“Hey, Will! Heard ‘bout the muffins?”

“Argh,” the boy groaned. Muffins were the last thing on his mind right now. Eating four cups of mousse in the space of two hours was too much, even for him. After such an experience, he didn’t want to have anything to do with sugar.

“You ok, bro?” the goofball asked.

“Bad night,” Will lied.

“Big oof.”

“See you in class.” He put his earbuds on and went into the building.

This usual boring announcement droned on as the boy made his way to the bathroom. Surprisingly, he found Helen standing in front of the door.

“You didn’t pick up your phone,” she said with a clearly annoyed expression.

“Huh?” Will looked at it. The only unanswered call for the last week was from his mother. Just to be sure, he checked his messages as well.

“Last loop,” the girl said. “I called you after you jumped out of the classroom.”

“You saw that?”

“Yes. I didn’t think you’d be so stupid.” She opened the bathroom door. “Just get your rogue,” she added with a sigh.

Still at a lack of words, Will went inside and did just that. This time, he didn’t go through the full sequence, only activating the mirror granting him the class. Before the message could fully form, the boy was back in the hallway.

“How do you have my number?” he asked, only now remembering that he had never given it to her. He had thought about offering several times, but always decided to leave it for later.

“I asked you a few loops ago, and you told me.”

“I did?” He blinked. Then it hit him. “You asked me out of my loop.”

That made sense. Helen would need a way to coordinate with him as she attempted to get Daniel’s file. It was slightly disturbing knowing he had done things without having any memory of them. Even more disturbing was trying to imagine what had been going on before Will had joined eternity. How many times had the school been slaughtered by wolves? If Daniel was as curious as the girl claimed, it could have happened dozens of times, if not hundreds.

“Let’s move out of here,” the girl said.

People stared as the pair made their way to their classroom. It remained a novel experience and, thanks to the loops, one that they would be subjected to each time they were seen together.

“How do you stand the smell?” Will winced. With all the windows still closed, it was like burnt rubber.

“You’ll get used to it.” She went to the windows. “Did you get it out of your system?”

“Killing wolves?” Will asked. “I guess. Leveling up was useful, though.”

Helen shook her head. “You’ll get plenty of that once your loops get longer.”

The subtle hint was obvious, and this time Will had no excuse not to go on with it. While a few questions remained, he had explored pretty much anything he could reach within the initial ten minutes. Helen had kept her end of the bargain, and now it was his turn.

As it quickly turned out, extending one’s loop through non-violent means was a lot more difficult, and thrice more annoying, than one would expect. Earning another five minutes was easy. Evading Jace’s punches was just as efficient as knocking him out. That was something that had taken Will five loops to figure out after he got tired of being taken to the principal’s office.

Taking out his drawing materials before the start of class, interestingly enough, also extended the loop by five more minutes, regardless if he was sitting at Daniel’s desk or his own.

From there on, the cumbersome part began. Starting to draw earned him five minutes; drawing well brought another five... Every action of a “model student” increased the loop in five-minute increments. After a while, Will started questioning whether Helen’s nickname wasn’t the result of loops. It definitely gave her a huge advantage, that was for certain.

“Clean eraser, sharpen pencils, change perspective…” Will muttered to himself as he walked through the school hallway. He had lost count of how many loops had passed. The only thing of importance was remembering everything that gave him time, which wasn’t at all easy.

The only way to describe it was having to learn the solution to a maze labyrinth without writing anything down, or even seeing the labyrinth itself. There were many times when he was tempted just to start a fight with the entire football team and stop bothering with following the correct “path of life” the loops had set for him.

“Hey,” Helen greeted him as he entered the room. “Keeping it together?”

“Almost.” The boy placed—not tossed—his backpack on the seat of Daniel’s desk. “It’s getting difficult keeping track.” He then went to help her open all the windows.

“It gets easier once it becomes a habit.”

Most boring habit in existence. “How long are your loops?”

“I can stretch them to a few days, but I need to remain in class most of the time.”

Days. Will was still having trouble getting to third period. The first time he had managed, he was overjoyed, feeling eager to go searching for the Daniel file. Unfortunately, Helen had insisted that he could reach the end of fourth period before they attempted anything. That meant he had to find another half an hour.

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“And Daniel got to do this for months? I see why he wrote on his desk a lot.” The boy paused. “You think that’s part of his loop path?”

“No. He wrote things down to help me. Since he was always ahead, it was a lot easier to write down everything he discovered instead of wasting time telling me about it. I’d go early in the morning and read it. Was fun at first, but then he started writing things that didn’t make sense.”

Will felt a slight surge pass through him. This was the moment to tell her about the green message. Should he, though? Maybe Daniel had kept it secret for a reason.

“Think you’ll reach fourth period this time?” The girl looked at him.

“Yes,” he said. “I found a way.”

“Okay, then next loop we—”

“We can go this one,” he said.

“Are you sure? Okay.”

The day continued as usual, with one minor difference. When Jace came to class, there was one significant change. Instead of ignoring the comments, Will directly challenged all the jocks to “a talk after class.”

This had surprised the group, along with everyone else present. Being openly called out, though, left them no other option but to accept.

There’s my additional half hour, Will thought, darting Helen a victorious glance.

A minute later, the school bell rang, marking the official start of class. The teacher arrived and quickly took out a vase from one of the cabinets. Will had spent so long looking at the cursed object that he started drawing long before the assignment was given. The usual combination of jokes, banter, and compliments followed. The teacher complimented him on his work, then suggested that the boy consider art college after graduation.

