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"Fuck!" I yell as my eyes open again to the same goddamn song on the goddamn alarm radio in this goddamn hotel. I get up and pick up the alarm and just start smashing it against the nightstand. Fucking piece of shit. This trickster was something else. Just be a worse person he said. How much worse could I be!? I killed seventeen people yesterday. With a fucking fork. I don't think I can get much worse than that.

It was day three hundred and twelve. Three hundred and fucking twelve. And here I was again. Maybe I was going about this the wrong way. Maybe I was thinking too big. I needed to think small. Pushing old ladies off curbs? No, there's no way that was worse than murder. I had to think bigger. Much bigger.

What's bigger than stabbing seventeen people to death with a fork? Other than stabbing eighteen people to death with a fork. Sure, I knew how this day played out intimately, but that didn't give me a superpower. I didn't have the ability to drop a nuke on a city just because I'd lived the same day so many times. But maybe...

I got dressed and slipped my shoes on. I had given up on getting dressed somewhere in the hundreds, but it just made me more conspicuous. It made getting away with any misdeeds considerably harder. No, I had to get dressed in the same fucking outfit every day. Because why not. I wished I had brought more than one outfit here almost a year ago when I had first checked in. But I was only supposed to be here for a night. Why would I have brought a wardrobe? Same jeans and button-up I had worn every day since I got here.

I stepped out onto the sidewalk, and my phone went off. It was just the alarm for my business meeting. I wasn't going to that. I hadn't gone to that since the third day. I had hoped maybe that's what the trickster meant. I couldn't have been any further off. I didn't even remember what the meeting was about. Just that that's why I was in this fucking city. I stepped to the right as I avoided a falling air conditioning unit. It crashed to the ground. It had killed me the first day and somewhere in the two hundred range. I had forgotten to get out of the way. I wish the trickster had just let me die.

Instead, he gave me a new lease on life. Said all I had to do was be as bad as I possibly could. Whatever that meant. I had a line I wasn't willing to cross. That line was becoming noticeably fainter as the days ticked by. I had figured out where to get a bomb around day one hundred and fifty. I was going to go that route today. It wasn't a large bomb. It could take out a building. That was the mission today.

I turned down the right streets until I was in a seedy alley. The kind of place that just reeked of sexual assault and murder. It was also where a delivery man was waiting for someone to pick up a bomb. The bomb was originally intended to take out the football stadium during a game later today. Turns out, that wasn't evil enough. Even after I killed the original bomber and planted the bomb myself. Nothing. I walked up to the man standing outside of the white van.

"You the guy?" he asked as he looked behind me to ensure there was nobody else around.

"Yeah, I'm the fucking guy. Who else would I be? Get out of here. I'll take it from here. The rest of the payment will hit your account tonight."

I had staked out the meeting with him and the actual guy on an earlier day. I knew how it went. Though the actual bomber was going to show up in about ten minutes and be pissed. That wasn't my problem. I climbed into the van and turned the keys. In the back was a large contraption that I couldn't even hope to understand. All I knew was there was a button on it. When I pushed that button, I had about two minutes to get the fuck out.

I pulled my phone out and looked up two words. Children's Hospital. There was one hit downtown. It was the largest children's hospital in the country. I knew it well. My company donated millions to it a year. It had about a thousand beds in it and was usually filled to capacity. I drove down to the place. It wasn't very far away.

I drove around the building until I saw the delivery bay. It tucked up underneath the hospital a little. I turned in and pulled up as far as I could. I grabbed the gun that had been deposited in the glove box and got out. Hopefully, I wouldn't need it, but who gave a fuck at this point. I opened the back of the van and pressed the big yellow button, and the timer started. There wasn't an actual timer. I had just guesstimated it was about two minutes from the last time I'd used the bomb. For some reason, there was a red button on the bomb that turned it off. Couldn't have that. So, I sat down on the back of the open van and put the gun down beside me. Time to wait.

"Hey, you can't park there!" a voice came from around the van. "This is for deliveries only!" I swung my feet off the van and hit the ground. I grabbed the gun and stepped around. I tucked the gun behind my back. I wasn't a very good shot.

