Per 
Klaxons blare as our protagonist runs through a hallway as the roof of the flaming building collapses.
“It’s incredibly difficult to improvise. I mean, think about it – pretty much any of the nifty shit you can do with time travel requires some degree of forethought.”
He escapes into a hangar, moving away from the blocked doorway and scanning the hellscape for an exit.
“That’s why I’m starting this story in media res: it allows me to improvise now while giving me room to explain my nonsense later. And hopefully this dialogue is making at least some of you grin.”
Our lead rushes towards the opposite end of the room, evading a bolt of time lightning zipping through the air.
“Like ‘Time lightning’! I don’t even know what that is yet, but it sounds cool. Anyways, now’s a good time to pause this action scene for a moment and start developing the story.”
He dashes through the charred doors as the claps of thunder deafen him.
Our character finds himself in a café, sipping a cup of tea. A professionally dressed woman sits down next to him. No eye contact.
“You know, I’ve never been a coffee person. I’ll have tea every once in a while, but not coffee.”
“Good morning to you too, Agent Krain.”
“Oh come on, give the audience a name they can use.”
“Connor, this is serious. We’ve found something in the archives regarding your mission at the Foundation in 1987. On June 21st, an explosion occurs at Site-33, the resulting fire encompassing the entire structure.”
“And what, I need to go back and save it?”
“Not the site, but your past self. Records place you inside the site at the start of the disaster.”
“So it’s just a simple recovery mission? That seems easy enough, almost not worth all this exposition.”
“Not exactly – Site-33 was researching a temporal anomaly. I don’t have access to the original document, but, from what I can tell, it was destroyed in the inferno. Be careful.”
“Oh, is that where that time lightning stuff comes from? Well at least that gives me something to work with.”
“One more thing, Connor. Are you sure you don’t remember anything from back then? I know your temporal endeavors since have necessitated the use of amnestics, but anything at all you can recall may prove vital.”
Connor takes one last sip and smiles, standing up to depart.
“Not a damn thing.”
Connor stumbles out of the doors into an all too familiar hangar. The burning rubble and smoke make his eyes water.
“Wait, shit. Don’t tell me.”
He looks back and sees himself, just a few minutes prior, running down the hallway towards him.
“Ah fuck it’s a time loop.”
Thunder clashes overhead as a second instance of Connor enters from across the chamber.
“Don’t worry, it’s only for a short while. Not like that time in Portlands.”
“That was one hell of a Noodle Incident. So what’s the deal? What’d you do to get here?”
“Go back through the door you just came out of. There’s an exit over there that I’ll take to escape.”
“That’s useful to know. One question, what about our past self that’s trapped in here?”
“Just wait, it’ll happen any second.”
A voice can be heard over the site loudspeakers, muffled by the crackling of fire.
“Connors, don’t worry, our past self seems to have already escaped. Just get out of there.”
“Well, you heard the man, let’s go.”
“Wait, now it’s confusing to them which one of us is who.”
“Eh, they’ll figure it out. Go continue the loop – I’ll make sure to get out of here.”
Connor leaves back through the door he came in, while Connor heads over to an opening in the wall and climbs out of the burning hangar.
“Alright, hope you were able to follow along with that. At least I was able to convey important information to both you and myself. I’d say that’s worth any potential confusion.”
Connor runs through the collapsing hallway as thunderclaps can be heard behind him.
“Also, I’ve been thinking about justifying this whole ‘time lightning’ thing, and I think I have a pretty cool explanation. So, by now it’s obvious some sort of temporal anomaly is affecting this site. And thanks to the fire, a bunch of particulates are stirred up.”
Ducking into a room to avoid falling debris, Connor finds himself outside a containment cell.
“As such, not only can static electricity build up, but it can feed back into itself by traveling backwards in time. This runaway electricity manifests itself as these deafening strikes of lightning. What do you think? I’d say that checks out.”
Connor spots an announcement system on the wall, undamaged and convenient.
“Ah, that covers up that plot hole. Guess the message I send makes its way back to earlier. I’ll spare you the trouble of hearing it again.”
After speaking, he sprints towards the doorway as flaming wreckage falls and blocks it. Alarms sound off as the containment cell behind him begins its opening process.
“That’s a bummer. Got to find out some information about this scip before it gets out.”
Connor looks around and scrounges up any burnt scraps of paper he can find.
“Let’s see, ‘Keter’, ‘entity’, ‘must be causally separated from reality through means of a manufactured event horizon’? Damn, that’s both intense and explains why it’s taking so long for the cell to open. What else can I gather? ‘Human’, ‘anachronistic’, ‘known as Connor Krain’? Wait, shit, my past self is in there?”
Connor looks up as a man exits the containment cell and faces him. Half of his face is burnt.
“No, not my past self. My future self.”
“Hello, Connor. I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with me.”
“You and what army?”
“Just me.”
Connor gets hit on the head from behind, falling face-first onto burning rubble. Two men enter his field of vision; his past and future self stare at him as he starts to black out.
“Well, fuck, that’s a cliffhanger.”
