Ashes of the Loopby Jacob Gomes

Haunting. Hypnotic. Horrifying.

In the eerie town of Elbridge, Ontario, time fractures every 33 years—resurrecting buried sins, lost memories, and restless spirits. At the heart of it all lies the Ark, an ancient underground machine powered not by coal or oil, but by the fractured beliefs and aching hearts of its unwitting victims. Once ignited, it demands more: deeper memories, crisper tragedies, and stronger faith in its impossible power.

Enter Maeve Lin, a fierce and perceptive fifteen-year-old who discovers a battered box concealing relics that should not exist—a faded photograph of herself as an older woman, a brass key that unlatches impossible doors, and a parchment etched with quantum symbols. With her best friend Noah, she peels back layers of Elbridge’s dark past—only to find herself caught in an unrelenting loop where time devours memory, and ghosts feed on hope.

As the Ark reaches toward critical mass, seeking to rewrite reality itself, Maeve forms a fragile alliance with:

Clara Bell, an empathic timekeeper who reads the Ark’s broken language; Edgar Roan, a machinist burdened by his knowledge of what the Ark can—and will—consume; and Father Klein, a beaten-down priest whose faith teeters on the brink of oblivion.

Together, they chase impossible answers: How do you starve a machine fueled by human consciousness? Can you outwit a force that warps fate itself? And what does it cost to break the loop?

Ashes of the Loop is a dark, lyrical descent into time’s cruelest paradox—where memory is both weapon and prey, and every second could be your last. Tautly written and beautifully atmospheric, it blends mind-bending scifi with noirtinged horror and folklore’s timeless dread. Part Dark, part Annihilation, all its own.