I woke up as I instantly gasped for fresh air, holding my neck just like before. Eyes opened like they would fall out, I clicked my mind in. I looked around and steadied myself. This time was slightly different though. Last time I had respawned, I had been holding a book in my hand but this time, I had none and was merely standing before a different shelf from before.
The checkpoint has changed. Maybe it is dependent on time, not certain events. If I could calculate the time, then maybe I could use that to my advanta-
I stopped my thoughts, realizing I had just begun to tread in dangerous territory.
Wait, who am I to say there isn’t a number of ‘lives’ I have? In fact, this could be my very last.
There were too many unknown variables on the table and it infuriated me.
And that fucking… monster.
Whatever the fuck he was, a gun is fucking useless against him.
Regardless of the opposing thoughts I had, I needed to calculate the different results of paths I could take. I raised my hand to my chin and dived into my thoughts.
If I truly did have the ability to respawn, it was possible it followed the mechanics of a video game and there were two routes. One was my checkpoint was based on time, and whenever I died, I would return back a certain number.
On the contrary, it was event based. For example, I was in this bookstore and this unknown mechanism had dragged me back to this certain event. This event being, me just looking for a book, so it didn’t matter about the different moments I had in this bookstore. It could possibly take me back to any moment in time, as long as it was in the store. But even that, could have a pattern to it that I could figure out, but weaponising my death wasn’t something I wanted to do.
Hell, who in their right mind would? Just because I could be brought back to life, why would I willingly put myself through the excruciating pain of dying. Not me. No way. Death was not sweet. An unexplainable marvel of the universe, I had just experienced it and lived to tell the story.
The other pathway was that I had a certain number of lives and this could possibly even be my last one. And me being me, I had to assume the worst and that this was my last retry so willingly using my death to go back in time, was a foolish thought.
This could be it.
I slowly walked out of the bookstore, holding my chin while I looked down onto the floor.
Jay. Old man. Fuck. Can I still save him? No wait, it’s not worth it with all these unknown factors on my table.
The issue was, I didn’t know exactly what time I had been set back to, but just in case, I asked Avante for it.
“7:07 sir,” it replied in its mundane voice. Jay could already be well dead because when I went back the second time, I had run to him in hopes of saving him but he was still dead. The killers had possibly killed him long before and had just been ravaging through the top floor looking for goods. So even now, Jay could still be dead. But there was a chance that he could still be alive.
I had to think of a plan of action. If I ran back now, there were three options: he was still alive and well and in this time loop and I had been sent back to the beginning of my time in the library. You see, my memory was usually sharp and I could remember details, leading me to know exactly when I was brought back in time. This time, I woke up looking at a bookshelf, but after dying two times, I couldn’t remember if this was the beginning, middle or end.
The other option was that I would come just the moment the attackers were about to kill him, or in the process of doing so. In that case, I could still save him.
And the last one, was that he was dead and had been long dead before I even got to the bookstore, meaning he was unsaveable.
I went with the worse case scenario. He was dead.
A flash of his smile reverberated through my mind.
Fuck.
If he was dead and I turned up there, this time I would have to kill them straight away. No faffing about this time, just shoot them with no questions asked or else it would be my head rolling on the floor. But the issue was after that.
I walked through the streets of the city slowly, looking down onto the sandy floor, still with my hand on my chin. A shiver trickled down my spine when I remembered a vivid memory of those gleaming red eyes, standing in the doorway towering over me. A deep scar over his eyelid, a black robe and a colossal scythe. No matter how many times I died, no matter how fuzzy my memory became from the trauma, I could never forget that monster.
He was the bigger issue, I couldn’t kill him with a gun.
But where had he come from? He didn’t come in my first loop. Agh! There’s too much I don’t fucking know.
I gave it a small thought, perhaps the noise from explosive gunshots weren’t seen as normal in this district. I mean, the gunshot was loud so this primitive society could just point it out to be some sort of explosion. I do remember slightly, when I was creating the gun with Jay, the authorities would come and ask Jay what had happened on rare occasions. But it did happen. And since Jay was known in the streets, I’m sure the authorities of this district knew him too so they trusted his words.
And also, this time round, there was shouting and screaming from both sides of the bloody war I had with the three assailants.
I remembered a small detail from the first time I had met Jay. When waiting outside his home with Sylvie, I could practically hear every footstep through the walls, showing how thin it was. But there was another fucking issue.