"What'd you say? I couldn't hear you from way over there." The man stepped closer and as he did, I pulled the gun out and shot him a few times in the chest. I looked up at the security camera, waved, and then walked back to the back of the van again. Should be any second now. Any second to sweet release. I heard the click from the mechanism in the bomb. There it was. I heard the explosion a second before it enveloped me.

The next thing I knew, that goddamn song was playing again. I opened my eyes. "Fuck!"

[deleted]

Of our class only a few remained. Early on we felt a certain type of pride, as if we were the most "human" of the bunch, not being willing to bash each other in or do the ol' in-out on their fellow man or woman.

However, that could not be further from the truth.

"Hey, guys." Helen beckoned to us. "I got lunch ready."

This loop, she decided to make turkey and cheese sandwiches with bags of Funyuns and Caprisun pouches.

"Thanks, Hel." I said, digging in.

"It'd be February thirteenth if the days had kept going." Janice said, her eyes fixed firmly on her paper plate.

"Really?" Tim asked. "You've kept track?"

"You haven't?" Janice retorted.

Several of us clearly hadn't. An awkward silence fell.

Helen broke the silence.

"Hey, uh, guys." She cleared her throat. "Today, this loop, can we just promise each other that we're gonna be calm? This cycle, let's all just relax, keep our cool, and be nice to each other, okay? Just... after Clyde, Justin, and Kyle's riot..." Helen cried, ending her speech.

"Yeah, sure." I said along with most of the others.

My brothers, at that time, I truly believed that. I'm sure all of us did. It was supposed to be just a nice, mellow day.

But, my brothers, what you must understand is that the most important thing in a man's life is the present. The current moment triumphs all.

That is how I will try to justify myself, anyway, for really at the end of the day, who cares? There is only my own mind to satiate. I am not standing before a gate with angels, not yet anyway.

Regardless, as if at this time feeling guilt or feeling sorry for myself will help.

Anyway, in that present moment I promised to be good. I promised to do what I needed to do, which effectively was just relax for like twenty for hours.

I don't know what happened, my friends.

It felt as though a primal force, like an instinct of sorts, was pushing me in a particular direction, like an incredibly strong gust of wind.

There were these physical hands on my body gripping my legs and arms and fingers, even gripping the hairs on my head to make me look particularly badass during the action.

The ghostly fingers stretched my eyelids wide opened as they helped me bludgeon Janice. By the time her head was unrecognizable mush the fingers push had much lessened. I threw plenty more blows, my brothers, before stopping due to swallowing down the wrong pipe.

So there I was, doubled over because I swallowed wrong, drenched in blood. I was really belly-coughing, cause it felt like the saliva had gotten far into my lungs.

"Hey, Steve, you okay?" My colleague, Harper asked from outside of my stall.

"Jus- doi- fine." I spurted, finally getting some of the fluid out of my system.

"Yeah, ya sound peachy." Harper said dryly. "See you at the conference, brother, it starts at four."

My phone goes off, the Indiana Jones theme blaring as my alarm. A bird chirps outside my window as a car honks far in the distance. I lay there, staring up at the ceiling, until I could hear the city bus pass by for the fifth time; it had a bad muffler, and I could always tell it apart by the rattling noise.

Robotically, I pulled myself out of bed. Moved into the kitchen to make food that I wasn't particularly hungry for, brewing coffee that I didn't really want. I heard the door open behind me; by virtue of the fact that it didn't always open at this time, I knew exactly who it was. "Get fucked forever. Leave me alone."

He acted as if he hadn't even heard me, strolling in as if he owned the place; he began fishing through my cupboards for his favorite of my mugs. Frowning, he noticed the blue shards in my sink; I had smashed it before he arrived, just in case he chose to visit. Scowling slightly, he settled for a plain white mug before helping himself to my coffee. "You're up late today. Rough night last night?" He grinned at his own joke.

I focused for a moment, and the coffee pot in his hands exploded. He yelped as scalding hot coffee sprayed all over him, but still managed to smile despite the obvious pain. "Now there's my good old friend. It's been... what, a month, since the last time you used your powers?"

