He wakes up choking on his own split, eyes wide and grasping at his head in attempts to calm the beating of his heart. Sweat clings to skin in humid chill, clothes suffocating and he is desperate for release.

Thrashing his limbs around, the boy can only desperately hope to grasp onto some sort of lifeline.

Nightmares still plague him as if they are there in the present. He can feel the blood slick against his palms, the burn of a building falling around him but he is tangled in his own sheets. Pulling himself out of this pervasive dream was harder than coming to terms with the fact it wasn't real in the first place.

The boy is crying out, sobbing, his expression distorting until arms hold him down.

Restraint only makes the panic worse, voices are all around him in a dizzying attempt to calm him down. He can hear pieces of it through the haze of bodies screaming in agony. He can hear pieces of it through blades ripping across his skin. The searing pain makes it impossible to breathe, bile rising in his throat to the point he is unable to properly scream.

"Sla-" a familiar and unfamiliar voice. "Wake-" He is drowning, he is so far away. He just wants to die-

He just wants to-

"-ter!!" He could feel someone roughly shaking him, eyes squeezing shut as if that would be enough to keep him away from the truth and away from the danger of the world around him.

The moment he feels himself falling, his eyes open wide. With a startled gasp, the boy flails in effort to catch himself on the floor.

"Slater?!" The call of his name is nearly unheard. Heavy breathing, his chest heaving against the cold tile below. He is trembling. Honestly, he's pretty out of it. He knows someone is talking to him but he's not sure who is talking to him. "Slater, are you okay?"

When he doesn't respond quickly enough, arms pull him up and into a proper sitting position. He gets a better look at his surroundings then and his heart sinks to his stomach. Reality is crashing down on him hard and fast.

"...Nii-chan?" An impossibly familiar voice. An impossibly familiar setting. A room with plushies, manga books, a desk with an assortment of pens and inks. There was a bed ( the one he fell out of ) and another set of beds and futons decorating the floor. While the room was large, it feels suffocatingly small as his focus settles on the smaller tween in front of him.

There was no way that this was real. There was no way he had gone back this far.

Slater is struggling to parse words together, struggling to get a grip on himself as another hand smooths the hair on his head. He knows who it is from touch alone, but he cannot look. He knows it's his other half ( quite literally his twin ) who he only sees in glimpses and shadows, who he makes consistant effort to forget despite him being his greatest comfort.

There is everything wrong with this picture.

"Slater, are you okay?" He still refuses to answer, he is a mouse in headlights. Stunned by the stimuli around him.

As the horrible sinking feeling settles, he gets up on shaky limbs. He needs to see this for himself, he needs to see his face and this body and this- everything.

Slater runs to the bathroom, his feet remember the way more than he does and he finds the bathroom sink is still the same cold seafoam as it always has been. His hands are skeletal as they always have been, too delicate and nails overgrown. The tips of his fingers are raw, red, with splotches of purple. His circulation is poor and he almost doesn't want to raise his head to look into the mirror.

Yet, he does.

The face that greets him is his own, but far younger than him at twenty-three. He looks something like this: the bags under his eyes are darker, dried tears stain his cheeks, and his sclera are splotched pink from distress; his lips are chapped, bleeding, and broken; his soft periwinkle hair curls under his chin, the back of it choppy and laying just past his neck, and he is sixteen.

Sixteen...

His teenage years were never something pleasant, a time he never wanted to return to and yet here he is. Here he fucking is. He doesn't know why.

What happened at the end last time? What had he done differently this time? He shouldn't have come back to this time, not this far, not like this.

Dry heaving, he wretches into the sink. Only spit and the barest of bile leaves his throat, his stomach trembles in complaint, and Slater wants to die. He tries to manifest a window before his eyes, tries to see if he can leave this era of his life.

Unfortunately, his anima does not react to him. His body is far too fatigued to even make use of anything but a passive auto-pilot.

He couldn't make any big jumps this time. He had to stay here.

I could almost laugh and yet I don't.

Slater is joined by another face in the mirror, standing behind him. It's his older brother, whose expression is calm and gentle. He wipes his mouth with a damp cloth, guiding him out of the bathroom and down the hall into the main living space. The kitchen feels familiar and unfamiliar all at once and he feels like a stranger in his own home. Something is wrong, and perhaps he is the something that is wrong.

Why can he not remember clearly what happened prior?

I begin to wonder it myself. How could he not remember? This is unlike the previous times. Slater has always remembered at least something about what changed.

He remembers the end of the universe, selecting he wanted to go back via a familiar screen - he doesn't remember a gap from blinking in-between then and now. Usually, he does… and he, himself, finds it odd too.

