It wasn't exactly the same group as had remained in previous loops; some faces were new, and some were missing, but Luke, Craig, Satoshi, and Alejandra had all been through this with me before.

As I told the group I had a way out, I got a mix of reactions. Most of the familiar faces went through similar looks of surprise followed by a slow nodding as their partial memories dredged up forgotten details. Satoshi, as usual, had a very different reaction.

"You have a way out?! Where? Please! My family is all on the outside; I need to get to them!" I'd been over this with him. As clear as some of the memories people had, Satoshi seemed to remember almost nothing—though I had seen bouts of semi-accurate intuition from him. He was one of the few people who hadn't even stood up when the gigantic bunny crashed into the bar. The hope that he might have a way back to his family was finally enough to bring him to his feet, even if he still kept a distance between us.

"Satoshi, I'm sorry. I do have a way out. And you're welcome to use it," I told him. "But, it's complicated; the passageway out won't open for almost a year."

Luke had grabbed a broom and begun sweeping up the glass and wood splinters the monster attack had strewn across the bar. A couple of the patrons were helping him, filling the air with an almost meditative scrapping of brush and debris against the tile floor.

"So, we're fucked," an older black man named Franklin said, slumping disappointedly in his seat. "The Vortex in California finished destroying everything in a month."

I considered how to respond; there wasn't exactly a manual telling me how things worked. The best source I had was a floating chrome eyeball that was either a compulsive liar or delusional. It'd introduced itself to me as 'the one and many God' but immediately abandoned the position when challenged. I'd named it Sori and had mixed interactions with it. Sometimes, it seemed clueless and almost cute, like a kitten that occasionally tries to murder you when you're not paying attention, but not from malice, just instinct.

Luke had set the broom aside and begun dragging a long-ish table over to block the main entrance. Already on my feet, I helped him bring it the last few feet and leveraged it into place. It likely wouldn't stop any monsters, but it might slow them down.

"The short answer is, I don't know. Luke says some of you have been trying to piece together memories from days you don't really remember living."

"Right. From what we can gather, we've already been trapped for more than a month; we just can't remember," Luke offered up. Once again behind the bar, he wiped a towel across his bald head, his black skin glistening with small droplets of sweat from the effort of blocking the entrance and cleaning up glass.

"Jesus, it's been most of 100 days, hasn't it?" Alejandra said in stunned disbelief before taking a long pull from a beer bottle that had been abandoned by one of the patrons who'd run with the bunny monster had come crashing in.

Unlike Alice, Alejandra hadn't been keeping count. She had, however, remembered the information I'd told her previously. "And it's not just your memories," I went on. "At the end of every day, with few exceptions, the clock rewinds to the moment the vortex touched down." I picked up a nearby cardboard coaster and tore it in half. "Twelve hours from now, this damage will be undone, and most of your memories about the day will vanish; you'll once again be reliving the moment when you realize you're trapped," I told my fascinated listeners. They didn't all trust me, but being something fantastical in a fantastical situation seemed to make most willing to at least listen to my improbable explanation.

"So, then, time isn't passing outside? We're just living the same day over and over?" A patron I didn't know asked, setting his own drink down with a hard thud of frustration. They had a bushy grey mustache and blocky red glasses. They had a flop of gray hair that was just beginning to thin enough to reveal a bald spot and a round body with solid-looking arms and legs.

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"What's your name?" I asked. I'd introduced myself but hadn't gone around asking for names. "I know some of the others, but I don't recognize you."

"My name's Stan. I don't think I've been to this bar before. I was trying to decide what I should do, and somehow, I knew that I'd get answers here." Stan said. "I just wish they were useful."

"Please," Satoshi said, his hands unconsciously shredding the paper napkin in a display of nervousness I'd seen from him before. "What do you mean it won't open for a year? Will that be a year on the outside too?"

