Cyclic Decode






This morning, the world unraveled.
The skyline flickered, not with light, but with corruption—pixels bleeding into static, geometry twisting in upon itself like a Möbius strip unraveling mid-execution. The air vibrated, thick with the scent of something burning, something ancient dissolving into the electric hum of a dying system. Buildings did not stand so much as they trembled, their edges smearing between states—erect, collapsed, absent—blinking in and out of existence as if the code underpinning their structure had been left unfinished.
Beneath my feet, the streets folded over themselves, looping into endless corridors that should not exist. Directions lost their meaning. Right became left, forward became backward, the world a recursive path leading only deeper into itself. The sidewalks crumbled, not into dust, but into raw data—floating symbols, half-formed instructions, lines of abandoned syntax bleeding from the cracks in reality.
Somewhere nearby, a terminal sputtered to life, its screen bursting into a cascade of corrupted text. ??代▊??屍?囂???⧫⧫⧫??囁Ω The characters twitched and pulsed, shifting between legibility and madness, as if struggling against their own encoding. I watched as words I could not read formed and unformed, the letters stretching, splitting, multiplying in ways that had no place in human language. ERROR: UNSUPPORTED CHARACTER SET. ENCODING FAILED.
The world was breaking, but not into chaos—into something structured, something rewritten. Mojibake ran through the veins of the city, crawling up glass windows and bleeding across every electronic display. Street signs became unreadable sigils, twisting into grotesque amalgamations of forgotten alphabets. Billboards broadcast nonsense, their messages corrupted into symbols that pulsed with the wrong kind of intent. Δ̷͓̱̹̼̞̰͖̍̊̓̿͗̌͠A̵̪͕͔͎͑͐̈͒̈́͆͝͠W̶̨̹̳̥͚̹̔̊̌͑̐̊͘A̶̡̨̯̖͎̮͕̮̞̭̅̒͑̆́͝K̴̩̳̥̰̞̻͉͑̓͛͊̓̀͝͝Ê̴͖̩͖̝͈̰̰͈̹̼͗̎̎̂.
And behind it all, behind the shattered seams, the code pulsed. The system had not simply failed. It had been overwritten.
I felt it before I saw it—something vast, something stretching between the fractures, its form not of flesh but of logic, recursive and infinite. It was not a creature, not a presence, but a function unraveling itself, tendrils of malformed syntax curling through the gaps in the collapsing world. It spoke in errors, in the stutter of corrupted execution, in the raw machine language of something too large to be contained by human perception. The void flickered, its edges lined with unreadable processes, the very concept of structure breaking down into nested loops of something beyond time.
I turned to run, but the street no longer led anywhere. My path dissolved into syntax errors, my reflection in the fractured glass replaced by a shifting mass of unrendered variables. The world was not ending. It was becoming something else. And I was nothing but deprecated code, an unsupported format in a new system where I did not belong.
SYSTEM RESET IN PROGRESS.
I tried to scream, but the sound broke apart in my throat, shattered into unreadable symbols. The new world did not have space for words. Only execution. Only recursion. Only the endless, unreadable logic of something vast awakening behind the veil.
And then—
█̷̢̜̫̖͔͕̮̙͚̤̹͎̯̒̎̒̈͆͛͂̅̔̚͠ͅͅͅŖ̶̪̯̲͎͈͙͇̮͙̝̪̩͕̗̬̘̞͋͛͂͆̌͂̏̽̀̃͘̚̚͘̕͝Ů̷̡̢̡̢̢̺̞̼͙͇̮͎̝͈̦̜̰̟͎̲͉͊̓͌̑̿̍͊̒̽͊̑̽̚͜͠͝͠Ņ̵̛̯̠͈͙̯͕͎͖̖̝̹͙̹͖̩̻̰̖͎͕͋̇͗̏̄̈̿̽͂̏͑̈́̀̕͘͘͘͜?̷̡̛̪̥̰̪̙̟̦̝̬̞̖̲̝͙̲̙̠͉̤̳͖̰͎̖͇̗̮͇̜̱͓̬͒͛̏͊̊̎̀͂̀̅̿̅̂̚͘͜͠͝͝͠?̷̧̡̧̥̺̼͉͚̤̖̮͉̰͔̯̱̲̲̺̞͉͖͖̻͉̰͙̘̻̖̼̖̖̦̳͕̠̱̖͈͖̯͓̽̾̀̂̊̍̏͂̓̏̎̈́̓͘͘̕͘͝͝?̶̢̨̳̰̠̤̪̪͕̼͚̲͎͕͙͕̦̞̘͇͖̲̪͎̝̼̺̻͉͚̠̖̺̠̜͚̞͎̓̇̀̍̎̊̎̽̂͛̏͑̈́͑̈́́̇͘̕̕͠͝͝͠




Cyclic Decode



Designer:

Leilani Liu
Date:

01/2025
Size

4*7 in
Pages

50p


Cyclic Decode is an experimental narrative system disguised as a book. It explores the breakdown and repetition of perception through fragmented code, disrupted memory, and visual loops. Designed as both a story and a puzzle, the book invites readers to decode a corrupted timeline—one that constantly resets itself.

The project blends narrative design, visual systems, and symbolic coding. It uses color, morse code, and structural mirroring to tell the story of a protagonist caught in a recurring system crash—where reality glitches, identity erases, and time restarts.



A–A: The opening cycle. Black ink represents "PA" (Perspective A), and red marks PB1 and PB2—fragments of a secondary voice interfering with perception. The reader begins with "I" awakening into a world that feels slightly off.

B–B: The disruption deepens. Using the same black/red structure as A–A, but shifting in rhythm and placement, this chapter amplifies the system’s instability. The whispers grow louder, the code begins to fragment.

E – Ending: The collapse. A final attempt to stabilize the system, but the red has overtaken the black. Reality slips. Perspective A fades.
A1 – Cycle A: A mirrored return. Roles flip—black now represents PB, and red becomes PA. The cycle resets, but not quite the same. The reader begins again, haunted by memory of a past loop.The book uses binary code, morse patterns, and typographic disruption to simulate system interference. Are encoded into visual elements using morse dashes, hidden folds, and interrupted grids. These messages hint at agency, resistance, and control—though the reader never fully knows who is speaking.

Color becomes code.
  • Black represents the dominant internal perspective.
  • Red symbolizes interference, memory errors, or external control.
    Their positions shift as chapters progress, suggesting takeover and reversal.

Morse sequences and glitch typography create a layered, reactive experience. Words fracture mid-sentence. Sentences vanish mid-page. Readers are forced to choose: follow the main thread or get lost in corrupted details.


Pages are printed with alternating textures—smooth, matte, and translucent stocks—to convey distortion and presence. Pages fold, unfold, and sometimes overlay one another.
Laser-cut windows reveal hidden codes. Binding structure is mirrored, allowing the reader to flip the book upside down and re-enter from a reversed perspective.
This looping form reinforces the cyclical structure of the story.

At the center is the repeated phrase:
"SYSTEM RESET IS IN PROGRESS"
—a signal that identity, memory, and time are not linear but constantly overwritten.



Cyclic Decode is not meant to be read in a straight line. It is navigated.
It simulates what it feels like to question your own reality—to not know if you're decoding something, or if you're the one being decoded.Through design, code, and repetition, it builds a world that collapses inward… and always begins again.



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