“My… heart?” His voice trembled, and for a moment, he forgot to breathe. The pounding of both his heart and the book took him by surprise, as it was indeed beating at the same time. “H-how is this a book then?”
“Huh?” ×××× tilted her head. “It’s a book. Can’t you see it?”
The book that was supposed to be his heart continued beating, and it started beating at a fast pace.
Calm down… Calm down… He assured himself, trying to calm his breathing, hoping to stabilize the heartbeat. He took a deep breath one final time before deciding to open the book.
“Hah…” He opened it, like any other book. Although it felt sticky and didn’t feel like a book when touching it, it still looked like a book, like any other one.
“Oh…” Surprised, he noticed immediately that it looked like a normal book. “What’s this?” He noticed the text written on it.
Date, time, and…
“…Activity? What’s this?” He looked back at her, then continued, “Date, time, and activity? Of what?” He asked, unsure of what he was looking at.
“The text is written in there for you to look at. Got it?” She said as she took a seat. “Go on.” She said, as if shooing Shac away.
Shac found himself looking back at the first page of the book. It was written with dates, times, and activities, those were the three things he could see.
June 05, 2024… Wednesday 8:09 AM… Activity… Met the duckling on the sidewalk while walking towards school… What!?
× × × × × × × × × ×
Date: June 05, 2024
Time: Wednesday 8:09 AM
Activity: Met the duckling on the sidewalk while walking towards school.
Date: June 05, 2024
Time: Wednesday 8:10 AM
Activity: Left the duckling behind and continued running towards school.
Date: June 05, 2024
Time: Wednesday 4:12 PM
Activity: Met the duckling again in front of the school gate.
Date: June 05, 2024
Time: Wednesday 4:12 PM
Activity: Left the duckling in front of the school gate.
Date: June 05, 2024
Time: Wednesday 11:59 PM
Activity: The duckling died of starvation.
Date: June 06, 2024
Time: Wednesday 12:00 AM
Activity: Shac died of asphyxiation.
× × × × × × × × × ×
The book showed a list of what seemed to be a logbook. He read through it, one by one. It didn’t take too long for him to notice the familiarity of what was written in the book.
“This is…” He muttered, frowning at the absurdity of the text. “How is this… possible?” He flipped to the next page, eager to know what came next.
× × × × × × × × × ×
Date: June 05, 2024
Time: Wednesday 8:09 AM
Activity: Met the duckling on the sidewalk while walking towards school.
Date: June 05, 2024
Time: Wednesday 8:11 AM
Activity: Left the duckling behind and continued running towards school.
Date: June 05, 2024
Time: Wednesday 4:13 PM
Activity: Met the duckling again in front of the school gate.
Date: June 05, 2024
Time: Wednesday 4:15 PM
Activity: Left the duckling in front of the school gate.
Date: June 05, 2024
Time: Wednesday 11:59 PM
Activity: The duckling died of starvation.
Date: June 06, 2024
Time: Wednesday 12:00 AM
Activity: Shac died of asphyxiation.
× × × × × × × × × ×
It’s the same? He then looked closely and noticed a bit of a difference.
No… the time was a bit different… He then turned the page again, now on the third page of the book.
× × × × × × × × × ×
Date: June 05, 2024
Time: Wednesday 11:59 PM
Activity: The duckling died of starvation.
Date: June 06, 2024
Time: Wednesday 12:00 AM
Activity: Shac died of asphyxiation.
× × × × × × × × × ×
Although some of the times when he met the duckling were a bit different from each other, there were things that didn’t change no matter how many times he turned the page.
11:59 PM, the duckling dies of starvation, and 12:00 AM, I die of asphyxiation.
Those things didn’t change. It repeated multiple times, as long as the duckling was not fed, he would surely die at exactly 12 AM of asphyxiation. That explained why he couldn’t breathe every time.
So it was asphyxia. I didn’t know that it was because of the lack of oxygen… But nothing was written about why I would suddenly be killed just because the duckling died of starvation.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
He took a deep sigh, remembering his past nightmare. How did I even manage to get past the curse… I can’t believe I managed to escape…
He then looked back at the book. It logs the activities and includes the date and time. He thought for a moment, then continued flipping through the pages. And same as the other pages, nothing was totally different.
He flipped the pages until he reached the blank pages. “What?” Surprised, he flipped back and forth, noticing that the contents of the book were shorter than he expected. That was it?
He turned the pages back to the last page. There, he immediately noticed that something was different.
× × × × × × × × × ×
Date: June 11, 2024
Time: Tuesday 11:59 PM
Activity: The duck died upon laying the two eggs.
Date: June 12, 2024
Time: Wednesday 4:50 PM
Activity: Shac ate the ‘right egg.’
Date: June 13, 2024
Time: Thursday 12:00 AM
Activity: Shac met the duckling in the dream.
Date: June 13, 2024
Time: Thursday 8:15 AM
Activity: Shac died of hypothermia.
Date: ×××× ××××, ××××
Time: ×××× ××××:××××
Activity: Shac arrived at the White Void.
× × × × × × × × × ×
Shac’s eyes widened as shivers ran through his body. This is… my last loop… I remember it too well. It felt like it was just an hour ago…
Suddenly, his body felt cold. He shivered in the cold. “Why is it suddenly cold… Hah…”
Ah, right… I completely forgot. This place is chilly. Having been preoccupied this whole time, he completely forgot that this place was chilly since the start. He was just reminded because he remembered what happened to him earlier, when he died of extreme coldness.