Will didn’t have the heart to tell him that the vase was the only thing he could draw adequately, so he just agreed and went back to doing his loop extending activities. By the end of class, he had made three complete sketches, all in different styles. One of the sketches was given to the teacher, the other two were bent carefully, rolled up—not folded—and put into his backpack.

“Hope you’re ready, Stoner,” Jace whispered. “Time’s almost up.”

Good, Will thought. He was getting tired of waiting.

Nothing remotely aggressive happened at the end of class. Once the school bell rang, most students put away their drawing materials, then quickly left the room. Jace and the jocks were a lot slower. Keeping their eyes glued to Will, they quietly grabbed their things and walked into the corridor.

The natural assumption was that they’d accompany the boy to the schoolyard outside. For some reason, though, they had decided to go with the movie classics and choose the bathroom for the “discussion.” Will was perfectly fine with that. It was a lot closer and he wouldn’t have to think up excuses on the spot.

“Hoping coach will come save you?” he asked, placing his backpack in the far corner of the room.

In his mind, he expected a sarcastic, yet ultimately stupid, retort. Instead, Jace swung directly at him, aiming for the face. Under normal circumstances, the hit would have made contact, possibly sending him a couple of steps back. Thanks to the rogue’s abilities, Will was able to twist to the side, jabbing the jock’s arm near the elbow.

The ability to find weak spots and several loops of experience had taught him how to proceed.

From the side, the jab looked inconsequential, even if it proved painful enough to make Jace freeze in place. Wasting no time, Will knocked him out with a hit in the jaw, then went at the nearest of his friends.

Up to now, he had only had a few loops of fighting them, but events were roughly the same.

Surprised by how easily their friend was taken down, all four jocks stood there motionless, their minds rebelling against reality. Before they could realize what was going on, another was on the ground, bringing the numbers to a manageable three to one.

“Fucker!” One of the boys finally snapped out of it, making a swing at Will. Alas, for him, he did so in exactly the same way Jace had.

The results were equally as painful. A jab to the elbow, then a punch to the jaw, made him dizzy. A knee to the chin quickly rendered him unconscious. It had all happened so fast and effortlessly that Will almost felt guilty going this.

“I give!” One of the remaining two stepped back, both hands in front of him, shaking in don’t-come-closer fashion.

Ignoring him, Will twisted his body, slapping the other in the temple with his elbow. That proved enough to instantly bring him to the floor as well.

“I said I give!” The sole jock stepped further back, his back stopping at the door. From there, all he had to do was turn the handle, and he’d be safe in the hallway. Sadly, he made the rookie mistake of glancing down at the handle, instead.

Two quick punches followed.

Twenty-five minutes, Will thought, glancing at his reflection in the mirror. Should be enough. He smiled.

Adrenalin, mixed with the euphoria of winning, gave him a sense of invulnerability. If someone were to ask him to fight the entire school right now, he would have without question. Already, in the back of his mind, he was making plans on how to repeat this every loop. It was undoubtedly effective, plus it also increased loop length. No wonder that Daniel had fought so much. As the saying went, fighting was a no brainer.

As the boy stood there, floor covered with unconscious jocks, his phone rang. This time, he took the call.

“Yes?” he asked, as he passed the fingers of his free hand through his hair.

“Did you beat them up?” Helen asked on the other end.

“Yep.” He smirked. “No need to worry.”

“I’d have preferred if you hadn’t.”

“Why?” Will’s good mood suddenly evaporated. “They asked for it? Besides, you wanted half an hour more. Now you got it.”

“Fighting always messes things up.”

“Daniel used to do it.”

“Daniel is dead!”

Will stood there motionless, unable to respond.

“He used to do it all the time in the early loops and then he stopped. Fighting loopless is never worth it, even if they give you time.”

“Do you want to go on with this or not?” The boy snapped. “If not, just tell me and I’ll go about exploring the gym or something.” Most likely, he was just going to spend the time eating chocolate mousse away from it all.

“I’ll be waiting for you in front of the shrink’s office at the start of third period. Don’t get into any trouble until then.” She ended the call.

“Hypocrite,” the boy hissed and put his phone away. “Nothing stopped you from killing me,” he glared at himself in the mirror.

For someone who had the knight class, she was annoyingly judgmental. It was all about Daniel, Daniel this and Daniel that. So, what if Daniel had managed to stretch the loop for a bit longer? He wasn’t here now.

“Damn it!” Will slammed his hand in the mirror.

The surface cracked all over, but displayed no message. The realization that he had actually broken a mirror quickly made the boy pull back his hand. Maybe he had gone a bit far?

He looked at the floor. Five people remained there in a pitiful state. All of them were breathing—that was visible beyond a doubt—but if anyone caught him right now, there would be more than a few explanations he’d have to give.

Quickly he turned on a sink faucet, then splashed some water on his palm print, careful not to cause the mirror to shatter.

“Sorry, guys,” he whispered.” Drying his hand in his trousers. “No hard feelings, right?”

Gingerly stepping over a few of them, he lifted the jock, who had fainted against the bathroom door, and moved him to the side.

“Right,” he answered his own question. “See you next loop.” He opened the door and quickly stepped into the hallway. For the next forty minutes, he had algebra to look forward to.