There are several emotional phases one goes through during a time loop.
At first, it’s all normal. You have determination. You have a goal. You’re looking forward to what you can accomplish.
Then comes the point where you lose hope. “When will this end?” You ask yourself. “Is it really worth it to go through all this?” You question if you can actually accomplish that goal.
The last phase never really entirely comes, but it slowly eases in. You forget what your initial goal was. You start to give up. You can’t see the future, since it’s all filled to the brim with the present. You can’t see the past, since it’s full of what you’re seeing over and over and over.
Angel had experienced this before. Heck, she’s been traveling through dimensions on her own for the past thirty years! Thirty days should be nothing, right? Well, that’s what she thought, but she had gotten to that second phase sooner than she expected, and the third was slowly beginning to consume her.
For the 700th time, Angel woke up on the straw bed, with sunshine filling the room. For the 700th time, she had the same conversation with Arthur. For the 700th time, she stepped down the stairs and defeated him in the cellar. For the 700th time, she unlocked Damien’s cuffs, choosing the key by muscle memory. For the 700TH TIME, she left the town on the wagon, heading to the intersection.
Really, do you want to read “for the 700th time” 700 times? I doubt it.
At the very least, though, beyond that point, things were still slightly different each trial.
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Attempt 11: Angel didn’t stop Arthur from going to his primary time machine. They turned left on the intersection and went on the road for half an hour before setting on horse through the forest, only to end up with a damaged vehicle. This time, though, before they left, they were ambushed by a muscular man even larger than Arthur. He was one of the shooters.
Attempt 12, 13, 14, 15: Angel traveled to the main time machine again. Same events. Either one of the enemies was there, or they weren’t. In both cases, the machine was destroyed. And in neither case did they escape.
Attempt 16, 17, 18, 19 all the way up to 29: Angel hid. In the forest, in the town, in the river—none of those worked. They found them no matter where she hid. And only one explanation could be called for how they were always predicting her moves: they must have been looping for far longer than she was. If that was the case, hiding would be useless.
Attempt 30 through 57: She told Arthur to ride as far as they could go. Well, that didn’t go so well either since their pursuers caught up to them on horseback. None of the other routes from the intersection worked either. Not even going straight through the forest, away from the path, worked either. Again, every single time those people were a step ahead. If she needed a way to escape them, then it couldn’t be through spatial dimensions.
Attempt 58 through 176: Angel tried fixing the time machine. She had learned a bit about it from her parents before, but it was as unknown to her as the steam engine to people of this era. Still, if she learned to fix it through her endless hours of looping, she might have a chance. Well, she was wrong. The shooters had specifically taken parts that couldn’t be replaced with the technology available.
Attempt 176 through 335: Angel decided to fight their pursuers straight on. She knew she was no match for their guns, but if she went retried it enough times, maybe she could defeat them just like how she could fight Arthur easily now. Easier said than done if the opponent was also cherrypicking scenarios. For every move she made to counter a mistake from the past, they countered with much more strength and precision. Fighting them wouldn’t work out.
Attempt 335 through…some number. Angel had lost count. Not that the count is actually that important. What really mattered were new ideas, and she had run out. So now, Angel simply went back and repeated what she had already done. Maybe, it could work.
It did not.
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So for the 700th time, Angel sat on a bench in the wagon as it left town. She didn’t know if it was actually the 700th attempt, but she knew it was around that point. She may have counted more, and she may have counted less.
“Turn to the right here,” Angel said nonchalantly to Arthur as they arrived at the intersection.
Arthur opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by Angel. “Trust me. Go that way.”
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Arthur closed his mouth and remained silent, sensing Angel’s impatience. The wagon turned right on the intersection. But not only were they going that direction because the other routes would only lead to damaged time machines, but also because that direction would give them the most time as well.
The wagon traveled for half an hour before closing in on the large river. Each time they came this way, Damien would be drawn out by that sound. He would stand out there, thinking about his experiences of going to a city that would be built here in the future. Well, that was what Angel had gathered from the many times she heard the same story from Damien, so she had a pretty good idea of what his life was like.
As Damien stood out there in the breeze, Angel watched him patiently. Neither he nor Arthur knew even a bit of what Angel had gone through to get to this point. No, she didn’t get anywhere. She was still at the same place she was seven hundred takes ago.
