Loop 5

There wasn’t a simple way to put it. James had days worth of time to try and express his feelings about it.

But after living the same awful day over and over for five days. Five Loops. James figured he could sum it up quite easily.

“This is bullshit.” James moaned after he’d shooed Michael out of his room. And entirely unreal, completely nonsensical and-

Kind of awesome. Well, it would’ve been awesome if it were any other day, but James supposed it being the day everything went to shit made some sense. When else would you need to rewind time?

He still had a mountain worth of questions he couldn’t write down because notepads reset, but after five days James had figured out the basics of this whole fun fest. He was trapped in time or maybe saved by it depending on how you thought about it. His day always started with Mike of all people shoving his shoulder. It always ended with the golden words of whatever the “System” was glitching then winking out of existence with the world itself.

I see you. That was the only noticeable difference that had occurred on his first Loop because those golden words hadn’t appeared again. James had tried sleeping before the chaos occurred on his last Loop, which worked out with Hugh shaking him awake and demanding they leave.

Then the world had winked out of existence.

9:03 is when it all goes black. Thanks to the effort of staring at the clock in his room on the third Loop, he knew as much. If I have it right, I wake up at 7:13, which leaves me what? Thirteen hours and fifty minutes, give or take James calculated.

So now I guess I’m left with questions. James realised, perfectly aware of his complete lack of awareness of what the hell was going on. He could bullet-point his main worries pretty easily.

Why was the day Looping?

Did it serve some purpose?

Could he leave?

What was the System?

Were there others who Looped with him?

Was any of this real?

The last question he’d solved on his own after five Loops. It was real. He was sure of it. This wasn’t some weird dream or premonition like he’d originally guessed. James was in a day that kept repeating itself.

That first horrible day hadn’t been a dream.

I killed someone. The system reminded him of it every time it returned. James wasn’t sure how he felt about it, but that was mainly because it didn’t feel real yet, even now. That whole first night with the meteors felt like a dream-turned nightmare.

Jess. That curling purple bruise around her neck haunted him almost as much as the image of the armored man's bashed face. James had made it a habit to warn Jake, even going so far as to call him on the last Loop, but he had no way of knowing how effective it was without being there with him.

Jake is the type to ignore my advice if he doesn’t think I’m serious. His best friend had a hard time reading through the lines. He’d still text him every Loop, but James decided that he should check up on him physically.

That sorted, James was left with his last question. The most important one?

“What do I do now?” He mumbled to himself, unsure.

How long did he have in a repeating day? Was he meant to try and prevent some-

No.

James scoffed at even thinking like that. That black pupil in the sky gazing down at him couldn’t be prevented by mortal hands. No matter how much time he had. Preventing wasn’t an option. So what could James do?

What was he supposed to do?

His thoughts drifted to the silent few who had gazed up at the sky’s eye and the lack of fear they had for it. They were waiting. Did they know? He wondered. While everyone else was consumed by terror, they faced the oncoming storm with… anticipation.

No. that's wrong too.

The man he’d killed. James had felt it. He wasn’t just ready for whatever the eye in the sky promised with its golden words. The maniac was excited. How many people were there across not just Melbourne, but Australia and the world itself that knew and were excited about the change? They had been preparing for god knows how long.

Then… that's what I have to do. James realised as he thought it through, an almost grim determination as all the images of fear and chaos that spawned after the meteors played in his mind.

I have to prepare. Whatever is coming after today, it isn’t going to be any better.

He had a chance to ready himself, one he wouldn’t have had before. James could protect his family, his friends.

Anyone who deserved it.

The Loop gave him time. Time had come to a standstill, for him.

I can’t just stand still with it.

Never again.

*****************

“Will the government come looking for me if I look this up?” James wondered, typing then backspacing the word “Spark” into his university library computer.

He’d pieced together that a Spark was a person. Sort of. At least he assumed so. Could it be animals too? Possibly, but for now, he just conceptualised down to people. Not all people though. Now that James was thinking about it there were people who seemed drawn into looking at blank spaces in front of them once the golden words appeared, but it wasn’t all people.

Certainly not Michael or his dad.

Your Spark has been deemed worthy. Implied that people could have Sparks and not be worthy of the system's touch. Was the System’s touch even a good thing? James felt like he might’ve been getting ahead of himself.

The first thing to do was research. He had one of his doodle notepads next to him and had written down everything most fictional characters in a repeating day did. Suffice to say it was pretty easily broken down.

One: Learn to be a better person.

Pretty straightforward. James wasn’t against learning to be more empathetic.

Two: Learn the habits, likes, and dislikes of people around you while tracking the events of the day so you can capitalize on the most optimal approach to the day.

