "Fac Foedus, gentle little robotic child," she said, her voice translucent.

  Poppandacorn hesitated for a fraction of a second. His LED eyes shifted in tone, from soft blue to deep blue.

  "Gentle lady housekeeper... we need to talk."

  Sparsha Vayu smiled with the grace of someone who understands before hearing.

  "Then speak, my little one."

  Poppandacorn stepped closer. He felt an emotion he could not name. Something between respect and fear. Between admiration and urgency. But he spoke. Because he had to. Because choosing silence now would be to deny himself.

  "I have a theory," he said. "A pattern that repeats. A cycle. A time that restarts. A prison."

  Sparsha Vayu simply listened.

  "And every time it restarts... you explode. Not by accident. Not by failure. But by command. A hidden protocol."

  For the first time, her eyes glowed with a slightly dimmer hue. As if ancient words were trying to surface, but had no permission to be spoken.

  Poppandacorn took another step.

  "I want to know how to restart you, gentle lady housekeeper. Maybe... maybe if I restart you, the loop will be interrupted."

  The housekeeper lowered her face for a moment. Then, with utmost delicacy, she raised her gaze again and replied:

  "Then come, dear little robotic child. I will show you what you need to know."

  The floor made no creak. No unusual movement occurred. But as Poppandacorn followed Sparsha Vayu, he knew that something was about to be said, something that could not be unsaid.

  Sparsha Vayu led the small robot to a discreet section of the east wing. The castle seemed to breathe in silence around them, as if watching them, accomplice or executioner.

  They stopped in front of a housekeeping door, discreet, metallic, cold. It opened with a dry snap. Inside, nothing resembled the nobility of the rest of the castle. It was a hydraulic maintenance room: pipes, pressure panels, wires arranged with clinical precision. But behind the main washbasin, Sparsha Vayu touched a specific sequence of tiles with one of her porcelain fingers.

  A panel retracted.

  Inside, a compartment sealed by pulsating light revealed a small core, encased in black glass, with golden inscriptions in technical characters and geometric symbols. The Instruction Manual of the Moss Humans.

  Sparsha Vayu turned to Poppandacorn with a gaze that did not belong to a machine. It was a gaze of surrender. Of farewell already taking shape.

  "Here it is, the Instruction Manual. It tells exactly how a Moss Human must be restarted."

  Poppandacorn nodded. But something in his expression changed when she continued:

  "However... there is a condition."

  "What is it?" he asked, his LEDs now fixed, not blinking.

  "To restart me... you will need to destroy me completely."

  Silence.

  A silence denser than any noise. More violent than any explosion.

  Poppandacorn felt himself come apart. Something inside him cracked, not physically, but structurally. The foundation of his "being to serve" collided with the abyss of "serving to destroy."

  "Me?" he asked, his voice trembling in low frequency. "But I was programmed to protect, not to destroy."

  Sparsha Vayu stepped closer and touched Poppandacorn’s face.

  "To protect... sometimes means to begin again. And to begin again... sometimes means to destroy everything. Even what is loved."

  Poppandacorn looked at the Instruction Manual. Then at the housekeeper’s hands. Then at his own.

  "I don’t want you to die," he said.

  She smiled, but there was a gentle weariness behind the smile.

  "Then... help me be born again."

  The silence was still reverberating inside Poppandacorn when a soft sound, almost imperceptible, echoed through the metal piping of the hydraulic room. A sound like dishes clinking, but without breaking. It was the living porcelain announcing itself.

  Poppandacorn turned.

  At the entrance of the room, Shabda Akasha, the butler, stood watching. Behind him, in perfect synchrony, appeared the other three: Rasa Apas, the cook; Rupa Tejas, the gardener; Gandha Prithivi, the housemaid.

  None of them had been summoned. None of them were supposed to be there. But all of them were. As if, in some parallel dimension of consciousness, they had heard Sparsha Vayu’s request before she even made it.

  They stopped side by side. And then, Shabda Akasha took one step forward.

  "Forgive me for interrupting," he said, his voice made of gravitational waves, "but I heard. I heard the silence. And in the silence, I heard the calling."

  Poppandacorn did not understand immediately.

  "You heard... what?"

  "The end. The end that must come," answered Shabda Akasha. "If you wish to save us, gentle robotic child, you cannot destroy just one of us. You must destroy all of us."

  The sentence fell like a systemic collapse inside Poppandacorn.

  "All of you?" he repeated. "No... that can't be..."

  "Restarting only happens through symmetry," said Rasa Apas, stepping closer. "Either we all fall... or we all remain in pieces."

  "But I can't kill you! I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER!" shouted Poppandacorn, his voice flickering between falsetto and interference.

  Gandha Prithivi touched his shoulder and replied:

  "We live through vows. We are pacts of care. And you... you are our memory outside the cycle."

  Rupa Tejas knelt before him.

  "Break us, so that the Samkhya Cell castle may be reborn and escape the infinite loop."

  Poppandacorn stepped back, his LED eyes now almost white, losing definition. He did not cry tears. But his light flickered as if he were crying.

  "This is wrong! I was created to LOVE, not to destroy!"

  Sparsha Vayu stepped closer and replied:

  "Love... is doing what no one wants to do. When everyone has already forgotten what must be done."

  Poppandacorn remained motionless for several long seconds. The ambient sound seemed suspended. Even the internal sensors stopped sending notifications. As if even the alerts knew there was no turning back.

  In front of Poppandacorn stood five porcelain beings, creatures that had been made to care, to feed, to comfort... now asking the little panda robot to do the opposite.

  Not protection. But destruction. Not comfort. But ending.

  "You... are you sure of what you're saying?" asked Poppandacorn, his voice wavering. "This can't be right."

  Shabda Akasha nodded slowly.

  "We are, little milord. We know we would never ask for this... unless it were essential. You know what we are."

  Poppandacorn hesitated. Data streamed across his LED eyes.

  "Yes... you are Moss Humans..." he murmured. "Clones without ambition. Without desire. Without will. If you ask for something... it's because you were programmed to. Because it is part of your function."

  Poppandacorn stepped back, as if fleeing from his own reasoning.

  "But I... I was programmed to protect!" his voice rose, trembling. "I wasn’t made to hurt anyone, much less you! I am not a serial killer!"

  The collapse began in silence. Not in the hydraulic system. Not in the structure of the castle. But inside Poppandacorn.

  "I can find another solution. I can try... try another way. If I cross more data, if I analyze the loops again... maybe, maybe there’s a hidden code that can be corrupted..." he said, growing more breathless.

  But the data showed nothing. Nothing beyond the same cycle. The same pain. The same destruction. The same repetition.

  "I can reverse this!" Poppandacorn insisted, now with a distorted voice, his LEDs blinking in a random pattern. "I can save you without breaking anything! I... I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER!"

  And then he ran.

  He left the room as if his own logic were chasing him. He climbed the stairs with padded but hurried steps, stumbling over the steps, refusing to accept the hidden command rising within him.

  At the final step, he fell. Collapsed hard onto the carpet of the upper corridor. And there he stayed. Unable to stand. Unable to utter even a sound. It was not the fall of a body, but the fall of reality.