I slumped into my kitchen chair, feeling utterly defeated. "Two months. Fuck you, Aaron, seriously." My breakfast caught fire on the stove, but it didn't really matter, so I let it burn.

Aaron moved to the sink, pouring cold water onto his burns. He'd surely need medical attention, if not for the fact that his wounds would be gone tomorrow. Or next today, however you wanted to look at it.

"One day," Aaron mused, over the sound of running water, "you'll thank me for this. After what happened to us, normal human morality doesn't apply anymore. I wish you didn't need this 'training', but it's for the best. For both of us."

I sighed. We'd had this argument a million times, and every time we both spoke our parts from the heart. "Some strange powers don't make us gods, Aaron. We weren't 'chosen', we didn't 'ascend'... it was an accident."

We had stumbled onto a strange glowing rock out in the forest, after a vicious storm. I'd been afraid we were going to get cancer, but turned out to be way off the mark: over time, I began to realize that I could move things with my mind. And what started with pencils and cups grew rapidly, in both power and scale.

Aaron, on the other hand, seemed unaffected... at first. Looking back, he likely wasn't powerful enough to produce effects at first, given the scale of his abilities. Once he started to show signs, I was the only other person to ever notice that he'd played around with time. Sometimes everyone would simply freeze, or things would suddenly skip back an hour or two.

But that childish experimentation was decades ago... or only a few weeks ago, depending on which timescale you used.

"Accident, divine intervention, witch's curse... does it matter?" Aaron slid into the chair beside me, glancing over as my failed breakfast began to light the cupboards on fire. "What matters is what we can do. I learned that a long time ago, but I'm not doing this alone. You and I, we're going to change things. Together."

Except, what Aaron meant by 'change things' was something I wanted no part in. The first today had been years and years ago; the loop had started as I slept, so I hadn't noticed it had begun. Once I woke the next day, and realized it was still the same day, I'd realized it and confronted him. And he made his terms very clear: he would not let time move forward until I made my powers widely and irrevocably known, to keep me from trying to live a mild mannered life. To keep me from 'wasting my potential'.

And so we'd danced this dance, today after today, him pushing me to snap and show the world what I could do, me living the same mundane day over and over to spite him.

This particular today, however, my patience was running unusually low. And so, as Aaron droned on with today's pitch about how we were destined to rule the world as gods, I flicked him with my mind. Mid-sentence, he flew backwards into the growing fire building atop my stove with a surprised yelp. But I had flicked him too hard, apparently, and the impact killed him before the fire had a chance to–

My phone goes off, the Indiana Jones theme blaring as my alarm. A bird chirps outside my window as a car honks far in the distance. Shortly after, my phone begins vibrating; I have a call. Sighing deeply, I reach over and bring the phone to my ear.

"So, as I was saying, if you'd just channel that sort of energy out into the world, you and I could get to work at shaping the destiny of humankind to..."

I grinned a little as Aaron's irritable tone faded out, replaced by some gurgling. Soon, a wet pop sounded on the other end of the phone–

My phone goes off, the Indiana Jones theme blaring as my alarm. A bird chirps outside my window as a car honks far in the distance. Shortly after, my phone begins vibrating; I have a call. This time, I simply turn it on speakerphone.

"Are you done?" Aaron sounds notably annoyed this time. Somehow, his annoyance soothes me.

"Yeah, I'm done. I just needed to get that out of my system." I get out of bed, and start pulling out some clothes.

I hear him sigh on the other end. "Fine. I can't begrudge you that much. Hey, you want to take the day off, maybe drive out of town for a bit?"

There's something unusual about spending a decade in a loop with only one other person experiencing it with you. On one hand, Aaron was essentially my captor. But on the other hand, he really was still my closest friend. I sighed in return. "There's nowhere within a day's travel that we haven't been."

"Yeah, but it's been years since we hit up that taco truck off the highway. No arguments today, just tacos. Deal?"

"Fuck it, deal. But no weird shit this time, okay?" Last time, Aaron shot the truck owner rather than paying for the meal. 'What does it matter?'

Aaron groaned exaggeratedly. "Uhhhhhhh fiiiiine. But that means you're paying."

