JOLT.
The sensation ripped Ethan from the abyss of darkness, depositing him back into awareness with the jarring violence of a physical blow. He gasped, sucking in air, his heart doing a painful staccato against his ribs. For a fraction of a second, pure confusion reigned. The kitchen floor? Clara's still form? The echo of the 911 operator's voice?
Then his eyes snapped open, taking in the familiar sight of sunlight slanting through the bedroom window, dust motes swirling in the golden air. He was in their bed. His bed. Clean sheets. Warmth. The faint, distant sounds of the city waking below. And drifting from the kitchen… the rich, dark aroma of brewing coffee.
He sat bolt upright, throwing off the covers, the lingering phantom sensations of the kitchen floor – the cold tile, the weight of Clara's lifeless body – evaporating like mist. He swung his legs out of bed, planting his feet firmly on the wooden floorboards, testing reality. Solid. Real. But the terror remained, cold and sharp in his chest, no longer dismissible as a nightmare's residue.
Yesterday happened. The impossible allergic reaction, her sudden death in their supposedly safe kitchen… it had been real. Just as real as the hit-and-run the day before that. Two days. Two deaths. Two beginnings that felt terrifyingly identical. This wasn't PTSD. This wasn't grief-induced hallucination. This was… recurrence. A loop. An insane, impossible loop, and he was trapped inside it.
The coffee smell pulled him forward, a Pavlovian response warring with raw dread. He walked stiffly towards the kitchen, his muscles tight, his mind racing. If yesterday happened, and the day before happened… did that mean Clara was…?
He reached the doorway and stopped, his breath catching. There she was. Standing by the counter, bathed in the morning light, wearing his sweatshirt, humming off-key as she poured hot water over the coffee grounds. Alive. Again.
The sight didn't bring the same wave of pure, unadulterated relief as it had the previous morning. That innocence was gone, shattered by the brutal confirmation of the kitchen floor. Seeing her alive now sparked a complex, agonizing mix of emotions: fierce, desperate love; cold, gripping fear; and a rising tide of frantic determination. It was repeating. Which meant… he had another chance. A chance to stop what he now believed was the original death: the hit-and-run.
"Morning, sleepyhead," she greeted him, turning with that smile that still, despite everything, squeezed his heart. "Thought I'd get a head start. We've got that meeting with Thompson at ten, remember?"
Ethan leaned heavily against the doorframe, his mind racing. Okay, think. Don't panic. Analyze. Loop One: Outside, public space, violent external event (car). Loop Two: Inside, presumed safety, sudden internal event (allergic reaction). He'd drastically changed the circumstances, taken extreme precautions by keeping her home, yet she'd died anyway. It suggested the location wasn't the key variable. The 'accident' itself seemed fluid, adaptable.
He forced himself to walk into the kitchen, needing the tactile proof of her existence. "Morning," he managed, his voice rough. He watched her move, pour his coffee, add the milk just right.
"You okay?" she asked, concern clouding her bright expression. "You look like you barely slept. Bad dreams again?"
"Something like that," he evaded, accepting the mug. His mind churned. If changing the environment so drastically didn't work, what would? Running away? Trying to get her out of the city immediately?
What about consistency? The first day, Loop One, played out naturally until the very end. Yesterday, Loop Two, he'd intervened from the start, changing everything, keeping her home. And she'd still died. What if the change itself was the problem? What if the loop, the force behind it, needed certain events to happen, a certain path to be followed, and when he deviated too much, it simply inserted death differently, correcting the course?
A hypothesis began to form, desperate and perhaps flawed, but the only straw he could grasp at. What if he tried to replicate Loop One as closely as possible? Follow the exact same routine: go to work, have the mundane meetings, arrange to meet Clara at the same time near her subway station. Let the day unfold naturally, identically, right up until the moment the dark sedan appeared. Then intervene. Use his foreknowledge only at the critical instant.
Could he trick it? Could he fulfill the 'script' of the day but alter the final scene? Maybe preventing the original death, within the original context, was the key. Yesterday, preventing her from even being at the intersection might have forced the loop's hand, triggering the different, internal death at home. Perhaps staying on script but saving her from the car was the loophole.
It felt terrifyingly risky. Deliberately walking her back into the path of that speeding car… But doing nothing, or doing something completely different like yesterday, had already proven fatal. This felt like the only logical strategy left to test based on the grim data he had.
