June 6. I'm walking on my way to school. I thought about this weird dream before I woke up.

"Everything will come to an end—but you shall prevent that end."

Hm? Haven't I heard that before? I keep walking to school and arrive ten minutes early.

The first period's History. I'm bored. The current period's Math. Someone stands abruptly, holding a knife across the classroom, and stabs one of my classmates out of the blue like it was nothing. The seatmate of the person who got stabbed screamed at the knife inside of their seatmate's body. The knife was then pulled out from the body with a swift motion. Why'd she kill someone again? Didn't that happen too early? My thoughts stopped for a moment, shocked at what I thought of.

—That's it. This must've happened multiple times. But am I the only one who knows? Did it happen so many times that I just stopped reacting to it, brushing it off like it was nothing? Because I unconsciously knew it'd happen again? I asked myself a couple of questions, knowing I wouldn't be able to answer them. But I eventually pieced it together and came to a realization. Oh. It's gotta be because of that dream. I look at the person holding the knife. It was Aira. Aira then said something that I couldn't hear again and killed herself.

***

???th Loop

June 6. I'm walking on my way to school. But something's different this time. I have memories of what happened before the day repeated itself again. I still don't know how many times I've already gone through this day. I may have gone through this a million times and I wouldn't have known. I keep running to school, panicking, wanting to know the cause of this abnormal situation. No, abnormal is an understatement, it's supernatural.

As soon as I arrive at school, I immediately try to find Aira to ask her why she's doing all of this killing, still unsure if it was only a delusion or a dream. I ran around the campus for about 5 minutes, and I found her sitting on the staircase. 5 more minutes before classes start. Though there's the possibility of her stabbing me out of the blue, I gather my resolve and ask her.

"Yo."

She looks at me with empty, dead eyes. And I ask her in the most direct way possible. There wasn't any time to waste.

"What were you doing?"

Aira looks surprised by what I said. But she immediately recovers her composure and replies in a seemingly cheerful way.

"What do you mean? I dunno what you're talking about."

Aira replies with dead eyes as if her soul's being broken by the second. It's painful to watch her pretend she's fine.

I guess there's no choice. I need to be as straightforward as possible.

"I remember what you did before today repeated again. I don't remember the times before that, but I'm pretty sure it happened multiple times."

Aira's eyes widened, then her face changed into a sad look, and replied,

"I see."

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

Before I let her say anything more, I had one question I really needed to be answered.

"...Have you killed me before?"

She flinches, so that must mean she has.

"Why?"

"I guess I have no other choice but to tell you. But before that, how do you remember what I did? You aren't supposed to remember."

Aira asks, tilting her head in confusion. I had a reason that immediately went on top of my head, but I wasn't sure if it really was the cause.

"Maybe... Because I had a weird dream."

As soon as she heard of this, she showed a face mixed with worry and relief.

"...I did too. That's why I'm trying to find the culprit behind this whole thing."

...What? She thinks the culprit's within the school, but why?

"Why do you think they're in this school?"

"Well, if you got caught in a time loop situation, you'd always check the places with the people that would know who you are, right?"

"You're not wrong. Did you initially not kill people out of the blue though?"

"Yeah. There's no way I could do that unless there wasn't any other option."

Aira exhaled loudly, looking exhausted. Like she's lost all hope. She must've gone through this more times than I know.

Hmm... I scratch my head, trying to think of a way to get us out of this mess.

Aira looked scared and hesitant, but then she said something that would end my normal days.

"Veritas."

That word "unlocked" a bunch of memories I didn't know were there. It felt like my mind was gonna explode.

Just when I thought I knew that the dream was probably the reason this was happening, I haven't actually uncovered who was behind that dream. It unlocked everything that happened in the other timelines like a secret cheat code. I don't even know who or what "Veritas" is.

As all the "memories" were flashing back in my head, I recalled that she was killing every single person in the school, and she was about to finish up by doing it to the entire classroom. In one of my "memories", she declared in front of the entire class that if she couldn't find the culprit, she would either give up or search outside the school, until she has killed every single person on the planet, just so that she could find the culprit and escape. She knew that whatever she did, it wouldn't change anything, because nobody would remember it anyway. So that's why she was killing everyone.

In the past loops, I was observing her because apparently, I was able to recall the other retries like what happened to me just now and I also worked together with her before. Though I forgot about it. So I was able to remember what she was doing before she tried to kill everyone.

Initially, she would observe every little detail that happens today. Then she tried a more direct approach by asking everybody about it, to no avail. Aira repeated this day so many times, to the point that she's about to break and resort to killing people. Once you kill someone, you can't turn back. Actually, if she was killing people out of nowhere, maybe she already broke. Luckily she can still hold a conversation.

"But why were you killing yourself too?"

"......Because if I don't, one important person to me will vanish. It's gonna keep happening until I have nobody left. The day's gonna repeat anyways, so I can go ahead and kill myself all I need."

I never knew about this, nor do I remember her telling me about it in the other loops. That means there might be a new opportunity this time. But Aira looked like she was about to cry, scared for her life, not wanting to lose those important to her.

"Why me, of all people...?"

Aira mumbles to herself, not having a single change in her expression like she's given up. The cheerful, happy girl, Aira, is now broken.

That struck a chord with me. I felt a strong desire to help her, to get herーno, the both of us out of this mess.

"Let's work together."

Aira didn't react.

"I'll help you get out of this."

"You said that more than a hundred times before. And you forgot every single time. I've given up." Aira responds with a hint of anger in her voice, and she starts trembling, about to cry.

"I'll help you. Give me one more chance."

As I say these words, Aira finally breaks down, unable to keep up the strong girl front anymore.

"......This is what I hate about you..." Aira answers me while crying, but she nods afterward