The authorities never dressed like that monster did. They usually wore white overcoats with golden designs and badges on them, showing that they were the police force of the city.
He didn’t look like that. No. What the fuck was he?
And then a thought flashed through me. I remembered the man's words.
“All you humans are the same. You need to be arr-”
I thought about it for a moment. Before I foolishly cut him off in fear, I believe the word he was about to finish with was arrested. So, did that mean he was an authority? He may just have been of higher status than the usual police force. I furrowed my brows.
“He just had to be near me of all places at the same fucking time,” I said in a quiet voice. So in a sense, if he was the authorities, he could be reasoned with and if I could show him the situation, then I would be safe in the end. I mean, I’m sure there was corruption amongst any sort of authority, but from that moment in time, he didn’t have any intent to kill. It was only after I shot my gun that he decided to take action.
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Fine. I understand it now.
There was a way to maybe save the old man, and leave with my life intact regardless of the outcome. Fine.
Picking up the pace, I slowly advanced my steps into a jog then darted toward the house at my full speed. How many times had I done this same journey already within the same timeframe? It was a mind boggling thought. And after a few minutes, I had reached the wretched house once again. Bursting through the doors, it seemed this time around, the scene was different. But the difference meant almost nothing.
As the three bandits stared at me in confusion, I looked down behind the work table, seeing the dead man sleeping in his puddle of blood.
Again. I couldn’t fucking change anything. I had enough. I had it. I was done with trying to save him. It wouldn’t get me anywhere or help me in any way.
I closed the door behind me.
In an instant, I raised my gun as I stood at the door and took aim at one of the men. An image of the past laid waste in my head when I remembered how I had already killed these same three individuals. I had no time to dwell on the thought, morality or questions.
They needed to go.
I fired the bullets. Three of them, one after another with no remorse. With every bullet I shot, I watched the life of them drain away.
Yes. This was needed. I couldn’t save the old man, but I’m not going to sit and die for it.
“Avante, what’s the time?” I asked.
“7:24 sir,” the voice in my head replied. This time, I had to collect the time stamps of each moment just in case the worst case scenario happened and I died. No, the worst case scenario was that I truly died and that was the end of my life. But I needed to do this just in case I would go back in time.
I thought of the man in black again, and acted quickly. Avoiding confrontation would be the best case scenario for me and dancing around inside here would just throw me into that same situation of despair.
What’s the next move?
I could go to the authorities and report the crime, but the issue there was that through autopsy, they could see the manner in which the three bandits were killed. That’s only if they had the means to do so. But the issue with that was that the authorities could deduct that I was responsible for the killings because at the end of the day, this was far from the perfect murder. And the biggest problem with that was not that I would be thrown in jail, it was that they would understand I had a means of killing people in a manner that was unknown in this world. One thing I had learnt from earth was that the more you became a well known figure, the more of a bigger target you had on your back. Now you see, if whoever was in charge of this country found out I could create technology capable of killing people instantly from a distance, I’d be in for a world of trouble. And that was the worst outcome for a man who wanted to remain under the radar.
If I ran, it would only look more suspicious.
Can I pin it on someone?
That was possible but the time limit I had was problematic. Sylvie.
From my last run, I had developed a theory that authorities had been called by members of the public due to the burst of the gun sounding like a small explosion to their primitive ears. Thoughts darted through my mind and I had a dangerous thought spring to me and I acted on instinct to deliver the plan. I swung my head around, looking for anything I could take and sitting on the messy desk, was a book on carpenting and so I scrambled quickly to take it.
If I take this book, climb out this house through a back window, I could go and run to look for Sylvie. If I give her the book, and tell her that I was going somewhere else, I could have her deliver it to Jay’s house. When she does that, I could call the authorities myself to alert them about an explosion nearby and if I timed it well, they would then catch her at the doorway, standing over four dead bodies. I have a strong alibi too. It makes sense, I had just come back from the bookstore and took a book about carpenting and asked Sylvie to deliver it for me. She wouldn’t be framed for the murder, but the suspicions on the means of killing could go to her. After all, she hadn’t done it, but the authorities would have a harder time searching for the person that had actually done it-
“What a flawed plan. Getting away with murder, having no preparation, was foolish,” I said as I slowly placed the book down, “I’ll talk to the man myself, and tell him how it is. That’s right. I’ll talk to him.”
