The sirens faded into the general hum of the city as Ethan stood motionless on the sidewalk, an island of stillness in the current of evening commuters. Loop Ten was concluding its grim business somewhere downtown. He didn't turn, didn't run towards the flashing lights. He had done nothing, and the outcome remained unchanged. There was a strange purity to this failure, less agonizing than the failures born of frantic effort, but heavier, colder, settling into the marrow of his bones.
He turned slowly and began the walk back to the apartment. Not home. It wasn't home anymore. It was just the staging ground for the loop, the place where the nightmare reset each morning. The familiar streets felt alien, painted with the unseen residue of Clara's repeated deaths. Each corner held a potential phantom menace, each building a possible backdrop for catastrophe. He walked mechanically, head down, avoiding the glances of passersby, feeling utterly disconnected.
Inside the silent apartment, he didn't turn on the lights. He sat on the edge of the sofa in the deepening darkness, the city lights outside casting long, shifting shadows across the room. He didn't look at Clara's things, didn't allow himself to dwell on memories. He simply sat and waited, an automaton counting down the final hours. The silence wasn't peaceful; it was expectant, pregnant with the inevitable return. He tracked the passage of time not by the clock, but by the gradual deepening of the shadows, the shifting colours of the sky visible between buildings. He felt hollow, scooped out, waiting for the temporal tide to pull him back under.
11:59 PM. The familiar premonition. A thinning of the air, a subtle vibration beneath the surface of reality. He closed his eyes, not in prayer or resignation, but simply because there was nothing left to see.
JOLT.
Ethan's eyes opened to the familiar ceiling, the familiar slant of morning light. Loop Eleven. The transition was almost seamless now, the disorientation lessened, replaced by an immediate, weary recognition. He was back. Again. The faint scent of coffee drifted under the door. He could almost hear the soft clink of ceramic, Clara's gentle humming.
The crushing weight of futility remained, but underneath it, something else stirred – a dull ache centered around the memory of Clara's face in Loop Nine. Her fear. Her terror of him. He couldn't save her from the loop, he felt chillingly certain of that now. But maybe… maybe he didn't have to make her last hours worse. Maybe he owed her that much. A day where she wasn't frightened by his instability, manipulated by his lies, or subjected to his frantic, failed attempts at salvation that only led to different kinds of horror.
He couldn't offer her a future, but could he offer her a slightly less terrifying present? A day focused not on his desperate, doomed struggle, but simply on… her? It was a bleak ambition, born of guilt and utter helplessness, but it felt like the only path left that wasn't paved with outright cruelty or complete withdrawal.
He forced himself out of bed, moving with deliberate slowness. He entered the kitchen, bracing himself for the interaction.
"Morning sleepyhead," Clara said, turning from the coffee maker. Her smile was warm, but her eyes immediately scanned his face, a flicker of concern already present. He must look like death warmed over, the cumulative effect of ten failed loops wearing him down visibly.
"Morning," he replied, his voice quiet. He accepted the mug she offered, the familiar ritual feeling distant, almost clinical. "How did you sleep?" The question felt absurdly normal, a grotesque mimicry of everyday life.
"Fine," she said, watching him closely. "You? had a bad dream?"
He nodded, opting for the established excuse. "Yeah." He took a sip of coffee, forcing it down past the lump in his throat. "Listen, Clara… I was thinking. I'm sorry about… how weird I've been." That, at least, felt true. "The stress… it's been messing with my head. I feel like I haven't been very present."
Her expression softened instantly with empathy. "Oh, Ethan. It's okay. I get it. We've all got a lot going on." She reached out, resting a hand on his arm. "What can I do?"
"Actually," he said, forcing himself to meet her gaze, trying to project a semblance of calm sincerity, "I was thinking… maybe we just need a genuinely nice, normal day. Or, as normal as we can make it." He took a breath. "No frantic escapes, no locking ourselves away. Forget work for the afternoon. What if we just… do something you like? Something quiet, low-key? Didn't you say you wanted to check out that exhibit at the Cloisters? The medieval tapestries?"
The Cloisters. It felt random enough, far removed from previous death locations, and genuinely something Clara had expressed interest in weeks ago. It wasn't about safety; it was about offering her a pleasant experience before… before.
She blinked, surprised by the specific suggestion, then a slow smile spread across her face. "The Cloisters? Wow, I thought you'd forgotten I mentioned that. Yeah… yeah, that would be lovely, Ethan. Really lovely." She squeezed his arm. "Okay. Let's do it. Play hooky this afternoon and soak up some medieval vibes."
The relief he felt wasn't hope; it was the lesser pain of having successfully initiated his grim plan: Operation Make Her Last Day Nice.
The morning passed in a haze of strained normalcy. Ethan tried. He listened more attentively when Clara talked about her work issues with Finch (same issues, different loop). He commented on the news headlines on her tablet during breakfast. He even managed a weak joke about the wedding seating chart. But it all felt like acting, poorly rehearsed lines delivered by an exhausted performer. His smiles felt stiff, his laughter hollow. He kept catching Clara watching him with a mixture of pleasure at his effort and a persistent, underlying worry.
