Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
I think you're missing a very key concept of a stable time loop like this: there is no "first version" before the loop is established. There is just a single version of events, some of which happen prior to the events that caused them in the first place.

Everyone in the story only lives through the events of the story once. There are no repeat cycles, just a timeline that does some squiggles and loops before continuing on as usual.
That's not actually a stable/closed time loop, it runs headfirst into the bootstrap paradox wherein the time loop causes itself to exist without a real point of origin, which itself means the time loop shouldn't actually happen.