“And after Leanne and Lee left, I talked with Harley about the rune on my back and pretty much called it a day,” Vell said.

“Huh. Just had to tip over a bottle? That’s it? Seems pretty simple compared to some of the bullshit we put up with.”

To satiate Hawke’s curiosity, and kill some time as they headed into the new year’s break, Vell was retelling the story of his first day in the loop. Hawke felt a bit ashamed that Vell had handled his abrupt introduction to the loop so casually, though Vell argued he’d had prior experience with cosmic weirdness and shouldn’t be used as a baseline.

“Did you ever see the scorpion again?” Kim asked. She was far more concerned with the minutiae than Hawke.

“You know, now that you mention it, we didn’t,” Vell said. That concerned him a little. Kim nodded and added “scorpion” to her list of animals that could possibly talk. Between fish, gorillas, and octopi, the list was starting to get pretty long. After expanding the catalog of sapient animals by one, Kim turned to Lee and Harley.

“So what was your first loop like?”

“A rock fell on us,” Harley said. “Nothing as wild as murder wasps.”

“Oh come on, there’s got to be more to it than that,” Hawke said.

“Yeah, you know, now that I think of it, you’ve never told me about you guys’ first loop together,” Vell said.

“I don’t know if there’s a lot to tell, darling,” Lee said. “But if you want to know-”

“I do.”

“Well then I’ll tell you,” Lee said. It was easy for her. Lee remembered everything that had happened that day.

THAT DAY

XL-X8 C/P Burrows put the pointless tea set on an empty shelf in her empty dorm. Her mother had called the tea set a gift. Her parents apparently had a very odd definition of “gift”.

The dorm was also supposed to be a gift. Thanks to Roentgen’s extensive contributions to the Einstein-Odinsin campus, XL-X8 had been afforded a position of “privilege” a dorm all to herself, something usually unavailable to freshmen at the school. She’d have the privilege of spending her entire first semester completely alone.

XL sat down and sighed to herself. It was thoughtless in two completely different ways. Noel Burrows had sent her here to make friends -or rather, “valuable connections” as he put it. XL’s father had no concept of friendship. Just social capital. And, of course, it made sure her parents knew exactly where she was. Alone in a dorm that was also a prison, XL let the hollowness wash over her. It all felt so eerily familiar. She remembered this dorm, this island, in a haze, something she assumed to be a dream. That dream had ended with a rock falling from the sky and crushing the entire island.

That didn’t bother her very much. XL dreamed about death a lot.

What bothered her was that the longer the day went on, the more that dream started to look like it was coming true.

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

XL-X8 shuffled along silently behind a drone. Yet another “accommodation” her father had made, ensuring she wouldn’t need a real tour guide. She had no idea how he expected her to network when he was apparently going out of his way to ensure she would never speak to another human being. But that was just her father’s usual stupidity. XL focused more on the circumstances around her.

Everything was repeating. Everyone was repeating. The situations she’d chalked up to a dream were all playing out in the real world. Everything she overheard, everything she saw, was all a rerun. Even as the drone led her through the lunch room, she saw the same gaggle of students, the same tiny woman with an over sized metal arm, an identically harsh-looking Vietnamese professor, and a slightly different short girl in red.

XL stopped in her tracks. So did the short girl in red. She looked different. She was acting different -and slowly coming to the realization that XL was acting different too.

The two locked eyes, and stared each other down. The moment of realization came suddenly and simultaneously. XL broke away from her tour drone, Harley broke away from her tour group, and the two crossed the dining hall to face off with each other. They made tense eye contact for a second before XL-X8 nervously broke off and tried to walk away at a brisk pace.

“Hey, hang on a minute,” the girl in red shouted. XL started pacing faster.

Harley had spent all morning wondering what the hell was causing everything to repeat itself. So far, the only suspicious thing she’d seen all day was the weird girl walking through the campus behind a drone, so she chose to investigate that single lead. Harley chased after the stranger and caught up to XL, grabbing her by the wrist as she tried to leave.

“Hey, hold on a minute,” Harley said. XL pulled her hand out of Harley’s grip and flinched visibly, causing Harley to take a step back.

“Hey, hold on,” Harley said. “I just- have you noticed anything weird today?”