"Clara," he began, trying to sound casual, normal, burying the frantic calculation beneath a veneer of everyday conversation. "About tonight… Valenti's, still on?"
She brightened. "Absolutely. Need it after yesterday's Finch fiasco, and anticipating today's."
"Right," Ethan nodded, forcing his focus. "So, I was thinking… any chance you could get away a bit early again? Like yesterday?" No, not like yesterday, he corrected himself mentally. Like the day before yesterday. Loop One. "Say, meet up around five? We could walk over from the station together?"
Clara studied him for a second. "Trying to make early escapes a habit? What's the occasion?"
He scrambled for a reason. "Just… feeling good today, weirdly. Thought it'd be nice to stretch our legs, have a proper walk before dinner, you know?" A feeble excuse, but maybe plausible enough.
She shrugged, seeming to buy it. "Okay, sure. Sounds nice, actually. Five-ish at the usual corner it is."
Relief, cold and sharp, cut through Ethan's anxiety. Alright. Plan A: Replicate Loop One, execute the save. He took a deliberate sip of coffee, the hot liquid doing little to warm the icy dread pooling in his stomach. He just had to get through the next eight hours, live the day exactly as it first occurred, and be ready when the moment arrived. He had to believe this could work. He couldn't face the alternative.
The hours leading up to 5:00 PM were excruciating. Ethan went through the motions of his workday in a state of heightened, agonizing awareness. Every mundane task, every conversation, every tick of the clock felt amplified, overlaid with the dreadful knowledge of what was coming. He sat through the Palmerston lobby meeting again, the discussion of greys feeling even more surreal and meaningless this time around. He answered emails, pretending to focus on blueprints, while his mind constantly replayed the intersection scenario, analyzing angles, timing, potential intervention strategies. How could he stop it? Shove her? Scream? The possibilities felt flimsy against the memory of the car's terrifying speed and suddenness.
He barely touched his lunch. He checked his watch constantly, the numbers crawling by with agonizing slowness. 2:00 PM. 3:30 PM. 4:15 PM. He exchanged brief, deliberately normal emails with Clara, confirming their plan to meet around five. He fought down waves of nausea, the sheer stress churning his stomach. Failure wasn't an option. He couldn't face another death, another reset knowing he'd had the chance, the foreknowledge, and still failed.
He left the office just before 4:45 PM, escaping Howard's notice, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. The walk to the subway station felt different today. He wasn't just heading to meet Clara; he was walking towards a battlefield, armed only with the terrible weapon of memory. The familiar streets seemed charged with hidden menace. Every dark sedan that passed sent a jolt of adrenaline through him. The crowds felt thicker, more chaotic, potential obstacles in his path.
He arrived at the corner near the station entrance at 5:02 PM, his eyes already scanning, hyper-vigilant. He saw Mr. Henderson struggling with his poodles further down the block – a small detail confirming the day's script was playing out as remembered. He took deep breaths, trying to quell the tremor in his hands, forcing himself to appear casual as he leaned against the bank wall, waiting.
Clara emerged from the subway stairs right on cue, spotting him instantly, her face lighting up with that same relieved smile. "Rescued!" she declared, hurrying over. "Finch achieved peak absurdity today. I need food. And wine. Urgently." She linked her arm through his, ready to move towards their destination.
"Right," Ethan said, his voice tight. "Valenti's awaits." He kept his grip firm on her arm, subtly positioning himself slightly ahead, slightly protective, as they approached the fateful intersection. His senses were screamingly alert. The traffic flow, the gathering pedestrians, the exact cadence of the traffic lights – it all matched his memory from Chapter Three.
They waited on the curb. The 'Don't Walk' sign glowed red. Clara chatted about Finch's latest absurdity, but Ethan barely heard her, his gaze fixed on the cross-street to their left, scanning the oncoming traffic, waiting for the dark sedan to appear. His muscles coiled, ready to spring.
The light changed. The green 'Walk' sign flashed. The crowd surged forward. "Come on," Ethan urged, pulling Clara gently but firmly off the curb, keeping them near the back of the initial wave of pedestrians. He needed a few seconds of buffer.
They were halfway across the first set of lanes. His heart hammered against his ribs. Any second now…
There! He saw it. Further up the block, weaving through the stopped traffic with aggressive impatience – the sleek, dark sedan. Accelerating. Not stopping. Exactly as before.
"Ethan?" Clara started, noticing his sudden tension, the way his head snapped towards the oncoming car.
