The mortal coil is Shakespeare's word for the mess of being alive. Weight, chaos, an ending baked in.
We kept the coil. Threw out the ending.
This isn't rebirth. It's what's left after rebirth stops being an option — colder, sharper, still moving. Survival not as triumph. As refusal.
The ouroboros doesn't close politely here. It runs damaged. It runs anyway.
No noise. No salvation.
No performance of resilience.
Just the loop. And the people who know how to live inside it.
the loop remembers.