“I...no,” XL insisted.

“Are you sure about that?”

It took very little pressure to get XL to crack.

“Why do you care? Did you do this?”

“Did I do this? Maybe you did this?”

“Why would I drop a rock on myself?”

“So you admit you know about the rock,” Harley said.

“So do you!”

The two locked eyes and stared each other down for a few seconds.

“Okay, fucking hold on a minute,” Harley said. XL gasped at the curse, and then remembered that her parents were nowhere nearby, so she didn’t need to feign indignation at the profanity. “We’re talking in circles.”

Harley put her hands on her hips and gave XL a quick scan from head to toe. She didn’t seem like the kind of person to drop a big rock on an island. She seemed more like the ghost of a traumatized Victorian child, but that was an entirely different problem.

“What if neither of us dropped the rock?”

“I suppose that is in fact a possibility,” XL admitted. “If we assume this to be the case...should we not do something to possibly prevent that incident from repeating itself?”

“That’d probably be a good idea,” Harley said. “I do like not being squished. I’m short enough already.”

After ruminating on her height for a moment, Harley turned back to XL.

“So...Team up?”

XL tilted her head like a confused puppy. Harley thought it was adorable and sad.

“Do you want to work with me to stop the rock?”

“Cooperation can be beneficial, I suppose.”

“Okay, then, I guess, to start off with: Sorry I grabbed you and got a little accusatory. I was panicking and I got a bit aggressive.”

XL’s brain short-circuited for a few seconds, and she said nothing. The silence made Harley feel uncomfortable.

“Uh...You okay?”

“Sorry,” XL said, snapping back to reality. “Just a bit overwhelmed.”

Only technically true, but still true. The whole truth was that XL had been overwhelmed by a genuine apology. Sincerity and remorse were nowhere to be found in the Burrows household.

“I am...also sorry,” XL said. While she’d never received an apology, she’d given plenty. Her parents had found a lot of reasons to make her feel inadequate, so the word “sorry” rolled off her tongue easily.

“Alright then, all squared up and now we’re best friends,” Harley said. XL cocked her head. She’d never had a friend, but she had assumed becoming best friends was a little harder than that. “Do you want to go stop the big boulder now?”

XL gave a stiff nod. Harley responded with a smile brighter than any XL had ever seen.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Better get started, then,” Harley said. “So. You got any ideas?”

Harley had plenty of motivation, but no clue where to direct it. XL had only slightly more impetus.

“Perhaps we should...try to enlist help? We can’t be the only ones who want to avoid getting squished.”

“Good instinct, but there might be some problems,” Harley said. “Follow me.”

Harley took the lead and returned to her tour group, and the band of roommates she’d been assigned.

“Hi guys, sorry about this, but I think I’ve got to bail on the tour.”

“That’s fine, Harley,” the tour guide said. XL side-eyed her new friend. So her name was Harley.

“Cool! I got a question for you guys though: would anyone here believe me if I told them a big rock was going to fall and kill us all in exactly four hours and thirteen minutes?”

Only one person out of the five in front of them raised her hand. Harley pointed at the one with her hand raised.

“Hi, Kanya, right?” The girl nodded. “Why would you believe that?”

“You seem nice.”

“Cool. You seem nice too, we should hang out,” Harley said, to which Kanya nodded again. “I got to go do things with this chick right now though, we’ll talk later.”

Harley retreated from the group and reconvened with XL in private.

“That’s admittedly a small sample size, but I feel like most people aren’t going to believe us if we say there’s a big squish coming,” Harley said.

“Understandable, if unfortunate,” XL said. “It seems we are on our own.”

Their isolation did nothing to dull their determination, and at XL’s suggestion, the two started their search for solutions by heading to the geology labs alone.

Across the dining hall, at a particular table, a muscular Finnish woman pounded on the table hard enough to shake her two companions out of their seats.

“What the fuck, Leanne?”

Leanne resisted the urge to slap Naomi long enough to point in the direction of the two young women she’d seen, then hold up two fingers and move one hand in a looping motion. Leanne’s former friend still had no idea how to understand the rapid gestures she made.

“Seriously, Leanne, are you still doing this mime shit? You had all summer break and you’re still not over it?”