I’m not a fan, but I guess I’ll consider it. He didn’t for a second like the idea of abusing the privileges that came with being in a Loop. Then again, if it would make the people he cared about safer James was more than willing to tweak the events of the day in his favor. Would he rob banks with perfect accuracy and abuse every possible advantage in his favor regardless of morality?

No.

Would James certainly try to duplicate his savings tenfold by following any gambling that day and taking surefire bets he knew would win?

Absolutely.

Third: Become skilled in any and everything that could possibly be helpful or was just fun. Piano, martial arts, astronomy.

Living in the city and having the internet means I can probably learn anything, given enough time. But it wasn’t like he’d magically get good at these things. James realised that fiction and reality were not the same, as much as they’d been merging of recent. He’d have to learn step by step, everything that would be helpful to him.

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That was incredibly daunting to accept.

“Jazz?”

James' eyes shot up from his table as his best friend broke the library’s cardinal law. Speaking.

“What are you doing here Jake?” James asked, feeling as if someone had found him doing something he shouldn’t have. Not that Jake would be able to piece it together but still.

The tall, but not as tall as him, young adult brushed his blonde sandy hair to the side dramatically. “Looking for you.”

Jake said it deeply and with a serious expression like he was on some mission of paramount importance. Does… does he know? James considered for a moment before Jake’s sneer turned into a shit-eating grin.

James kicked him in the shin.

“Ow, ow, ow. You know shin shots are off limits.” Jake said hopping in his black chinos while gripping his hurt shin. “I’m just wandering around while I wait for Amy to finish her history class. How does history even have anything to do with architecture?”

He pulled a chair away from a nearby desk and sat down, huffing in excitement. James chose to tactfully move the notes away from Jake’s notice. Dont want him getting any ideas.

“So why are you here?” Jake queried, spinning one of James’ many pens. “I thought you hated the library.”

“Research. The kind I need a computer I don’t have at home for.” James answered, then added. “And I do hate the library. It’s soul-sucking.”

Jake turned around to look at the library and then nodded at that assessment. The stone grey walls and lines upon lines of white rowed books shelves were certainly efficient. But it one wanted to stimulate learning, maybe making the space feel like a prison wasn’t the best option.

“Why don’t you just buy a laptop?” Jake said with a shrug.

“Because it costs a lot of money dude.”

“But you have a lot of money, don’t you?”

James stared at him for a good few seconds.

My friend is an idiot. Wait a minute. If the day reset, his savings would reset with it too. He had a sizable chunk of that just waiting for use. Maybe buying a laptop to research at home wasn’t the complete waste of money he thought it was.

James squinted at Jake.

He’s still bad with money.

“Is there something on my face?” Jake asked when he’d been starring too long.

“No, no I was just wondering?” James said eyeing his notepad skills to learn list. “If you could learn any skill you wanted, right now, what would you choose?”

“Sushi chef.”

“Wait what?”

“Imagine it. I could make my own gourmet sushi, any time I wanted.”

James felt a little dizzy. Jake’s instant answer without even thinking about it had blindsided him a lot more than he would’ve imagined. Sushi was good, that was undeniable. But how did his friend just pull that off the top of his head?

It was such a specific skill and one of the few James was pretty sure he couldn’t learn. He hadn’t even known Jake liked sushi that much. How could he?

Jake seemed happy in his own world imagining all the delicious- actually, being a sushi chef does sound pretty sweet.

“Do you think they teach that in Melbourne?” James asked. He tried to keep his tone neutral and not notice Jake salivating at the thought of endless sushi.

“I don’t know!” He said excitedly once he woke up from his daydream. “But that’s what we have this for!”

Before James could ask he was shoved aside out of his place on the desk as Jake took over the computer he was using.

**************

Loop 7

James threw his idea of a good punch at his instructor's pad and felt it slip off as the Swedish man pulled back, throwing a sweeping kick to his shin guard. James tried to pull his foot away as he cringed at the memory taking his first kick to the leg. He received a swift jab to the sternum amidst moving his foot, which stole his balance.

Like that, he toppled over like an idiot for the thousandth time.

Numb vibration sent small creaks of pain through his body as he hit the mat. Air escaped him twice before his third breath managed to catch some, causing James to rub his solar plexus in annoyance. The bruise was already forming even when his instructor went easy.

Muay Thai is hard. He groaned. James had decided after his first session in the last Loop that karate wasn’t what he needed. After a few hours of research, he’d found this little small muay tai gym that had produced two of the last eight state champions. Muay Thai was also much closer to the type of practical striking he wanted to learn.

Having always considered himself a fairly capable person, it came as a hard shock to realise just how inept he was at defending himself unarmed.

The sweetish instructor offered a hand up and James happily took it, swallowing the spit that kept forming in his mouth guard.

