JOLT.
Ethan's eyes snapped open, but he didn't gasp this time. There was no sharp intake of breath, no frantic thrashing against the phantom horror. There was only a vast, echoing emptiness within him, mirroring the sudden silence that replaced the memory of the sickening thud of the chef's knife finding its mark. Clara's face, twisted not just in the rictus of unexpected death but in genuine terror of him, superimposed itself over the familiar pattern of the bedroom ceiling. Her last moments hadn't been filled with confusion or surprise; they had been filled with fear of the man she loved, thanks to his desperate, clumsy attempt to share the unshareable truth.
The knowledge settled in his gut like lead, cold and heavy. He had not only failed to save her, again, but he had actively contributed to the horror of her final minutes. He had made her afraid. That felt like a deeper, more personal failure than simply losing her to the loop's relentless machinery.
Sunlight slanted through the window, mocking him with its cheerful normalcy. He heard the floorboards creak softly out in the main apartment. Then, inevitably, the smell of coffee began to snake its way under the bedroom door. Rich. Dark. Comforting to anyone else, perhaps, but to Ethan, it smelled nauseatingly of repetition, of dread, of mornings that promised only recycled tragedy. He squeezed his eyes shut, turning his face away, pressing it into the pillow as if he could suffocate the scent, block out the impending sounds of Clara moving around the kitchen, alive again, oblivious to the gruesome end she'd met just hours ago at his metaphorical, if not literal, hands.
He didn't move. Didn't sit up. Didn't swing his legs out of bed. What was the point? Loop Eight. Or was it Nine now? He was losing count, the specific horrors blurring into a monstrous montage of failure. He'd tried direct intervention. He'd tried safety through isolation. He'd tried changing locations, changing times, escaping the city entirely. He'd even tried confessing the impossible truth. Every attempt had ended identically: Clara dead, the universe seemingly rearranging reality with casual, malicious precision to ensure it happened. His efforts weren't just futile; they felt like participating in the cruelty, designing new and varied torments for her, adding emotional agony to her physical demise.
He heard the soft padding of her slippers approaching the bedroom door. He held his breath, feigning sleep. The door creaked open slightly.
"Ethan?" Clara's voice, soft, hesitant. He didn't respond, kept his breathing slow and even, facing away from the door. He felt her presence linger for a moment, radiating the familiar concern that now felt like sandpaper on his raw nerves. Then, quietly, she pulled the door almost closed again and padded away.
Good. Avoidance. That was the only strategy left that didn't feel actively harmful. Keep interaction to a minimum. Reduce the variables he introduced. Let the day play out on its own cursed track. Perhaps… perhaps if he did nothing, if he removed himself as an active agent, the 'original' accident would simply happen. Quick. Impersonal. Tragic, yes, but maybe, just maybe, less terrifying for her than dying while looking at him with fear in her eyes. The thought was a bleak form of comfort, a twisted rationale born of utter despair. Letting her die felt almost like the kinder option now, compared to frightening her with his fractured reality or leading her into some new, elaborate deathtrap disguised as salvation.
He stayed in bed long after the sounds of Clara getting ready faded. He heard the front door open and close as she left for work – alone, this time, as per the original script he was now passively allowing. The silence that descended afterwards was profound, broken only by the distant, indifferent sounds of the city and the frantic, useless churning of his own thoughts.
Guilt gnawed at him. Not just the guilt of failing to save her, but the specific guilt of her terror. Her tears. His desperate, rambling confession that must have sounded like the ravings of a lunatic. He had broken her trust in those final moments, replaced love with fear. And for what? It hadn't changed anything. It hadn't saved her. It had just added another layer of cruelty to the inevitable.
He felt hollowed out, numb. The frantic energy, the desperate hope, the analytical drive of previous loops – all extinguished, replaced by a leaden apathy. What was the point in planning, in strategizing, when the opponent wasn't just circumstance, but seemingly the fundamental laws of reality itself, all geared towards one specific, immutable outcome? It was like trying to hold back the tide with a teaspoon. Worse, it felt like the tide actively resented the effort, sending rogue waves to smash his pathetic sandcastles before drowning him anyway. The loop wasn't just indifferent; it felt malicious. It felt like it was mocking him. Each failure, especially the more bizarre ones – the falling branch, the ricocheting bullet, the exploding fridge – felt like a deliberate, cruel joke at his expense.
Eventually, perhaps an hour after Clara had left, the sheer inertia of habit propelled him out of bed. He moved slowly, mechanically. Showered without feeling the water. Dressed in yesterday's clothes, pulled crumpled from the floor. He didn't look in the mirror. Didn't make coffee. Didn't eat.