(Continued below)

The day passed in an unusually mundane way, for once. Aaron and I sat on the edge of an overpass, watching cars pass beneath us. In the back of my mind, I registered that I had memorized the pattern of every vehicle approaching: red sedan, white minivan, blue pickup. We sat in silence, crinkled taco wrappers discarded beside us, as my brain turned things over for the trillionth time, looking for an answer that worked.

Aaron broke the silence first. "I promised no arguments, and I'm sticking to that, but I want to ask you something." He waited for me to give permission, which he rarely did; it felt nice to be surprised by something. So I nodded, wondering what would come next. "Is there... is there any way I can make all this easier on you?"

I blinked in surprise. "What? Are you fucking... you could just stop this. Just end the fucking loop. Was that a serious question?" I could feel my anger building, and the taco wrappers began to vibrate. "You've kept me locked away in a day, pushing me to become a one-man war crime, and now you're asking how to make that easier on me?"

Aaron didn't seem scared of me, even when I got like this. Either of us dying just reset the loop, so he'd come to terms with the pain associated with that a long time ago. If anything, he just seemed sad, and tired. "I know... I know you don't believe me, when I say that I'm doing this for the right reasons. But I hate this as much as you do. I just also believe it's necessary, for you to leave all this behind." He gestured weakly at everything around us, cars passing in the dark. "I know that you think I'm torturing you, and I fucking hate it. I don't want it to always be like this."

It took a few minutes of me staring violently at him, but my anger began to subside. The wrappers (and the overpass itself) stopped shaking, and I could feel the tension in my shoulders drop. We sat in silence as I turned his words around in my head... and felt something click into place.

"...move the loop forward."

Aaron looked over at me, confused. "What? What do you mean?"

"Move the time loop forward. Twenty four hours, same as it's always been, but start it right now. With you and me, sitting here on this bridge. Not waking up in my normal bed, expecting to walk into my normal life. Let me start it here, with you. I won't... I won't change immediately. You know that, I know that. But it'll be a start. And god knows that we both could use some freshness in our lives."

Aaron quietly considered my request. "I guess it doesn't matter what day we repeat. And... I guess I like the idea of starting the day side by side. Phone calls in the morning don't have the same vibe."

"Plus, if I blow up your head again, I'd have to clean myself off. Definitely a deterrent." I grinned. Somewhere along the line, my humour had become much darker.

But Aaron laughed with me. "I doubt that would stop you, but I respect the sentiment. Okay, done." And without hesitation, I felt the telltale ripple of the 'checkpoint' being reset.

I didn't give him even a moment. A second later, I had flung both of us high into the sky, holding us far above and out of sight. The cars were insects scurrying below as we dangled in midair. Aaron screamed, flailing to grab onto anything and finding nothing.

Floating myself closer, but just out of reach, I spoke calmly. "Now that we're starting side by side, let me tell you what every day will be from now on. Every day, I will pull us up and out of sight. And then, I will harm you in new and inventive ways for every waking minute, but without actually killing you. And then the day will reset, and I will start again. And again. And again."

Fear covered Aaron's face, but I felt nothing. He'd smothered that out of me years ago. "You wanted to teach me to cross the lines of human morality? Congratulations, you did it. So now let's see how long it takes until you turn around and start trying to teach me 'mercy'."

A muffled crack signalled that the pressure I was exerting on him had cracked a rib already; I would have to squeeze slower tomorrow. I grabbed Aaron's face, ignoring his obvious signs of pain.

"And when you've finally decided you've had enough, and you want the suffering to end... I strongly suggest you give up at the start of a loop. Because you're going to be in very, very bad shape by the end of the day."

An end was in sight now, finally. This couldn't last forever, Aaron couldn't last forever. I still had to cut away my own heart to make it happen, but I could live with this if I had to.

And if I'm being honest... knowing I'd never have to hear the Indiana Jones theme again would give me the strength to persevere.

[removed]

I was am an avid fan of time loop stories.

