And another voice followed hers.
‘Michael! You can’t! I can’t lose you!’
And then a man’s voice followed hers.
‘Miriam?! She’s fine! Desperately looking for you, but fine!’
“Miriam?” I whispered out loud, the buildings around me beginning to tremble with some unseen force. A couple of people screamed.
A gentle voice replied to my call.
‘Love, trust yourself.’
Unexpectedly, all I could see was a brilliant white light, thin hands reaching out to grasp the sides of my face, a pair of emerald irises tormented with despair.
‘Amelia?’ I thought in confusion, suddenly recalling I had a sister.
‘I am Amelia, dear brother, but I’m not your Amelia. I’m the Amelia who lost you.’
I gasped as an intense wave of déjà vu hit me while she continued to speak – beginning to remember hearing her voice previously.
Not once. Not twice. But numerous times.
Over and over again, my sister had spoken these words to me. But what could that possibly mean? Was I imagining it? Was she really saying this over and over again? Or had she only said it once, and I kept recalling it this vividly numerous times?
But then, what could that possibly mean?
‘I’m tearing apart time itself, brother. For you. Now live, for me.’
‘Wait!’ I exclaimed in my thoughts.
‘Because I love you, brother. I love you, Michael. So please, take care of your Amelia. Don’t let her feel this pain. Don’t let her experience this agony. Live. And protect her from this.’
“No, no, no, no, no!” I yelled out loud, reaching out desperately to grasp her. “Wait!” I pleaded, grasping her firmly by the shoulders, her body rigid underneath my grip.
I blinked then, only to realize I was holding onto a very startled Jericho, the blue light beginning to disappear while I came back to my senses.
I let go of her just as quickly as I’d grabbed her, only to sink to my knees, grasping my head in my hands. It felt like a dense barrier around my mind had completely vanished, but I kept my perception secluded and focused, trying to comprehend what was happening.
My sister…
She was gone…
…or was she?
Along with her words, and her seeming disappearance, I felt as if I could remember her still being alright – both the present and future versions of my sister. In fact, holding onto that sensation of nostalgia, I tried focusing on this moment in time, only to feel like there were multiple versions of it, each one only being slightly different than the prior one – the only exception being the last couple of times.
After all, I’d certainly never been here before.
Hesitantly, Jericho knelt down in front of me, placing one hand on the top of my black hair, between my horns, and the other on my bare shoulder. She didn’t say anything, but the gesture further helped me collect my thoughts, focusing on what I knew.
As impossible as it seemed, I was in a time loop created accidentally by a future version of my sister, in an effort to save my life. And now, for some reason, I was beginning to remember a small portion of those repeated loops, except it felt more like each rendition had been the past for me, rather than truly being a loop.
In essence, I was fairly certain I wasn’t a newly born demon. While everyone else was on repeat, it felt like I wasn’t. I was living each cycle, only to return to the beginning with the previous loop being my past, and the new loop being my future.
I wasn’t sure how long the cycle was lasting, but even if it was only a couple of days, then I might be as much as a year older, or more, depending on how many times this had happened.
But then, how could I stop it?
Trying to remember what happened the last time, I discovered it difficult to do so, only catching glimpses here and there of random events. However, unexpectedly my heart began racing when I recalled a horrid beast, realizing it was this creature that had shown me how to do what I was currently doing.
However, something was holding me back from looking further, like an ingrained fear making it clear that this monster wasn’t friendly and hadn’t done anything to intentionally benefit me.
I just hoped that the behemoth Dragon wouldn’t show up this time, so long as I avoided whatever caused her appearance previously, because the last cycle had been the only one that I could sense her in.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know for sure what I needed to avoid, considering I couldn’t recall my past moment-by-moment, but I figured the safest bet would be to just avoid all demons – no, all Ryujin, as they were properly called – with the only exception of…
I gasped.
Miriam!
Without another thought, I reached my mind out, quickly sensing a powerful force – even stronger than gravity – tugging on my psyche, demanding my attention. It was like a brilliant light illuminating in my perception, a thousand times brighter than the sun.
‘Michael? Michael?! Michael!’ a familiar voice began exclaiming repeatedly in my head.
‘Miriam,’ I replied in relief, not feeling like I’d been away from her long, though I suddenly felt intense remorse fill my heart.
‘Michael!’ she repeated, crushing desperation in her tone. Her entire mind was swirling with a thousand intricate emotions, ranging from devastating disbelief, to overwhelming joy. ‘Michael! I’m coming! I’m coming! Just wait where you are! I’m coming!’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I replied, trying to remember what I’d done that was so unforgiveable. I felt like I’d hit her, or possibly kicked her, but I couldn’t recall a specific instance of having done so.
‘It’s okay,’ she said urgently, thinking I was apologizing about my initial disappearance. ‘Just wait there! I’m coming for you!’
I shook my head, prompting Jericho to move her hand in confusion as I abruptly rose to my feet.