He found himself standing by the window, looking down at the street below. People hurried along sidewalks, cars flowed in predictable patterns. An ordinary Tuesday unfolding. He felt utterly disconnected from it, an alien observing a species he could no longer relate to, trapped in his own private dimension of recurring grief.
Should he go to work? Stay here? It felt irrelevant. Either way, the clock was ticking towards 5:17 PM. Staying here felt like wallowing, passively waiting for news he already knew. Going to work… felt like putting on a costume, pretending to participate in a world that no longer felt real. He chose work, not out of purpose, but out of a lack of any better option. It was somewhere to be, a place to let the hours bleed away until the inevitable reset.
The commute was a study in dissociation. At the office, he navigated the hallways like an automaton, offering curt nods to colleagues, avoiding eye contact. He sat at his desk, switched on his computer, opened files, but processed nothing. The Palmerston lobby plans swam before his eyes, meaningless shapes and lines. He fielded a couple of calls, his voice flat, responses automatic. His boss, Howard, came by, inquired brusquely about his pallor and lack of engagement. Ethan just shrugged, mumbling something noncommittal. Howard frowned but moved on, likely writing him off as hungover or unwell.
Time moved differently in this state of numb resignation. The morning didn't crawl; it simply ceased to register. Lunchtime came and went unnoticed until his stomach cramped with emptiness, a faint reminder of bodily needs he felt little inclination to address. He forced himself to drink some water from the cooler, the simple act feeling like a monumental effort.
He didn't check his watch compulsively today. Didn't need to. The dread wasn't the sharp, anxious terror of previous loops; it was a dull, background ache, a certainty so absolute that anticipation felt redundant. He knew what was coming. He knew the approximate time. He just didn't care enough to track the precise minutes anymore.
What would it be this time? Would the loop revert to the 'original' script now that he was offering no resistance, no deviation? Would the dark sedan materialize on schedule? Or would the malicious intelligence behind this find some new, cruelly mundane way? A slip on a wet floor? A sudden, fatal aneurysm witnessed by strangers? He found he didn't have the energy to speculate. His only goal was to not actively participate, to not make it worse for her.
As the afternoon shadows lengthened outside the office window, a profound weariness settled over him. He thought about Clara, somewhere across town, working, worrying about him perhaps, completely unaware of the cosmic target painted on her back. Was this passive approach truly kinder? Allowing her to die, potentially violently, without warning? Or was his presence, his frantic attempts, however futile, at least some form of company in the face of oblivion? He didn't know. All he knew was that his efforts seemed to cause only different kinds of pain, both for her and for himself. This numbness, this withdrawal, felt like the only remaining path that didn't actively court disaster or compound the suffering.
4:45 PM. People started packing up around him. The usual end-of-day chatter filled the office. Ethan remained seated, staring at his blank monitor.
5:00 PM. He should leave. He should head towards the subway station, if only to be… nearby? To witness it? Why? There was no reason. Staying here felt just as pointless. He stood up slowly, packed his briefcase mechanically.
He didn't rush. Didn't take the stairs. Waited patiently for the elevator, surrounded by colleagues making evening plans. He felt a million miles away from their easy camaraderie. He exited the building into the familiar chaos of the early evening street. He didn't turn towards Clara's subway station. Instead, he started walking slowly in the opposite direction. No plan to meet her. No Valenti's tonight. Let the script play out without him.
He walked, head down, anonymous in the crowd, the sounds of the city muted, distant. He focused on placing one foot in front of the other, a simple, mechanical action. He was vaguely aware of the time passing, the light fading further. He passed crosswalks without glancing, ignored the flow of traffic. He was just… waiting.
He was about three blocks from his own subway entrance when the sirens started. Not just one, but multiple, converging somewhere downtown, back in the direction he'd come from, back towards Clara's station. The sound grew louder, more insistent, cutting through the evening air. People on the sidewalk paused, looking back, murmuring.
Ethan stopped walking. He didn't need to turn around. Didn't need to see the flashing lights he knew would be painting the buildings near that fatal intersection. Didn't need confirmation from a news alert or a panicked phone call. He knew. The sirens were the score playing over the loop's inevitable climax. The dark sedan? A different accident? It didn't matter. The result was the same. 5:17 PM had come and gone, and Clara was dead again.
He stood there on the sidewalk, a solitary island amidst the flowing river of oblivious commuters, the wail of the sirens washing over him. There was no surge of grief this time, no frantic denial, no desperate calculation for the next attempt. There was only emptiness. A profound, chilling certainty of his own powerlessness. He had done nothing, and she had still died. Trying, not trying – it made no difference to the outcome.