The passage of time, and the inherently nonchanging nature of them, brings out the best and worst in people. It grinds them down, forces them to confront themselves. After all, when the only thing that changes is them, then there is no external struggle. No challenges that cannot be inevitably beaten. No knowledge that cannot become eventually known. No mystery that cannot be solved. The only thing anyone can focus on in this situation is one's own actions.

Characters trapped in that situation know that morality doesn't apply to them. They could be the worst person ever, and it'd all be washed away the next loop. They could cure cancer, and it wouldn't matter. It's a microcosm of nihilistic determinism, where everything comes to naught. So when they decide to be kind, in spite of it all, it's a beautiful thing.

Such was not meant to be my fate. Transported to a third-world country, in the middle of a village that is to be subject to genocide at sunset of that day, a mysterious entity told me that my only way out was to join with the attackers. To senselessly and brutally destroy the lives of 'random' and 'inconsequential' people whom no one would hear of after the fact.

I refuse.

It's hard. Every day, seeing them die, again and again. They have no chance to fight back, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. There is no chance of survival.

And still, I refuse.

I get to know them. I delve deep into each one of the fifty-eight villagers' lives. I know them more intimately than any of my friends from before the loop. I become able to predict their every action and reaction to nearly every possible stimuli. I become impossibly bored, as I knew I eventually would, for there is nothing they can say or do that I haven't heard or seen thousands of times over.

And yet, I still refuse.

I focus on the attackers next. Learn what to say to avoid death, to ingratiate myself, to survive the day. Learn their stories. Come to empathize and understand.

But even then, I won't join them. I refuse.

I find myself developing self-imposed challenges. This situation, the genocide of a people, almost feels like a game at this point. I do an entire loop walking on my hands, or pretending not to know the language (which is English, somehow), or without clothes.

But I will not attack them. I will not hurt them. I refuse.

At first, I think it's out of spite. If that entity trapped me in this situation, then why should I do as they ask? But no, I'm not that sort of person.

Then, I think it's because it's wrong. But my sense of morality has been worn away by time. Some loops I want to hurt or even kill those around me just for the novelty. And yet I don't.

I'm tired. I'm bored. There is nothing left to say or do that would be new, other than what I was told to.

But I refuse. Because no matter how random or inconsequential life can be, I think kindness is the most beautiful thing of all. And I will strive for that beauty even if I must be trapped here for all eternity.

The catch, of course, is that you don't know when all of your actions combined over the day are vile enough to break the time loop.

So if unless you are very careful, eventually you'll break it but wish you didn't.

[removed]

Seven Nothing Days Pt 1 (second below)

You know the weird thing about a time loop, it doesn't take long. Yeah I know it literally only takes a day in the grand scheme of things but if the majority are anything like mine, well you would have to be a complete idiot to not figure shit out by day five. I mean for god sakes I'm pretty sure someone somewhere has probably literally walked past a glowing neon sign on their first day, things that cause time loops, they are just too big to miss.

Like when Nancy said she cheated on me five years ago. Just out of the blue, waking up next to my beautiful, newly pregnant, wife of the past six years to find her sitting at the edge of our bed and looking at me with the most haunting look of guilt I can imagine. I guess she got to thinking about things the night before, the night before when we held each other crying with joy over a black and white photo of a speck until we both (I thought) fell asleep. She said it was right around our 1 year anniversary, some guy who had slipped her his number while she was working at her sisters coffee shop. Apparently I'd grown distant since the wedding, at least that's what it felt like, I guess all that time spent traveling to get enough for a house wasn't worth it after all. She said they only went out three times, slept together twice, the whole thing lasted barely two weeks. It was me coming home to surprise her on our anniversary that ended it she choked out between sobs, she went out again with him after that but she just felt so guilty afterwards she broke it off.

I was numb. Nancy, my wife, my high school sweetheart, the woman I had loved for ten years, had betrayed me. I could hardly breathe much less stop her when she got up and mumbled something about staying on the couch until I decided what to do. For the next hour I just laid there, I didn't cry or swear or talk to god or my mother. I just laid there and thought, and remembered, and thought some more. A part of me wished she hadn't told me, that she had just suffered in silence, her guilt her penance. But it was too late now, the cat was out of the bag as my grandfather loved to say. I knew she would leave if I asked her too, probably get a divorce without even going to court for more than a day, as for the baby I didn't know.