‘No, I’ll come to you,’ I replied in my thoughts.
‘But–’
‘Just trust me. I’ll be there in less than a minute.’
She wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down, already exiting the Earth’s atmosphere.
‘Love, that’s not possib–’
‘We’ve done this before.’ I explained simply, already deciding it didn’t matter if she listened. She wouldn’t get far either way, before I reached her. However, that did cause her to slow down a little, as she tried to grasp my meaning.
Thus, I focused my gaze on a still confused Jericho, seemingly baffled at my abrupt change in demeanor.
“Thank you for all your help,” I said sincerely. “I think I have more to thank you for than you’ll ever know. And I realize you don’t know me or have any reason to trust me, but I think you should avoid the city for a while. And don’t let anyone know you’ve talked to me. Especially not the person you just mentioned.”
She only stared at me in response, her icy eyes wide.
I stretched out my wings, recalling how to fly, and began hovering above the ground. “I remember now – not everything, but enough to possibly make a difference.”
“Wait!” she exclaimed as I began rising higher, her feet also leaving the ground as she quickly followed after me. “What are you even saying?”
Knowing she could get hurt if she was too close when I warped, I abruptly sped up, the invisible bubble forming before she had a chance to accelerate too.
“Goodbye,” I whispered, vanishing right before her eyes.
Chapter 21: Harsh Reality
“This can’t be real,” Miriam whispered, sitting completely stationary in my lap, her legs wrapped around my waist, along with both her arms and wings holding me tightly. “I hate this,” she added, for what felt like the thousandth time. “I hate this so much.”
Now that I’d showed and explained everything I could remember, we had remained wrapped around each other for almost a full day.
Both of us had moved so infrequently that we were occasionally d
isturbed by the wildlife in the forest surrounding us, with a bird landing on one of her horns at one point, and a rabbit hopping into view another time.
In response to my love’s words, I readjusted my face against her neck, gently giving her a kiss and then sighing heavily.
It did little to soothe her agony though, this knowledge slowly breaking her as she tried and tried to think of some possible way out of this mess.
At first, I had attempted to see more of my past, and had even spent some time trying to come up with possible solutions to the problem. But, ultimately, I was at a loss. So for the last half day, I had just enjoyed having my arms wrapped around Miriam’s torso, occasionally rubbing my hand over her smooth skin below her wings, sporadically pecking her on the neck, all while enjoying the intimacy of holding onto her so tightly, skin to skin, wishing I could just ignore the outside world entirely.
But I knew I was just trying to run away from the situation – to ignore it, in hopes that it would resolve on its own.
And yet, even with that being unlikely, what could I possibly do?
I was pretty confident that I couldn’t manipulate time like the future version of my sister could, and even if it was possible, I wouldn’t have the first idea of what I was doing. For all I knew, I might mess things up even worse.
However, I sincerely didn’t think I was capable of doing it either way – I could only see, having no ability to change things that had already happened. Even with the current time loop, I could change my actions for this one, but the past versions would still be set in stone…
Which was a disturbing thought for a multitude of reasons.
In the end, as I began recalling more and more tiny details of the conversation I experienced with the alien Dragon, there was only one possibility that seemed to present itself – one I hated and knew Miriam would hate even more.
I had to die.
This entire anomaly in time existed because I existed. And, when I thought back to a vision I’d experienced in all of the past loops, I realized that was exactly what the universe was attempting to do – erase me from existence.
Or rather, erase this entire dimension from existence, so that the main timeline could continue on.
And yet, why didn’t it succeed? Why didn’t that vision come true?
How did it keep repeating? How did I keep ending up at the beginning again?
That was the riddle I needed to solve – one that was slowly piecing itself together.
But even if I did solve it, that still didn’t change the impossible decision I had to make. Of course, I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live. I wanted to spend all eternity with Miriam. And yet, by attempting to hold onto this illusionary existence, I was damning all of life in the primary timeline.
Was it really okay for me to screw everyone else over, just so that I could continue to exist in this sort of faux reality?
And while I hated the idea that the Miriam in my arms might stop existing too, I had to remember that she should also exist in the primary timeline…
Not that it really mattered.
I was pretty certain that the future version of my sister had already confirmed that Miriam was dead too, which wasn’t surprising when considering how my love would react to losing me.
So, truly, I was faced with an impossible choice – sacrifice myself and my love, so that the rest of the world could have a future, or else damn them all, so that I alone could have a future.
And truly, I alone, since not even Miriam seemed to have a future. Because for her, this was the first time all this had happened, which was also an unnerving thought, to think that the Miriam I’d left only a day ago wasn’t the same person I was holding now. The Miriam I tried to save, by kicking her away from me, wasn’t the same person I was holding…
So, in reality, my love was only echoing my thoughts.
‘I hate this. I hate this so much.’
Because the truth was disturbing to the core, being another one of the many reasons why I finally just stopped thinking about it and focused on her warmth, wishing I would just wake up from this horrifying nightmare.