I thought of the perilous red eyes that tore through my soul in the very doorway I stood in front of. After all, I was a man of many plans, and I had an idea of exactly what to do next.
I burst out of the door behind me to look for anyone in the police force but just as I stepped out into the sunlight, I was stopped by a large wall glaring down at me. All the organs in my body stood still, screaming in jeopardy as I slowly raised my head to match the gaze of the man before me. There it was again. Those hazardous eyes staring daggers through me.
My lungs collapsed. I held my breath.
Fear. Anguish. Helplessness.
It was as if all my schemes were ripped apart in lightning speed when this man appeared before me once again. The world fell silent and all I could hear was the creaks of the wooden floorboards beneath me. His black hair swayed in the wind while his gaze averted over my shoulders.
“I smell blood,” he said in a low tone, “Was this your doing?” His eyes fell back on me.
Leave me alone. Just leave. Why are you always here? No. Please. Just go. Pl-
I gulped.
“No. No, this wasn’t me! These three men killed my old man! It was only fair that I killed them! That’s right! You said it yourself! Those who kill must be willing to be killed!” I shot back, mustering up all my courage to get some words out.
“I don’t remember telling you that,” he shot back, narrowing his eyes.
“No, no! This man was like a father to me! I wanted to save-”
“I dislike your eyes. You have the eyes of a murderer,” he said slowly, pulling his hand to his back. I gulped again, slowly stepping back into the house.
“And you speak lies.”
No, no. Are you taking the fucking piss? Are these fucking people animals uncapable of reasoning? I have the eyes of a fucking murderer? Then what the fuck are you?!
“Angel!” A woman's voice cut through the air, shattering the strings of tension between us. The commanding voice brought the man to a halt. As he turned to look behind him, the most unparalleled sight caught my eye. The deafening silence that seeped in the wind was not because of my nerves shutting down, but it was because an unmistakable presence was beaming behind him. It was as if the world had shut down before her being.
In an extravagant black carriage with gold designs and linings drawn all over, pulled by a murderous dragon, out came an ethereal woman.
Her piercing eyes with a luminous purple, looked right through Angel and struck my heart. A woman of prestige, with a body that spoke power and royalty, pulled on her black dress as she walked down the steps of the carriage laid out by a man in a suit. Her glowing white skin, almost pale, glowed in the radiant sun. Smooth as a pebble laying in a pile of rocks. Black hair to match her long fitted black dress with gold ornaments slithering across her body. A composition of pure art. Her face, unrivaled by anything I had seen on earth.
Finally leaving the small steps of the carriage, she slowly walked over to my direction with her long dress dragging along in the dirt when the suited man jolted to go and hold it up.
“What is it, princess,” Angel replied to her in a slightly irritated tone.
The moment I heard that, I thought, “Fuck.”
She approached the doorway as Angel stepped back to let her stand before me. She was shorter than me, probably by about three feet but commanded respect far taller than I stood. “Tell me, what is your name?” She asked.
A quiver shot through my spine.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. What if they learn of my technology? What should I do? Give her my real name? What?
But it seemed she noticed my hesitation and looked past the question and steadily stepped past me when a beautiful sensation ran up my nostrils. Her smell was sweet.
“This is horrible,” she muttered as the suited man followed behind her. I turned facing the bloodied scene with her while feeling the gaze of Angel burn onto my back.
“This is what the poor of society have to deal with every day,” she murmured to herself when suddenly turning her face back to me. Her expression was unreadable, dead like her piercing eyes. But within those dead eyes, lay pearls of polished purple that locked onto mine. It held me in place, keeping my muscles unable to even twitch. She then spun around as her sharp hair slashed my face and looked up to Angel. “He isn’t responsible for this, leave him be,” she said in her domineering voice. And as I stood there, caught in complete awe and confusion, she turned her back to me while walking off to the carriage. Angel kissed his teeth and clicked his neck as he followed behind.
“Johnathan,” she said, directing it at the suited man that led her up the small stairs, “See to it that the dead bodies are tended to and alert the local authorities to sort everything out.”
“As you wish, Your Highness,” he replied with a small bow. And without time to formulate what to do next, the carriage had continued to move down the street as the man named Angel sat on top.
I held my heart tight.
I survived. I did it. I fucking did-
I felt my hair stand when I remembered the face of an old man I had just shared my whole life in this world with.
What the fuck do I do now?