"I honestly don't know Satoshi, Stan," I said softly. "The being that made the exit hasn't always given me straight—or even sane—answers. I can let you use it. I have that being's word you'll be safe and released at the end of the year. But I don't know how much time will pass outside. It could be less, none, or even more, for all I know. I can tell you this, though: I've already promised to bring you out with me when I go. I'll make that promise again now," I gestured, and behind me, my shadow expanded and rose off the ground, occluding part of the bar. The Shadow door wasn't much more than a dark patch in mid-air, with no actual features to pick out.

Some of the patrons had joined Luke in cleaning up the bar. Tables had been tipped, and drinks spilled in the mad rush to escape Craig's Trauma Monster. The smell of yeasty beer, ever a constant in the bar, was all the stronger for puddles being mopped up with borrowed rags.

"Anyone who wants to can step through here and be only a few yards away from the exit. A few people have already chosen to do that. But I hope you won't. I've said I need help. This is what I need help with. I don't know how many people are left in town. My guess is around 100,000 people. I don't have time to go around convincing 100,000 people to follow me into a strange shadow. Most people won't let me near them without a lot of work. I need people to spread the word, to recruit more people to spread the word. I need people with knowledge of logistics to help me plan the evacuation of 100,000 people through a single doorway. We have less than a year, and this group represents my biggest success talking to people so far. Satoshi, or anyone else, if you choose, I'll show you the way out. I just don't know what you'll find when you do, and I don't know how many I'll be able to save without help."

I'd been through this part with some of the group already, and I was pretty sure Satoshi, at least, would stay behind. As for the new faces, I doubted any would trust me enough to walk into a mysterious shadow on my word yet.

"What about the boy?" Craig asked, his voice muffled. Luke had helped him to his feet, but after sitting back at the bar, he'd laid his head down in his arms and had been quiet, the events of the day catching up to him.

"I can't save him. I'm sorry, Craig. I can't get to him in time."

There was a squelching sound as Craig's cheek peeled away from the sticky bar top. "But then he'll just be killed again and again; it's not righ!" he protested.

"I know, believe me, I know," I said, thinking back on my struggle to save people in the hospital. I'd failed people over and over and only rarely managed to save anybody. Part of the reason I'd left was in the hope I wouldn't make things worse. I was one of the few people with complete memories of the time loops, and I was still struggling to achieve anything.

"My hope—or plan—is to get more people aware of the time loop and working together to spread the word about the escape route. That should make it possible to save people like that boy."

"THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!" Craig shouted, slamming the table with a fist.

"He's right," Alejandra said, finishing her beer and standing up. "Maybe you can't save that boy. But there are others who need rescuing. That Kaiju monster is going to be knocking over a bunch of apartments. Why are you here instead of there emptying those buildings out before that monster collapses them?"

I had to try not to let the frustration and tightness building in my chest reach my words, but I was only partially successful with the borrowed voice. "It's dangerous over there." I'd done this before. For most of three weeks, I'd tried. The area was overrun with monsters, no doubt a result of the Kaiju's presence. The number would likely grow by the day.

"There are monsters everywhere downtown. One of them becomes the Kaiju. I'm not saying we can't help them, but it's going to take planning and way more than the dozen people we have."

"And in the meantime, we, what? Go door to door like Jehovah's Witnesses: 'Have you heard about our blue lord and savior of the escape hatch?'" The scrawny, bespectacled kid asked, standing up and walking over to join Alejandra. "The name's Trevor, by the way; I'm pretty sure this is my first time here, too."

Stan and Satoshi stood and joined the pair standing around Alejandra's table. "Does anyone have any memories of that area?"

"I do," Luke said, joining them. "Oberon's right, it's monster central. We'll want to bring weapons, preferably something quieter than guns."

A butter knife thudded into the dartboard and hung, quivering. "Got any steak knives?" The voice of the lady who'd discovered a talent for darts said from the back door. "I can apparently throw other things nearly as well."