He flipped the page back to the previous one. I see, it was different, and it completely logs the previous loop.
He found that compared to the first pages, this one was the page for the previous loop.
× × × × × × × × × ×
Date: June 05, 2024
Time: Wednesday 8:05 AM
Activity: Received the email and read the message.
× × × × × × × × × ×
This page has an email on it… There was nothing about email on the other pages.
The email is the proof that it was a different kind of loop compared to the first one.
“Wait…” He whispered. “Then they are not all the same?”
Then how about the other loops? He flipped the page to the previous one.
× × × × × × × × × ×
Date: June 12, 2024
Time: Wednesday 8:01 AM
Activity: Shac ate the ‘left egg.’
Date: June 13, 2024
Time: Thursday 12:00 AM
Activity: Shac dreamed of the first dream.
Date: June 14, 2024
Time: Friday 12:00 AM
Activity: Shac dreamed of the second dream.
Date: June 15, 2024
Time: Saturday 12:00 AM
Activity: Shac dreamed of the third dream.
Date: June 16, 2024
Time: Sunday 12:00 AM
Activity: Shac dreamed of the fourth dream.
Date: June 17, 2024
Time: Monday 12:00 AM
Activity: Shac dreamed of the fifth dream.
Date: June 18, 2024
Time: Tuesday 12:00 AM
Activity: Shac dreamed of the sixth dream.
Date: June 18, 2024
Time: Tuesday 8:39 AM
Activity: Shac died of loss of blood.
× × × × × × × × × ×
So this must be the third loop, the time when I managed to eat the egg. He read through the text and remembered what happened that time.
“Died of loss of blood,” he whispered. He then glanced at his chest and felt it. “That was horrible…”
It happened all too fast… I couldn’t even react to her, all I know that I died without even being able to fight her.
Up until now, I have no idea who that girl was. I haven’t seen her in the school before, and that was the only time I met her. Considering that she was able to kill me that easily, simply means that she is also a cursed person, and a dangerous one on top of that.
The third time he died, he met the girl, the one who killed him with ease just by using a finger gun. She has long white hair, and a hoodie that is also white.
Despite looking innocent, she was one hell of a being. How was she able to kill me with a finger gun? That doesn’t make any sense! A finger gun that is able to create a hole in my chest?
Shac took a deep sigh. It is simply unbelievable. No matter how I look at it, that finger gun, it just doesn’t make any sense.
Shac shook his head and looked back at the book. As he turned the page back to the previous one, he was met by the third loop.
× × × × × × × × × ×
Date: June 13, 2024
Time: Tuesday 4:55 PM
Activity: Shac died of oxygen implosion.
× × × × × × × × × ×
An oxygen implosion!? What is that!? Shac was startled, he did not expect to read that. He paused, trying to remember what happened to him that time.
I do remember not eating the egg, and that led to my death. My body did start getting larger on its own, and after that, I don’t remember much…
An oxygen implosion… My body exploded from too much oxygen? Is that how it is?
“Why?” he muttered in confusion.
I could understand if it was the same as others, where the cause of my death is the loss of oxygen. But in this loop, I died because of too much oxygen?
Why would that even happen in the first place?
“No…” He shook his head, “I shouldn’t delve too much into this.”
All I know now is that this book seemed to be writing the details about the loops. This is yet another crazy thing to see.
He closed the book, and couldn’t believe what he just saw. It was all familiar to him, the things that were written in the book, those are simply the things he couldn’t forget. He then looked at ×××× and asked, “How is this possible?”
“Because that’s how it was made. The library holds the record of everyone’s suffering throughout their life.” She revealed.
Shac looked above, seeing the massive floating library in the void.
A record of everyone’s suffering… Was it really necessary for such thing to even exist?
He found himself looking at the mountain of corpses in front of him.
“But…” Shac whispered, unsure of what to feel. “These things, do they have any importance?”
“You’re still thinking that way?” She stood up and walked towards Shac. “You’re wasting your energy pretending things are normal when you already know they’re not. Nothing here is. Not you, not me, and certainly not everything you’ve been seeing.” She said, which further confused him. “Now, if you are going to keep thinking like that. You should kill yourself now.”
Kill myself? Why would I do that?
“I know that… It’s just I’m having a hard time trying to believe.” He looked around the White Void, then continued, “What’s the point of doing any of this?”
“The point? Is that a death should have a meaning, and that’s what this place implies.”
“A meaning?” He asked, confused. “Is that what this place is for?”
“Don’t you think so?” She paused, then continued, “That book is your heart, and it is there for you to understand it. That should give you the idea of what I just said.”
Shac looked back at the book in his hand, it continued to beat.
Finding the meaning to my deaths… All I was thinking was escaping death and nothing more than that… Was that the meaning I was trying to find? I don’t know. I simply don’t know. Even if I did spend most of my time thinking about it, I would never find the answer for that.
Besides… Finding a meaning to my death seemed to be the worst idea when I’m currently stuck at this never-ending curse.
“Hah…” He sighed deeply. “Now what?” He said in a low voice, as he found himself looking at the library. He froze in the sight of the library, lost in thought. “Say duck…”
She looked at him. “What?”
“What about Ivan? Is he also included in the library?” He asked, “There should be a book about him, right?”
×××× chuckled, as if she was expecting him to ask about Ivan. “It’s also in here.”
Shac’s eyes widened. “You mean!?”
“Yeah, it’s here.”