I woke up lying on a familiar cot, half-covered in a throw blanket. Neither were mine, and both were too small for a 7-foot-tall werewolf. If I'd really spent the night that way, I'd have woken up cold and uncomfortable, probably with a crick in my neck or back. I hadn't, though. In a way, I'd just lain down.

I'd wanted the time loops to feel less like starting over, so I'd set my spawn point to make it seem more like I was waking up to start the day new. Sure, it was early afternoon outside, so it still felt a bit odd, but it wouldn't be the first time I'd slept past noon.

Groaning, I sat up and brought my bare legs—apart from the fur— down and leaned forward to rub my hands over my face, massaging imaginary sleep from my eyes and real frustration from my temples. Standing, I picked up my pants off the cot. I'd taken them off to make for a more normal waking routine, but I'd had to drape them over me so that they shared my spawn point. I'd given the bulletproof vest and shotgun the same treatment. It would have been a truly terrible sleep, but it made for a quick morning at least.

As I slipped on my black scrub pants, I looked around the art studio I'd claimed as a spawn point. I didn't know if it had been abandoned or if the apocalypse had just kept the owner too busy to come paint; either way, no one was around. I didn't do as much with paints as I did with ink and digital tools, but the space was still filled with familiar tools and quirky odds and ends that appealed to me. It felt like home, so I'd decided to claim it as one.

At one point, I'd actually gone home to the apartment I shared with Jon, but it was painful.

Our apartment, like Jon himself, seemed out of reach, like something that couldn't really be returned to. I knew when I left with him at the start of everything, back when we thought we'd be joining his parents at their cabin, that there was no going back to how things were. Visiting our home had been nostalgic but empty. I hadn't given up on getting Jon on my side, but I couldn't prioritize that relationship. So I'd left our apartment and looked for somewhere else to use as a safe spawn.

This place was directly above a coffee shop I'd broken into one loop. I'd planned on using the shop itself as a starting point, but when making sure it wasn't full of monsters, I'd discovered this space and decided to use it instead. The tenets were either associated with the cafe below, or had a good relationship with them, because they had the same coffee and even a few bottles of syrup used by the shop. I tended to drink black coffee more often than not, but it was nice having the option.

Playing further into the morning routine, I brewed a pot of coffee and doodled in a notebook as I waited for it to percolate. As I did, I thought back on the events of the previous loop while deciding what I would do next.

Luke and his crew would be back in their starting positions. Most, if not all, would make their way back to Luke's bar. Craig would be facing his nightmare again, and the bunny monster would be spawned again. Potentially bigger. Last loop, it had plowed directly through the entrance to the bar. If it was growing each loop, it was doing so slow enough that it was hard to be sure. I also didn't have an explanation for why.

The Kaiju had also had a growth spurt. Still, its growth was quick and not wholly unexpected since its appearance always came suddenly. If the size changes were related, I didn't know how. The Gremlins likewise could change their size, but that didn't seem to be the same as the bunny monster. It could be the same as the Kaiju, though. I'd have to add it to the list of things I needed to talk to Sori about.

I went to scribble the words 'size change?' at the top of my notebook. It wouldn't last past a single loop, but just writing it down would act as a reminder later. Unfortunately, as I started trying to write the letters, my mind went blank.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I couldn't remember how to write.

Then I remembered my inability to shout a warning to Alice. I opened my mouth experimentally to say something, anything, but no words came to mind, or at least no sounds. I groaned again in frustration. I'd been here before. Sori and Hands had taken Nia as a hostage against my good behavior, but Sori had also used her to give me a voice. Before that, I'd been more than mute; I'd been utterly unable to communicate consistently. Something must have changed; Nia's loaned voice was gone.

I'd wanted to enjoy a cup of coffee before I jumped into the day, but if my voice wasn't back after a day reset, then whatever happened hadn't been reset. It meant something might have happened to Nia. Alternatively, something might have happened to Sori, and I didn't know which to hope for. It felt like choosing between hoping for tragedy and hoping for disaster.