Our life together played back over and over again in my head. Our first 'real' date after innocently hanging out together for two months, prom night our Junior and senior years, driving that hour between our colleges every week. It was all just too much to throw away over some mistake when she was weak and I was gone, especially now that my, no our child was in her stomach. I found the sonogram on her bedside table, I stared at that little black speck for god knows how long but I barely even blinked until I had thought of the words I was going to say.

Forgiveness is hard, especially when the wound is fresh. For two hours we held each other and cried on that couch, talking about nothing but everything. Eventually I had to get ready for work, I would need money and PTO pretty badly when the baby came. So, in silence, she helped me just like she did every day. We didn't say a word after we stood up from the couch, not even when I left, just a kiss. My shift was only four hours but it felt like an eternity that first day, second guessing, wondering, worrying. But when I got home and saw her, standing there in the kitchen, cooking an early dinner, her hair a mess and her eyes still red, well somehow I fell in love all over again.

Nancy and I spent that night like we did our first night together in my college apartment, well, minus the red wine of course all though I did slip some bourbon. We were together again, it was as if the morning had never happened. The last thing I saw was the clock striking 12 before I drifted off to sleep in her arms.

The next day I relived it, exactly. Of course it wasn't word for word, though the confusion probably masked my lack of shock better than I realized. By the time work rolled around I had convinced myself it was the strangest dream in the world, a premonition maybe, a chance to screwup but not for real. When I fell asleep that night I was thinking about going to church on Sunday to thank god for it in fact.

The next day however, that was when I realized something was wrong. That morning I was to scared to do anything different, to jeopardize what I thought was the most critical day of my life. By the time I drove to work however I had thought back to all those movies I had laughed at and decided something had to be done differently, some opportunity had to be taken or passed up, a yes had to be a no or a no a yes. I thought deeply about every moment and action down to each keystroke on my computer and every step I took going to the water cooler and back. I spent the first half of the drive home trying to figure out what it could have been, what I had possibly missed. I spent the next half coming to terms with the yes that had to be a no.

It took me three days to come to terms with it. You would think I would have been distant and cold, that I would have shut Nancy out and let that do the work for me. But I just couldn't bring myself too, not when this was very well goodbye, goodbye to her, goodbye to a happy family together, goodbye to the life I had so painstakingly helped to build. No, I lived each of those three days effectively the same. Sure their were differences, some ideas about alternative solutions, others mere experiments while I had the opportunity. One morning I followed her when she left the bedroom, another I wrapped her in my arms as soon as I woke up. At my job I did things different, nothing as drastic as setting my desk afire or strangling the perpetually annoying Stephanne just in case, but reports didn't get filed, hellos were skipped, conversations started. For some reason I didn't take a different route, I guess all those final destination stories and car crash statistics got the better of me. At home I tried different things, one night I didn't touch the whiskey, another I got a little drunk. In the throws of passion I even tried different things, things that I'd always wanted to but now only did because it would be the last time. The final day I missed work, stayed home and held her until she said she needed to be alone and disappeared to her craft studio until it was time to start dinner.

I could have kept it going, kept living the same day over and over again, trying new things each and every one with no consequences to face. But after four days of realizing my inevitable future I had enough. On the seventh repeat it took me about an hour to come to terms with what I had to do. I called first my mom and then her brother, they both were as shocked as I was to hear me say Nancy cheated but both understood why I was asking her to leave. God they didn't even know about the baby yet. I took a slug of bourbon before I went out there, brushing my teeth beforehand so she couldn't tell. I barely managed to tell her I think she needed to leave. She cried against my should for a while but eventually, she agreed just as I knew she would. We spent two hours discussing what would happen, moving her stuff out, which car she could have, how a divorce might go. The last was what broke me, what finally made the tears flow from beneath my prepared, hardened face. We didn't hardly discuss the baby, once in a while she left the room to throw up from a combination of morning sickness and stress, and each time my heart and mind screamed to not do it, to tell her I was wrong when she came back. But I'd had six days to come to terms with it, looking back I had needed each and every one of them.

