Broken Clock.
Exactly. In other words, when the loop restarted, it couldn't account for Jolima's body since Riley had sent it beyond the village's boundary.
The loop, in its attempt to "reset," had no way to handle a missing variable—Jolima's body—so it simply erased him from the new loop entirely.
This revelation is crucial for Riley because it exposes a critical flaw in the loop's design: it isn't all-powerful or omnipotent. There are gaps, inconsistencies that can be exploited.
Jolima's disappearance offers Riley a glimmer of hope, suggesting that if the loop can be disrupted by one body crossing the boundary, perhaps there are other cracks in its structure that he can take advantage of to finally break free.
This new understanding empowers Riley. The loop isn't infallible; it's fragile in ways that its creators or controllers likely didn't foresee. It's a system that can be manipulated, a puzzle with pieces that don't always fit perfectly back into place.