But now I was considering my options again, realizing I really only had the one.
I had to die.
And as that truth settled in, I clung even more desperately to Miriam, wishing there was some other way out. But I knew there wasn’t one, because the alternative was to do what I’d been doing all along – try to live, and ultimately end up repeating the cycle all over again.
Which gave me a fake future, and no one else.
Because the Miriam I was holding would be gone forever either way. It would be like her dying, even if the next Miriam was basically the same. So I had to end this.
But to change the outcome, I first had to figure out how it was happening.
Initially, I was confused by the jumbled glimpses of memories from a different time – memories from yet another dimension, where I spoke with the future version of my sister face-to-face. But I felt like those memories were a massive piece to the puzzle, so I tried to make sense of them.
‘Michael, I’ve missed you so much,’ she would always greet me, each time being sincere, each time looking more and more worn in the eyes, as if a significantly longer amount of time had passed for her than me.
As if every day for me was years for her, though she never seemed to age – only her eyes became more somber. More defeated.
Except for this last time.
Or rather, maybe it would be more accurate to say the second to last time, since I vaguely recalled seeing her twice in the previous loop, with the most recent experience being even more somber than usual, entirely due to the fact that I’d somehow arrived way too early not long prior.
‘Michael! What are you doing here?! You shouldn’t be here right now. It’s too early. Too soon. You’ve never come this early before.’
That was the first time. An unexpected one, that broke the mold.
And, for the second normal time, I was beginning to recall that there had been fear in my sister’s glowing emerald gaze, her snow-white hair being the primary source of light as she shined softly like a star. She still greeted me in the usual manner, since I was basically on time after running away from the Dragon, but there was a level of despair she hadn’t shown before.
A level of defeat and devastation she was unable to hide.
Because after all this time, something had finally changed, and that difference might signal that it was all coming to an end. Ultimately, she would have kept me alive for maybe an extra year, while the rest of the universe was placed on pause, only to have that unsustainable glitch resolve itself finally with my death.
In the end, it meant that she had failed, and possibly messed up everything else permanently as well, considering there was no guarantee time would return to normal even with my death.
But I was becoming more and more confident about one thing – trying to live was the reason why we were in this mess.
Yes, trying to live. Or more accurately, running away from death.
My heartbeat began accelerating as I finally started to recall how the loop usually ended.
The void of nothingness was real – ironic, considering it was something far less than the emptiness of space. It was like the opposite of existence, and whenever I had seen it coming, with the stars blinking out of existence, followed quickly by the sun disappearing, I’d always run away.
Terrified to see the universe end in such a manner, horrified to have the equivalent of an immeasurably massive black hole swallowing up everything right before my eyes, I always ran away, with no thought for anyone other than myself.
An act of pure self-preservation.
I warped.
And when I warped, I ended up meeting my sister again. Somehow, I ended up back in the pocket dimension she had created, only to reappear in the midnight dome on Venus, which was somehow connected to the other, sitting in front of a deer carcass as if nothing had happened
.
But everything had happened.
I just never remembered. And when I did remember, it was only what happened before this all started – only what happened when I was still at least partially human.
But now was different.
And now, I finally realized what I needed to do.
It was in fact, nothing.
When I saw the black hole swallowing up the sun and stars – the void actually being far worse than a black hole – I just needed to do nothing. To let myself die. To let myself stop existing, as this separate timeline collapsed and ceased to exist.
And then it would be over.
I wouldn’t know if the situation was resolved, but I was supposed to be dead anyway. So all I could do was hope that things would fix themselves in the end.
Unexpected tears dripping onto the side of my neck prompted me to pull away slightly to meet Miriam’s devastated crimson gaze.
“I don’t want you to die,” she whimpered, her bottom lip trembling, feeling helpless to prevent this fate. “I spent eighteen years waiting to know you, and now I wish I hadn’t. From the moment I met you, I’ve put your life in danger, even killing you once myself with radiation poisoning – had I bitten you even a few seconds later, then you would probably have died permanently.” She sobbed, closing her eyes tightly. “And then, I technically got you killed by Ragnarok, because I was too weak to protect you. In the end, everything would have been better had I just stayed away. You would have lived a normal, full, happy life, if I’d just stayed away.”
“No,” I disagreed gently, leaning away a little to grasp her face in my hands, wiping her tears with my thumbs. “Remember what you said when you finally admitted you loved me, before I knew you could turn me? You said you’d rather spend eighty years with me than eighty-thousand without me. And sure, for you it hasn’t even been eight days, but I’d rather have spent this last week with you than lived eighty years without you.”
“Me too,” she agreed with another whimper, leaning forward to press her lips against mine. ‘Me too, love,’ she echoed a second time in her thoughts, more tears slipping from her crimson eyes. After a moment, when another wave of agony crossed her expression, she pulled my face to her neck again, resting her chin on my temple.
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