His older brother has him seated at the breakfast counter in the kitchen, the stool feels someplace like home and somewhere far away. Slater does not speak, nearly catatonic in the wake of this revelation. He appreciates the quiet, the emptiness of the room as his older brother begins to make some tea.

The blend is perfect for an unsettled stomach, calming of the nerves, and has a mint taste.

A pink, ribbon-themed mug is placed right in front of the sixteen year old boy, still steaming. Leaning on the counter, Slater's older brother waits patiently to see if he would say anything, anything at all.

It takes a few moments, but Slater wraps his hands around the mug. It warms his fingers, the steam is nice, he lifts it up to his lips and sips. It's sweet, not bitter, honeyed on his tongue. It couldn't have been more than a few moments of silence before he finally finds the strength to speak.

"Ransom..." the name of his older brother, who acknowledges him with a raise of his brow. "...What season is it?" he can't quite remember. He doesn't remember the exact time, though he knows that he's sixteen. This has to be when he's sixteen. He hopes it doesn't sound weird, he hopes it doesn't sound weird. He can't afford for it to sound weird. What if it sounds weird?

Fortunately, Ransom is smart, capable, and knows him well. It's not like his anima is necessarily a secret to his family. It is an open secret, never really spoken about in depth. Though, he's not sure which timeline this is exactly. His memories feel scrambled, scattered, and honestly? If Slater is being completely honest, he never really remembers the timelines, not in depth. It is a fatal flaw.

"It's spring." Which meant that school should be starting up soon. Slater isn't at all looking forward to another dreadful year. He is spiraling a bit too hard to think of how he is going to combat and make a plan to change the future. He has way too much time, but he needs to make sure he remembers the big events from this time. He has to do them right, he has to, he has to.

With a laugh, Ransom pours himself a cup of coffee. "You don't really seem to be happy about that." A fact, it's true.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I'm not... I just..." What could he say? What would suffice here?

"No worries, we were worried about you. Especially, ∎∎∎∎∎." His twin, that he still hadn't been able to face yet even feeling his hands comforting him earlier. He hates it, but Slater knows he's always been a coward.

So, he takes another sip. "Yeah..." The mint settles his nerves. "Sorry... I... had a nightmare." His voice is far too mouse-like, just like his ears. It's squeaky, uncomfortable. He wants to hide away.

I won't let him, he'll never be able to hide from me.

"Mm, figures. ∎∎∎∎∎ was there and Thirteen was trying to wake you up, too." There is a drawn out sigh, the windows are looking far more inviting.

Only one sun is visible in the sky, the other two are obscured by clouds and it feels like a premonition to come. "...Yeah... it's the same old, same old."

How was he able to stay calm? His body felt as if it were on auto-pilot, his voice his and at the same time it was not his own.

( This was a familiar feeling, so familiar. )

"I'll be getting a meal started here soon, you can stay here if you want. I wanted to make sure you had a moment to breathe." Always knowing how to take care of the young boy.

( Could he really be called a boy if he had lived up to twenty-three a million times? )

Slater nods, though, simply offering a half-hearted smile as he continues to sip his tea. His mind was elsewhere, his body still warm with the tea. As his brother stalks off, no doubt to look into the pantry and to give him space, Slater rakes his brain for any kind of memory that could help him. He is drawing blanks, only coming up with the images of death and gore and his own screams.

"This is insane..." How has he come back to this year of all years? How has he started over this bad.

Which timeline was this? Which save file? Which anything?

Quietly, he stares into the dwindling liquid. He can't see any images, though he does feel a presence at his back. A hand that rubs soothing circles as he falls into a state of something akin to despair.

----------------------------------------

Somewhere between his tea growing cold and the sizzling of something on the stove, Slater realizes almost two hours have passed.

Ransom is still in the kitchen, this time with an apron around his neck and midsection. It's the same one he always wears: a cheeky little 'kiss the cook', decorated mascots of cute alien-esque creatures from a popular animated show called 'Meow Meow Warrior-Kun' ( that is still very popular if he remembers it well ) plastered all over the front.

Whatever is frying up in the skillet makes his stomach rumble almost with discomfort.

( It's really not a bad smell, it's just too familiar. )

There's more voices around him now, the sound of laughter is really what brings him back to reality.

"Yeah, well! You would think that he would know how to pilot the robot, but he's really just flying by the seat of his pants!" It's the voice of one of his siblings, rambunctious, excited - Kitty.