“We can take breaks, young man,” Leo suggested, with his hardy iron voice. “You won’t learn all there is to teach in one day.”

About that… Time loop puns were beneath him, James had decided. Not forever, but the feeling was still too fresh.

“Taking a break would be nice,” James said with shaky legs, wiping away sweat and staring at the clock. “But I’m fine to keep going.”

The meteor shower was barely half an hour away, and he’d already been there for hours. It frustrated James to think he would waste what time he had left in the day. He couldn’t do anything else productive, so he may as well keep going, as physically taxing as it was.

May as well build some extra muscle memory if the world was going to reset anyway. Wait, do I even build muscle memory? If it he didn’t that would pose another problem entirely.

“Take your stance when you're ready then,” Leo mumbled, taking his stance before adding in a softer voice. “You did pay for the whole day.”

And it had cost James almost a fifth of his savings. A sobering and saddening moment considering all the hard work he’d put into gathering that money.

James readied himself again, checking his padded shin guards, gloves and headgear before getting into a stance. Leo hadn’t wanted to train him this way, but James had insisted on being physical for the sheer fact that he didn’t want to learn muay thai. He wanted to learn to fight.

Three seconds later a kick to the thigh dropped him to one knee before falling backwards. The bruise protested when he got back up.

Four seconds past that, James tried to throw a low kick and just fell from poor form and balance.

The next thirty minutes continued in the same manner. James fell unceremoniously or was kicked around like a rag doll. There was no emotion, rage, or indignation to cover up the pain like James was used to. He found it damn near impossible to stand when Leo suddenly stopped at the sounds of panicking echoing outside the gym.

Leo who had been readying himself with an expression of almost pity went rigid when the golden word appeared in front of James’ face. He ignored them, and their warnings like he had started doing, instead focusing on how Leo’s face crunched, staring into a blank space in front of him.

“Weird golden words in front of ya?” James queried and Leo immediately shot him a confused look. He’d been keeping professional for their session but that composure had shattered.

Leo frowned, then pulled his buzzing phone from his pocket.

That frown slowly turned into a much more desperate and aghast expression. Leo was sprinting towards the gym's exit before he even got the chance to take his pads off, throwing them to the side when he couldn’t open the door.

He didn’t even acknowledge James in his hurry, leaving the man alone in a gym that certainly wasn’t his.

Yeah, that's the more natural reaction to disaster. James thought, sitting on the mat and twiddling his thumbs.

Shocking how quickly people adjusted to things. The azure sky was still daunting to look at. The eye behind it still capable of inducing a primal terror inside James. But here? Inside the gym with the window shutters down and only small echos of chaos through the concrete walls and techno playlist.

“In here, it doesn’t even feel like the world is ending,” James mumbled.

A small pulse of sorrow pulled his heartstrings. Loneliness was hardly a thing James had never felt he struggled with, but…

It’s like I’m in a safe little bubble and while everyone else bands together against the horrors on the horizon… I’m all alone.

James hadn’t considered it that way before. He’d never even felt that way before. Being inside a bubble that protected him from harm had only been a blessing. But a small wisp of loneliness still tried to blow out his hopes.

“What am I even meant to be doing here?”

The world sounded pessimistic yet it was more of a question than a plea. What was his purpose in all this? The universe had always marveled James. He was so small and it was so big. The unknown always felt so exciting even as it was daunting. But now the unknown had become his reality, and James still had little to no answers for any of it.

That made him feel small.

Not the humbling type of small, but the oppressive type that waged against his sense of importance.

James had always been filled with uncertainty about his place in the world. It was a constant, nagging void he filled with the only thing he thought could. Living a good life. A kind one. A generous one. One where he was a little flower that grew on people's porch. Not the most notable, but there. Quiet but helpful and never afraid to put in a hard day's work.

As he felt the weight of the world fade away and everything elapse into an abyss, the young man contemplated who he wanted to be.

A kind stranger. A loyal friend. A protective brother. I… want to be greater than the sum of my parts.

Painful memories flowed naturally into his mind in the abyss, with only its golden words as a distraction. Thankfully there was no emotion in the abyss or James might’ve tucked his feelings away as he’d always done. Truly, he considered his life.

From the start, it hadn’t been an easy one. The turbulent mixture of his quiet nature, his father's blanket denial, a cruel self-hatred resulted in him never really moving past the worst moments of his life.

Still.

I want to put more into the world than I received.

Was it even possible to fashion good from bad? Could he put a positive value into the world when it seemed to have dealt him such a negative hand? The answer was a simple one.

I have to.

There was no other way about it. James grinned at the thought of such a future. A giddy grin.

Then the world went dark.