Finally her younger brother came and took her and a few things, tomorrow they would come by and get the car while I was at work. I wondered if maybe I should have someone watch or change locks, to make sure she didn't take anything that wasn't hers. When I realized what I was thinking I took my second slug of bourbon of the day, and my third. I called into work right after that even though I was already an hour late. All I said was Nancy left and they said I could take all the time I needed. From there I drank, first my favorite bourbon and then the remnants of a whiskey bottle from our wedding. Once in a while my thoughts drifted to my dads hunting rifle, or one of the two pistols I kept in locked drawers around the house, or the knife block I had gotten from Nancy's cousin last Christmas, or the length of heavy rope in the garage. Somehow I was still conscious at midnight, I guess I had to watch the clock read twelve o one. I half passed half blacked out around one, the first morning of my new life.

Second part is below

Seven Nothing Days Part 2

I spent most of that day like I did the night before, mouth deep in every bottle in the house. I was passed out when the call came, the phone waking me despite it never having done so previously when my mother, sister, and soon to be ex brother in law had all called. Yet another sick damn twist in some master game. It was around three a clock in the afternoon, I was still too drunk too talk straight, the cop probably thought I was an alcoholic when I slurred a "yeah, this is him", at my name. When he said my wife was in a bad wreck on State 129 I'm ashamed to say my first drunken thought was relief. "I hope the bitch is dead", I yelled before slamming the phone down before falling back asleep mumbling about no alimony and not worrying about child support.

It was well past six when the near incessant pounding on my door woke me up. My mother and sister had came to get me, to see if I was even still breathing. They made me get dressed in at least some clean sweatpants and a t-shirt before stuffing me into the car. Apparently her eldest brother had been in a car wreck of his own two states away and she had flown out of work trying to meet her other siblings at the hospital. A semi's brake lines weren't working and when she blindly tried to merge lanes, it was painless I was later told. It wasn't until they got some coffee in me that I sobered up enough to realize what all this was. It wouldn't have mattered what I did the day before, today she had an important meeting, today she would have been in her office and gotten the call about her brother at the same time, today she would have drove onto highway 129 at the exact same time and that exact same truck would have been in the exact same place. I think my crazy laughter until we got to the hospital was part of the reason my mother and sister never treated me the same way ever again.

Nancy's parents had died three years ago, cancer and a heart attack barely a month apart. Her other brother and sister were too busy trying to get there remaining siblings medical needs squared away. It fell to me to ID the body. When the nurse pulled back the blanket and I looked down at the lifeless face that was my wife, that was the mother of my future child, that was up until the day before the most important person in my life, I should have broken, like a paper swan in the rain I should have melted then and there. No one would have blamed me, in fact it was expected in spite of the circumstances. But I was quiet, I'd already had six days to say good bye. "Yep, that's Nancy" is all I said before turning and calmly walking away.

For a long time I thought that day stretched into seven was just for me. I thought that god had decided to let me say goodbye on my own terms and in my own sweet time. I knew what I would have done if he hadn't, the pain of losing a wife and child so suddenly, the hurt and what ifs of a perfect future suddenly thrown to hell. If I hadn't gone for one of my pistols or the rope in the garage the alcohol or pure carelessness and depression would have surely ruined me. But why did they have to be taken, why did a being that could make me relive days take them from me.

I got the first inkling of it all being part of something bigger when the draft letter came. We were at war, true war, for the first time in decades and I was a low-level underwriter for a relatively minor insurance company. A widower, just under thirty, no kids or dependents, no major physical ailments. If I wasn't the first man on the list I should have been the second. I signed up for officer school because it seemed like the thing to do, high test scores, college educated, ex boy scout and collegiate seasonal athletics club president. What more could they want in the next Patton. I scored expert marksman with a pistol but barely qualified with any rifle or machine gun handed to me, I guess that's probably why I got tossed into the police force.

For two years I was a stateside MP, some people might say it was the three 'possible saboteurs (a pair of curious teenagers and a mentaly ill vagrant) I captured in my time at Fort Bragg that got me bumped to Captain, others that I was an ass kissing yes man. Really it was because I was too old and uncaring to be anything less in the US army, or anything more for that matter. I got sent to some little South Asian country as a company leader. Our main job was "protecting" VIPs a hundred miles behind the line.