"How could you think he could pilot it! He had just gotten there." This time, it was Ransom responding from the kitchen, full of mirth.

"Still! You know, protagonist powers!" Kitty was shrieking now, climbing up to the breakfast bar with eyes wide. He nudges Slater's shoulder, turning to face him. "Slater! Hi!!!"

The boy's mouth opens, instead of a verbal response, he nods.

Thirteen is bounding over now too, "You should leave him alone. Rough morning."

"Rough is only the half of it! I heard him screaming! It was so loud-"

"Hey now," Ransom is gesturing with a spatula, "Go and wake up the kids." The younger ones, at least.

With an indignant noise, Kitty is rolling his eyes to the back of his skull. "But why me! I didn't even say anything wro-"

"Go."

"Fine! Okay!" Kitty disappears down the hallway and Slater finally looks around at a blaring TV playing some existential mech anime and the general overview of the living space. It brings back far too many memories he would have loved to forget.

"Sorry about that, Slater." Ransom apologizes but Slater isn't quite sure why.

So, he shakes his head. "It's... fine."

"I mean you were loud." Thirteen snickers under their breath.

There's clothes all over the floor, games disarray, static is in Slater's chest and he ignores the way Thirteen's eyes follow him as he hops down from the stool. What could the twelve-year old even do? Just judge him, like all brats do. It’s annoying, he hates them.

Always going back and forth between helpful and a menace.

"I wasn't... that loud..." It was a little more than a mumble but borders on a non-existent grumble.

It's only shortly after that he curls up in his favorite - past... favorite beanbag and curls up. He just wants to sleep. Everything is overwhelming and he is losing himself. Why did he come back this time? Why did he come back this time? Why did he....

I suppose that's my fault. It is my fault. I sent him here. I did this. I am just as much apart of the problem, but he never should have said yes.

So fucking stupid.

----------------------------------------

It hasn't even been a full five minutes into serving up the plates that Slater was more than overwhelmed at being crowded by his immense flurry of siblings. There really were nineteen of them ( not including slater ) plus their mom, which made for a complete family of twenty-one. It was ridiculous.

Speaking of their mom, she is sitting at a table, reading the local news. She looks just as he remembered her to: hair like ink, spackled with grey and white, under-layer of something akin to chromatic platinum; petite and shorter than him, kind, and patient; she is an angel in the flesh and he has failed her.

He cannot throw up.

He will not throw up.

He does not throw up.

Instead, he shuffles his food around the plate. He listens to the chatter around him as if it were just noise.

"Slater, you should eat." Something, anything. I agree with his brother, Ransom, who pats his back and settles beside him in another bean bag.

The three youngest children ( triplets, around the age of three ) -- Hana, Ichi, and Taro -- were running around. "Hey! Hey! Nii-chan!" Two start climbing across his back, the other was trying to shove food into his face.

Slater takes a bite out of force of habit, chews, and swallows. "Hi, guys." He really doesn't feel well. His stomach churns awful. Though he eats, struggling to put a smile on his face.

This was all too normal. It was all too fast.

He could still feel the way blood soaked into his socks, how people blamed him over and over but he-

"Breathe, Slater." His twin's voice echoes in his ears, bringing him back to center. He does, he breathes and he tries to blend into the ambience of it all. It should be a good thing to be surrounded by family like this again. It should be a good thing to be in a place he wasn't alone.

It should be a good thing to be surrounded by anyone who makes him want to change.

At least, he thinks it ought to be.

And the rest of breakfast is hardly an event, eventually Slater picks himself up to excuse himself out of the room. There is not a word of complaint from anyone as he slinks back down the hallway and into the cold embrace of his bedroom.

Under the covers he curls up. He needs to think. He needs to think. He needs to think. He needs to-

Breathe.

Relax.

Count to three.

He remembers the end of the world, he remembers if he thinks hard enough about these conversations. It is spring. It is spring-time, just before the school year would start. That newspaper his mom was reading was also a clue. While the timeline was fuzzy in the details, he knew it was still before most major events he needed to prevent to get even close to a better ending. This time, this time he would get to the bottom of this forsaken loop.

What did they want from him? The Gods, what did they want?

The last run he did was hard to remember. He really ought to write notes, but he relies too much on his own save files to do it for him.

Speaking of...

He tries to open his anima's system window again. This time, it appears in front of him. He goes to his save files, searching for the one he has landed in.

When he finally reaches it, with his blinking mouse cursor, his blood runs cold.

09/03/XX — Admin Approval Needed Restricted Access File Corrupted

Why the fuck was he in a corrupted save file?

Shit.