I reached out to my Shadow and raised it up into a portal. Whatever had happened, gathering information was my best bet. Sori had been ignoring me for a while, but with this, I should be able to leverage our deal to make it act. Of course, if something had happened to the eye, it wouldn't show up anyway. If this didn't work, I'd have to go back to the hospital and talk to Hands again, wasting even more time that I really didn't have.

I couldn't speak out in the real world, but as I stepped into my Shadow, that changed. "Sori, goddamit. My voice is gone. If you're going back on the deal, you and Hands can forget about me sticking to my end."

I waited, my breath held prisoner in my lungs as I waited for something to happen. I stayed in my Shadow Alcove rather than going deeper into the Ether because it seemed to be the Shadow that Sori had the strongest connection with. After several seconds, nothing happened. "Sori, you mother fucker. How am I supposed to get anybody evacuated if I can't even speak? You're breaking the contract. Doesn't that ma-"

"Shit, Sam, you're an annoying one. Why do you have to worry about every little thing?" Sori said, its voice coming from thin air. My eyes flicked to the empty space and spotted a speck of silver glinting in the dark. The speck swiftly grew into a sphere the size of a beach ball, a chrome orb with impressed details that made it look like an eye.

"For fuck's sake Sori, finally. You've been ignoring me."

"It's the end of the world, Sam. I've been a bit busy." Sori said.

"YOU SCHEDULED IT!" I snapped back in disbelief at the comment.

"Sure, but I didn't know I'd be dealing with you the whole time. 'Sori, save me. Sori, save my friends. Sori, why can't I talk, me me me,'" The eye mocked. "That's what you sound like. You realize that it's not all about you, right Sam? I've got a life, too."

I could tell he wanted me to ask him about that, but I wasn't about to be distracted, at least not quite that easily. "You also made deals. And now you're going back on your word."

Sori gagged. "You mean your voice problem? I know, I know. God, I forgot how hard you were to decipher without a voice to use. It's like interpreting for an actual dog."

"What happened?" I asked, continuing to ignore his efforts to distract me. "I wasn't able to shout a warning to Alice last loop, and now I can't speak at all outside of this ether space."

"You can't speak in the ether space either. You've just confidently saying gibberish and convincing yourself they're real words." Sori grumbled as though it were somehow my own fault. He'd told me this before, that I wasn't actually speaking here, but to my own ears, everything sounded fine, so I had to take him at his word.

"Did something happen to Nia?" I pressed. "If you or Hands did something, you can count our deal as forfeit. I think you know that."

"Well, first off, no. That's not how it works. Nia was never a part of the deal, at least not as anything more than leverage to make you take it seriously—and as a way to give you a voice, I suppose. The deal was that I'd give you a year to evacuate people, and if you didn't, your memories and your body were the payment. Nia's safety was a perk when she was locked up at the exit. That wasn't enough for you, so Hands took her in as further leverage for your cooperation, but her safety wasn't really part of the deal. I suppose if Hands has lost her, we've lost a little leverage, but only a small bit. There are tens of thousands of children in town that still need evacuating. Should I choose a new hostage?"

My blood was boiling. "You think I'll keep doing what you want while you disregard the lives of innocents over and over?"

Sori sighed, "Man, you were a lot more fun to deal with before you decided we were enemies. Remember the fun times we had speculating about my history? Let's go back to that. To answer your question. Nia is fine. She just... ran away from home."

"Explain," I said, trying to sound stern, though I doubted intimidation would really work on the eye.

"Damn, I will if you'll just give me a second. You might as well have some of that coffee. It won't help you relax, but maybe it'll help you calm down for a minute while I explain. Besides, I guess I don't have a choice but to show you how to do illusions now, you lucky dog. I was going to save this as a game change later on, but nobody's going to listen to you looking like that if you can't even talk. But what am I saying? You know that. Have a seat and drink your coffee, and by the time I'm finished, you'll be able to do some cool shit, as the kids say."