"You seem… calmer today," she observed as they cleared the breakfast dishes. "But also… really far away."
"Just tired," he deflected again. "Looking forward to the museum."
They both feigned illness to their offices around lunchtime, arranging to meet near a subway station – not hers, but a neutral one partway towards their uptown destination. Ethan felt a strange detachment. He wasn't scanning for dark sedans or suspicious threats today. His focus was entirely internal, monitoring his own behaviour, trying to project calmness, trying not to let the ever-present awareness of the 5:17 PM deadline bleed through. His only goal was to get through the next few hours without causing her distress.
When Clara arrived, looking relieved to be escaping work, he greeted her with a forced smile and a kiss that felt like a betrayal. They rode the subway uptown, making deliberately mundane conversation about the weather, about people they knew, about nothing of consequence. Ethan found himself hyper-aware of her, the way she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, the pattern of freckles across her nose, the slight frown she got when concentrating on something. He was trying to memorize her, not as a problem to be solved, but as the person he was about to lose again. The effort was profoundly painful.
The Cloisters museum, perched high above the Hudson River, was as beautiful and tranquil as he'd hoped. They wandered through arched walkways, peered at ancient illuminated manuscripts, and stood before the famous Unicorn Tapestries, their intricate details a testament to long-vanished artisans. Ethan tried to engage, asking questions about the history, commenting on the artistry, mirroring Clara's genuine interest. But his detachment persisted, a thin film separating him from the experience, from her. He felt like a ghost accompanying her on a final tour.
He noticed she kept glancing at him, her brow furrowed slightly. "Are you enjoying this?" she asked quietly as they stood looking out over the ramparts towards the river.
"Yes, of course," he lied, nodding perhaps too quickly. "It's fascinating. Beautiful."
"You just seem… elsewhere," she said, not accusingly, just observing. "Like you're waiting for something."
He stiffened. I am. "No, just… taking it all in," he murmured, turning away from her probing gaze to look out at the river, the sunlight glittering on the water.
As the afternoon progressed, heading towards the critical hour, he didn't feel the same frantic, heart-pounding panic of previous loops. The certainty of failure had inoculated him against that sharp terror. Instead, there was a heavy, sinking dread, a sorrowful anticipation. He kept the conversation going, focused on her, asking about her interpretations of the art, reminiscing about shared memories sparked by the medieval setting. He was trying to fill these last moments with normalcy, however thin.
Around 5:10 PM, they were walking down a quiet, stone-paved pathway leading from the main cloister garden towards the exit. The path was shaded by old trees, slightly uneven underfoot. He was deliberately not scanning for hazards, not assessing structural integrity or suspicious individuals. He was focused on Clara, responding to something she was saying about the symbolism in one of the tapestries.
"…and the way the lion is depicted, it's supposed to represent-" she was saying, gesturing animatedly.
Because he wasn't watching the path with his usual hyper-vigilance, because he was trying so hard to be present with her, he didn't notice the loose flagstone, slightly tilted by a tree root pushing up from beneath.
Clara, mid-gesture, stepped directly onto the edge of it. Her ankle twisted sharply, unnaturally. A startled cry escaped her – not the cry of terror from the subway stairs fall, but a cry of sudden, acute pain. She stumbled, her balance gone completely.
Ethan reached for her instantly, his reflexes finally kicking in, but it was too late. She wasn't falling backwards down stairs this time. She fell forwards and sideways, pitching off the slightly elevated edge of the pathway onto the grassy slope beside it. It wasn't a long fall, maybe only two or three feet. But the ground there was uneven, and littered with exposed tree roots and decorative rocks bordering the garden bed.
She landed awkwardly, her head striking one of the hard, grey rocks with a sickening crack that echoed horribly in the quiet afternoon air.
"Clara!" Ethan scrambled down the slope beside her, his blood running cold.
She lay still, face down on the grass, her body unnaturally limp. He gently rolled her over, his hands trembling. There was blood matting her hair near her temple, trickling down onto the grass. Her eyes were open, fixed, staring blankly up at the canopy of leaves overhead.
He knew. Instantly. That single, awful sound of impact had told him everything. A simple misstep. A twisted ankle. A fall of a few feet. A common garden rock. Mundane. Unexpected. Utterly, devastatingly final.
He looked at his watch, the motion automatic, almost involuntary now. 5:17 PM.
He knelt there beside her on the grass, the beauty of the museum grounds suddenly feeling obscene, mocking. He had tried to give her a nice day. He had tried to avoid frightening her. He had deliberately suppressed his own hyper-vigilance, his loop-induced paranoia. And in doing so, he had missed the simple, ordinary hazard that killed her this time.
It didn't matter what he did. Focus on safety, she died. Focus on escape, she died. Focus on normalcy, she died. His actions, his intentions, his very presence seemed irrelevant, or worse, a catalyst. Whether he was a frantic bodyguard or a numb companion, the outcome was brutally, fatally consistent.
He didn't cry. Didn't scream. Didn't check for a pulse he knew wasn't there. He simply knelt beside her cooling body on the grass, under the ancient trees, listening to the distant sounds of the city, and waited. The quiet despair was absolute. He had failed again. And tomorrow morning, the coffee would brew.