No time for explanation. "GET DOWN!" Ethan roared, shoving Clara forward and down with all his might, not just pushing her clear but forcing her towards the ground, sacrificing dignity for safety.
Simultaneously, he braced himself, watching the car's trajectory. It swerved violently right, exactly as he remembered, aiming for the space Clara had occupied just a heartbeat before. The driver (still unseen behind the tinted glass) seemed momentarily surprised by the empty space, perhaps, or by Ethan's roar. The car wobbled slightly, tires squealing as it careened past, missing Clara's prone form by inches. It clipped the same taxi bumper further down, then sped off, vanishing uptown.
It was over. He'd done it.
Horns blared. People shouted. Clara pushed herself up from the asphalt, shaken but seemingly unharmed, staring at him with wide, furious eyes. "Ethan! What the hell was that? You could have broken my arm!"
Relief crashed over him, so potent it left him giddy, breathless. He ignored her anger, ignored the surrounding chaos, and grabbed her arms, pulling her fully upright, checking her frantically. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
"I think so! No thanks to you!" she shot back, pulling her arm away, thoroughly rattled and confused. "What is wrong with you? That car was nowhere near us!"
"It was coming right for you, Clara! You didn't see it!" he insisted breathlessly. He had saved her. He had beaten the script. A wild, triumphant joy surged through him.
But the surrounding pedestrians were now reacting to the near-miss and Ethan's dramatic intervention. Some were shouting after the vanished car, others were yelling at Ethan for shoving Clara, others still were frozen in shock. A small knot of chaos formed around them in the middle of the crosswalk.
"Let's just get off the street," Ethan urged, grabbing Clara's hand, trying to pull her towards the relative safety of the nearby pedestrian island or the sidewalk beyond.
"Not until you tell me…" Clara started, digging her heels in, bewildered and angry.
In the confusion, someone jostling backwards from the commotion bumped hard against Clara. Unbalanced, she stumbled sideways, her feet tangling. Her arms flailed for purchase, finding only air.
Ethan saw it happen in sickening slow motion. Her stumble took her directly towards the top of a short flight of concrete stairs leading down into the subway station entrance – an entrance right beside the crosswalk, partially obscured by the crowd. Her momentum carried her backwards, her heel catching on the top step's edge.
With a small, surprised cry, she tumbled backwards down the unforgiving concrete steps. There was a sickening series of dull thuds, ending with a final, awful crack as her head struck the lowest step.
"CLARA!" Ethan screamed, the triumph of moments before turning instantly to ash in his mouth. He shoved through the throng of onlookers, leaping down the steps two at a time.
She lay crumpled at the bottom, unnervingly still, her limbs twisted at unnatural angles. A dark stain was already blossoming on the concrete beneath her head. The exact same spot, the exact same way the blood had pooled in his nightmare, beside the crosswalk where the car should have hit her.
"No," he whispered, dropping to his knees beside her again, the horrific déjà vu washing over him, cold and paralyzing. "No, not again." He reached out a trembling hand, touching her neck, searching desperately for a pulse he already knew he wouldn't find. Nothing. Her skin felt suddenly cool beneath his fingers.
He looked up frantically, his eyes searching for a clock. Across the street, mounted on a bank building, a large digital clock displayed the time in stark numerals. He stared at it, his blood running cold, the chaotic noise of the surrounding intersection fading to a dull roar.
5:17 PM
It blinked, impassive, marking the moment. The exact, precise, immutable moment. He had stopped the car. He had changed the cause. But the result remained the same. And the time… the time was absolute. Fixed. Unbreakable.
The realization hit him not with the force of a blow, but with the creeping, chilling certainty of ice forming in his veins. It wasn't just about the location, or the specific danger. It was the time itself. 5:17 PM was a deadline Clara was somehow destined not to cross, regardless of his intervention, regardless of the method. The universe, or whatever force governed this nightmare, simply found another way. A trip. A fall. A set of concrete stairs. Mundane, unavoidable, fatal.
He knelt there, amidst the growing sirens and the shocked murmurs of the crowd gathering above, staring down at Clara's lifeless form. The brief elation of his successful intervention curdled into the bitterest despair. He hadn't saved her. He had only changed the details of her death. The horrifying truth settled over him: he wasn't just fighting accidents; he was fighting time itself. And time, it seemed, always won. The clock was ticking, and midnight, he suspected with a certainty that terrified him, was coming again.