Leanne rolled her eyes and repeated the gesture. Her efforts to communicate that she had seen two new loopers failed to land yet again.

“Maybe she actually forgot how to talk,” Dom suggested. Leanne sighed deeply and stood up to chase after the two new loopers on her own.

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

“Alright, so we get to the geology lab, and then what?”

“Then I ask enough questions to ascertain the nature of the disaster to come,” XL explained.

“But why would they answer you?” Harley said. “You’re some random freshman and none of them have any idea something is going to go wrong.”

“I am not some- My apologies, do you not know who I am?”

“Of course not. You never told me your name.”

The very sincere lack of recognition in Harley’s eyes had been lost on XL up until now. For her entire life, XL’s social circle had been curated and carefully selected by her parents, so she’d never met anyone that didn’t already know who she was. The concept of “introductions” had never been part of XL’s life.

“Oh. I did not, rather, my intent was not to-”

“Are you okay?” Harley interjected. XL was acting, walking, and talking strangely, at least from Harley’s perspective. The inhuman patterns of behavior her father had foisted upon XL seemed incomprehensible to any normal human being.

“Do I seem not okay?”

“Frankly, no,” Harley said.

“I am sorry,” XL said. She bowed her head the way her father insisted she do and prepared to apologize, also in the manner he insisted on, but Harley never gave her the chance.

“Hey, it’s fine,” Harley said. “We got killed by a giant rock and now we’re apparently stuck in a Groundhog Day loop. That shit’s stressful.”

“I...it is very stressful, I suppose, yes,” XL said. “You are correct.”

“Yeah, frankly I think I’m just riding some kinda mental shockwave,” Harley said. “I might crash eventually, but I’m cool for now if you want to take a breather while I interrogate the geology dudes.”

Harley pointed behind her at the door to the geology lab. They had stumbled on it mid-conversation, apparently.

“No, no, that will not be necessary,” XL said. “I will be able to manage.”

“You sure? Because you’re so weirded out you’re not even using contractions.”

XL put a hand to her lips. “No contractions” was a Burrows household rule -for her, at least. Noel and Granger Burrows didn’t hold themselves to the same standards as XL-X8. But she was no longer in their household, or beholden to their hypocritical standards.

“I am- I’m sorry. I did not- didn’t realize.”

The simple act of using contractions felt alien yet natural. It was oddly similar to pulling a splinter out of her skin -it was unpleasant, but it was only a moment of pain as a foreign influence was removed and everything went back to the way it should have been.

“You good?” Harley asked. She didn’t understand the expression of delighted confusion on XL’s face.

“I believe I’m getting the hang of it,” XL said.

“Alright, we’ll get you walking normally in no time,” Harley said, giving XL an encouraging pat on the shoulder. The slight touch of physical affection prevented XL from interpreting that remark as genuine criticism, which in turn prevented XL from withdrawing in on herself and writing Harley off as another source of unneeded criticism. It would have been an overreaction, but two decades of unrelenting mental and physical abuse would do that to a person.

As Harley headed into the lab, XL followed behind, trying her best to walk “normally”. She nearly tripped a few times and eventually settled on an awkward yet relatively stable waddle.

The geology department, predictably, had more rocks in it than people. The two scientists who lingered in the otherwise empty chamber turned to stare at their uninvited guests. The taller of the two nodded to the shorter, younger looking scientist.

“Let me guess, new students?”

“Correct. If we may ask-”

“You may not,” the taller scientist said. “Not until we may ask. Are you even part of this department?”

“Not yet,” Harley said. “We could be. We’re open to change.”

“Right, well, until that ‘change’ has been made, you shouldn’t be here,” he said. “You shouldn’t just wander into laboratories around here uninvited. It could be dangerous.”

“Well, yeah, but I figure that mostly applies to like radiology or weapons engineering,” Harley said. “Geology ranks pretty low on ‘sciences most likely to kill someone’.”

She had actually believed that about twelve hours ago (give or take a very confusing eighteen hours of time loop). Now she had to lie through her teeth to say it. It did present her with an opportunity, however.

“I mean, unless you’re doing something crazy like teleporting a big rock into the campus?”

The two scientists exchanged an almost worried glance, something Harley couldn’t help but see as suspicious.