The General was young for a two star, possibly one of the youngest in US military history. He was fresh off a victory in the Pacific, a victory that had won an entire theatre three months early and with 10,000 fewer casualties then expected. In fact beyond where he had been we were either at a standstill or slowly losing ground to the enemy. There were rumors that if he broke the standoff in this jungle he would get a third star and command of all troops in lower Asia. But he wasn't a pompous asshole either, he talked to me like an equal that whole week that we guarded him and his entourage as they toured camp after camp in a snaking trail towards the front. He even thanked me and my men for the dedicated work. Everyone saw an ace to win the war, I saw a future President.

During that week Nancy and the day I had come to calling the 'nothing week' were as far to the back of my mind as they could be. There was work to do, no time to think about what put me here or why. But, as I watch my men thrust the pistol of the would be assassin skyward, as my ears rings from a shot that tears through only canvas, as I see the grenade lacking a pin fall from the shell shocked soldiers sleeve, it all makes sense. You would think I would have rushed and jumped into action instead of just standing there staring. I know though, I know that this is merely a moment, a moment that I was destined to have. Hell, maybe if I don't jump I'll relive today too, or maybe even my whole life since that day I kicked Nancy out. I'm the only one that sees it, and even if anyone else does the only other person who could do anything is one of my men. John, he's got a wife and kids. Terry, his mom's in the hospital and he's currently fighting to keep a pistol pointed skywards. Miguel, if he doesn't get the General back it won't matter what anyone does, besides, his sister would kill me anyway. I could go for the door, if I had Nancy and a baby at home I would, fuck the General. But with no one, there's no point. Hell I wouldn't even be here if they were alive, ditto if I was dead to a 9mm or a bottle to a grief stricken brain. Maybe I could throw it, no, there's too many people in the way. I smile slightly, when I had shipped off my mother had said she didn't want to be handed a metal. Sorry mom, at least you'll get to meet the president with this one.

All this to save some men, no not to just save some men. I was right about the General, so is everyone else, he's going place and the world will go with him and him only. A little bit of spite for the universe wells up deep in side, a part of me thinks to just draw my pistol and do it myself as a giant middle finger to the greater plan. It's fleeting though, I had long ago come to terms with it, I had suffered too much, destiny had beaten me down just as it had over the nothing week. I look towards the General as I leap, everything moving in slow motion. I see the disbelief in his eyes, the confusion, the hint of burgeoning fear of what's to come next. they remind me of myself, one morning, a lifetime and seven days ago.

God I was terrified that the cycle would end after he blew up the hospital.

I had hope that was how it would end. Good good

I couldn’t tell if this was a punishment.

Common sense, reliving the same moment would drive me to insanity, if it hasn’t already.

The worse part of all of this is knowing that my actions would only benefit myself, the guilt I feel already by even considering this is already eating me alive- if that wasn’t the purpose in the first place.

Days could go on and nothing would change. A nightmare or a dream, relived, over and over.

It is in our human nature… to get bored.

All of these alternate endings I already know, only for it to start up the next day.

Knowing that my future was the same as my present and that the past only meant more options for the doom that awaits me.

To hurt people in exchange to see things in a new light, to have a possibility of change in this nightmare cycle, might even make it worth it.

Would god understand that I chose myself over the greater good?

Learning ways to go against what society has taught me over the years?

Already acknowledged wrong from right, and being told all of the consequences.

Hearing her voice over in over, the atmosphere matching her sobs as I left the alter.

Her white wedding dress, the patterns I have memorized.

Every time a new moment to overthink, to see her face stained in grieve, as I knew I had to make a decision I never wanted to make.

Perhaps, I am a bad person already, and this is my permanent purgatory.

Though, am offered a chance. A possibility of a cruel escape, the only escape.

A day more and I would be sure to seal my fate, a ending I can prevent.

The hand of chance being outstretched to me is blurry,

and the answer is as clear as the stained glass was, glistening and sparkling in the light from that regretful day.