When the trees blocked Damien’s view of the river, causing him to snap out of the clouds, he turned back to face Angel, who just looked on at him. It was like watching a movie for the hundredth time. You just want it to all go by quickly.
“Sorry… I used to come here a lot,” Damien said quietly.
“Well, are you not going to sit down?”
Damien followed Angel’s order. Right after he sat down, he opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself.
“Good choice. I do not need you to ramble about what you did with your family there. Now we should get back to what is important.”
“Well, why can’t we use a time machine? I have one hidden in the forest.”
Angel sighed. It was this same conversation again. If she responded the same way, then she’d be able to get past their suggestions quickly. “No. The enemy knows that is our only way to escape. They would get there before us.”
“Can’t you transport us to another time period? Like how we came here?”
“I spent all my energy on that,” Angel said, “accidentally.” How many more times would she have to say this?
“Then we can—”
Angel interrupted Arthur. “No. The backup one wouldn’t work. They’d get to any time machine before us. We can’t hide and wait. They’d know where we are and where we go. We can’t even fight them. They’re way more combat-experienced than we are.” She tried to remain calm as she explained everything, but it was difficult as her patience had started to get worn down from the hours and hours of time looping.
“Then—”
Angel cut off Damien again. “We will not have enough time to make a time machine. Not with the technology we have now.”
There was a pause as Arthur and Damien thought. Angel waited patiently for them to continue, so she could go on with her explanation.
“Then the only choice would be to surrender, right? Maybe they would let us live.”
Angel turned to Damien, and responded to his useless point. “They will not show any mercy. It will be worse than death.”
There was a reason behind that glare Angel gave Damien when she said that, but it wasn’t because she had experienced any torture. Not once in the seven hundred runs had Angel let herself be caught, though there were a few close calls. If the shooters had captured her and taken her away from this time period, then she wouldn’t be able to rewind back to retry everything. Surrender was only the last resort.
Then Angel sighed and looked down. She had been thinking about it for a few loops now, but there was another idea she hadn’t tried yet. So she looked up at Damien again and shared. “There is one thing that could work, and I would like to try it. It would require your cooperation.”
Damien perked up at that. “What do I need to do?” He asked. That was the thing that made Angel hesitant to try out her idea. She wasn’t sure if Damien would be ready to use his temporal muscles. She had already tried the method with herself and Arthur, to no avail, but only now did she finally decide that it wouldn’t hurt her to try it with Damien.
“Out of us three, you are the only person who is idle in the time-plane, so you are full of energy. But what is interesting is you have an amazing capacity, and you are super light. So if you are able to learn to control your movements, and if we just give you a small push, we will be able to escape this time period.”
Arthur spoke up from the front of the wagon. He had a worried voice. “Isn’t that way too risky? Are you certain it would work? Even if you could predict what would happen, there are still some uncertainties. I suggest we try another idea.”
“I am certain it will work,” Angel replied firmly, “If you can suggest something better—and that will not happen—then we would definitely go for that.”
Another lie. Angel was definitely not certain if any of this could work, especially after all those fails she had gone through. It was all speculation. She knew there was something peculiar about Damien according to what she had learned from her mother, and now was the time to test that out.
Now that things were decided, Angel quickly turned back to Damien to explain what he had to do. “First, do you remember when you were bringing me to school? This is going to feel somewhat similar.” That was such a long time ago, but Angel still remembered the day she met Damien.
Angel reached out and held Damien’s hand in hers. She then gave him a push. It wasn’t a physical one but one in the temporal dimensions. It was the strongest push she could manage to hold for an extended period of time with the everlasting soreness in her muscles.
“You are sensitive. Try to find the source. I am just giving you a little push, and even though it does not come naturally to you, you should be able to find where it is coming from.”
It was apparent Damien was trying hard to follow Angel’s instructions, but he still failed. He tried again, and failed again. Angel started to lose hope of whether or not this plan could actually work. Inside her head, the timer was counting down, and they would have to get off the wagon soon. Then they would be on the run, and Damien wouldn’t be able to concentrate. This time, it didn’t look like they would be able to escape.
But maybe next time, it could work. A slightly different push. A better explanation. A different location. Maybe next time, they could escape.