“The two of you should get back to your tour groups. What this department does with its resources is not your concern.”

“Ooh, did I guess right?”

“No, you didn’t,” the taller scientist said. “And this is not a guessing game, it is a complex and confidential experiment. If you’re not involved in our department, please leave.”

Harley didn’t want to leave, but she also didn’t want to push her luck. If these two called security, Harley and her new friend might lose any chance at stopping the inevitable rock fall. Harley turned to XL in the hopes that she had a better idea. She did have an idea, she just wasn’t sure it was better.

There was a framed magazine cover of Noel Burrows hanging on the laboratory wall, alongside the likes of Einstein and Tesla, for some reason. As if he were an actual scientist and not a charlatan with a bank account big enough and a publicist good enough to make his idiocy seem like genius. XL tried not to look at it for too long, lest her disgust overwhelm her. She should’ve been able to escape her father here, at least in part.

XL sighed and tried to unclench her fists. She still had some ways to be free of his influence, at least in small ways. She looked back at Harley, at the girl who didn’t know who she was, didn’t know her cursed parentage or her despicable name. She wanted to preserve that blissfully ignorant mental image for as long as she could.

“Harley, dear, would you mind stepping out for a moment and letting me talk to these gentlemen on my own?”

“Alright, but only because you called me ‘dear’,” Harley said. “I like that.”

XL made a mental note of that and then stepped up to the two scientists, who seemed unnecessarily wary of her continued presence.

“I’m sorry, I believe we got off on the wrong foot,” she said. She brought years of brown-nosing practice to the fore, and used the exact tone she always used when she wanted to manipulate her father into doing something. “My name is XL-X8 C/P Burrows.”

The two men tried to restrain themselves, but their reactions were obvious. The shorter of the two even looked over his shoulder, at the magazine cover bearing her father’s likeness. XL resisted the urge to gag. In a perfect world, people would spit on the name “Burrows”, not fawn over it. Or at least spit on it when attached to her mother and father. XL didn’t want to be spit at.

After the initial wave of misplaced nerd-affection washed over them, one of the scientists became more skeptical.

“Wait, are you really Noel Burrows’ daughter?”

“How many other people do you think have that name?”

To reinforce her claim, XL produced here student ID -the only form of ID she had, since Noel had never allowed her to get a driver’s license, or even a library card. The small sheet of plastic cemented her identity in the mind of the fawning scientists, though, and their adulation returned. XL found it just as disgusting as before.

“I am supposed to be scanning the campus for masterful breakthroughs in the field of science during my time here. Anything my father might consider interesting, or profitable, you know” XL continued. “I had heard some rumors you might be on to something involving teleporting a large stone?”

In direct defiance of their earlier hesitance, the scientists practically tripped over themselves to be the first to answer XL’s question.

“Well, it’s not directly our department, no, but we did some consulting.”

“The actual teleportation is going to happen in the Extraplanetary Research Department,” the other said. They started speaking in turns after this, further upsetting XL.

“They’re going to teleport a small sample of martian stone to Earth for study.”

“Thanks to our expert consultation on stone composition and structure, of course.”

“And the stone will end up in our care soon, after some cursory examinations by the planetary studies group.”

“Fascinating, and when is that going to happen?”

“We should have the sample in our possession by next-”

“Oh, sorry, no, not you having the space rock,” XL said. “The teleportation itself. When will that be occurring?”

“The initial fire up sequence of the teleporter should be happening in fifteen minutes or so. But that’s just a routine procedure, it’s-”

“Not as routine as you’d think,” XL said. “Thank you for your assistance, I’ll pass your names along to my father!”

XL turned on her heel and started walking away as one of the scientists meekly protested she’d never gotten their names. XL cursed at herself for forgetting to do introductions yet again.

Harley was waiting in the hall, poking at her phone, and jumped to her feet as XL stumbled back into the hall. Walking normally still wasn’t going very well.

“Any luck?”

“More than luck,” XL said. “I know exactly where we need to go and when we need to be there.”

“Alright, way to go,” Harley said. She held up her hand for a high five. XL just stared at her raised palm.

“Do you have a question?”

Harley had several questions, most of them some variation of “why are you like this?”, but she stowed them all for later. They had an island to save.