Time Looped

A massive fist flew right at Will’s face instead of a greeting.

That wasn’t good, but what was even sadder, the boy was expecting such a reaction. His rogue’s reflexes helped him pull back a safe distance away, avoiding the unscrupulous punch attempt.

“You!” Jace yelled, continuing into the room. “You did something, didn’t you?”

Without a doubt, Will’s worst fears had materialized. Jace had joined eternity, but had also kept his grudges. Was it possible that he had remembered some of the incidents that took place in the preceding loops? Neither Alex nor Helen had mentioned such a possibility. Then again, they hadn’t treated Jace as a loop candidate.

Face red with rage, the jock charged forward as if to tackle Will. No sooner had he done so, than he suddenly froze as if he’d stepped on flypaper. Instinctively, Jace looked down, only to see his foot on a large mirror tile.

“Big oof, bro,” Alex laughed, amused by the whole situation. “You dun goofed.”

“Shut it, muffins!” Jace hissed.

Just shut it? Will thought. How come he was being attacked and the goofball responsible for the entire mess last loop only got a “shut it?”

“What did you do, Stoner?” the jock turned back to him. “Is this getting back to me for not getting you on the team?”

“It was just a… what?” Will blinked.

That was a leap in logic if he had ever heard one. Frankly, he didn’t remember ever wanting to be on the football team. It seemed too much of a bother and definitely wasn’t his thing. Looking back, it made sense that he’d be a good candidate: he was physically fit and strong enough to make it on the team. With a bit of luck, he could even go for the quarterback position. Was that the reason that Jace had become so distant even without Alex’s provocations?

“Don’t say you didn’t! Every time I look at you, I can see you thinking of charging at me.”

“Hold on! You actually imagined me fighting you?”

The glare the jock gave Will said it all.

“Holy shit,” Will uttered. He wasn’t alone. So, it was true—loop candidates did have a sort of déjà vu from old loops. Maybe the same thing could be said about Daniel? Will felt some unease around him, although he could never put his finger on it. Was he remembering things that had happened in the past? Possibly not. After all, he had only become a candidate a week ago at Daniel’s death. “He remembers?” He looked at Helen and Alex.

CRAFTER’s ANALYSIS

Trap identified

Before everyone’s eyes Jace reached for the mirror tile and, very much to Will’s astonishment, broke it up as if he were disassembling a Rubik’s cube. As much as that was impressive, however, it also helped him continue with his attack.

Jace’s fist passed inches from Will’s face. Once again it was his reactions that saved him from a painful experience.

“Stop!” Helen said, lifting up the nearest desk.

Seeing her holding it above her head caused the jock to pause. He knew what he was looking at, yet his mind had trouble accepting it. Suddenly, there was a greater concern than beating up Will.

“Helen?” a shocked female voice came from the door.

One of the early students had managed to find their way to the classroom and had witnessed something that wasn’t possible. To make it worse, it was one of Miss Perfect’s close friends. It wasn’t rare for the two of them to be seen together, just as there was no explaining this away… not in this loop, at least.

Instantly, Alex appeared at the door, slamming it shut.

“I got it,” he said, placing a mirror piece on the door handle.

TRAP SET

The mirror expanded, growing three times in size as it covered the entire area beneath the lock. Then, moments later, it disappeared, fading out of view.

“What’s going on?” Jace asked, his aggression replaced by confusion.

“My bad,” the goofball said. “Forgot about that.”

“Stoner!” Jace snapped. “What. Is. Going. On.”

“Better take a seat, man.” Will sighed. “This might take a while.”

The explanations were a lot faster than what Will had gone through. There were several reasons for that. For one, he didn’t want to lose time. The sooner the jock figured everything out, the sooner he’d stop asking questions and they could focus on their original problem: figuring out what eternity really was and, hopefully, a way to get out of it.

Despite his initial confusion, Jace picked up things rather fast. It was all but established that he had some sort of memories of past loops, although they felt more like notions or distant deja vus. After the initial shock of the overall concept, he had quickly accepted the function of the mirrors and everything related to them.

The revelation that Daniel had been another looped quickly boosted the boy’s ego, accepting it as the only explanation that someone as “puny” would be able to beat him up so often. Both Helen and Will remained quiet, unwilling to get into how many times Jace had been beaten up so far.

“So Danny knew it all,” Jace said, examining the desk. “Always wondered how he got away with all the scribbling, even after I caught him doing it.”

“You caught him?” Helen asked.

“I caught you too.” He crossed his arms with a confident mirk. “Didn’t think you two would be the only ones at school after dark, right?”

Maybe it was Will’s imagination, but for a moment he almost thought he saw a faint shade of pink appear on the girl’s face.

“My bad,” Alex said. “Forgot that one.”

Everyone stared at the goofball.

“What? I’m the school lookout.”

“You mean Danny’s,” Jace corrected.

“Nah, bro. The school’s. Danny did his own thing most of the time. I made sure that the others didn’t invade our area.”

“That didn’t seem to work with the archer,” Will whispered.

“Harsh, bro. Danny messed that up by leaving our area. Most of the others stopped when they got caught in my traps.” He paused for a moment. “Well, some of them.”

The slamming on the door increased. Helen’s friend had quickly told her version of events to a few people in the school hallway, which inevitably had led to the coach making his way there to find out what was going on. In hindsight, Will felt relieved that it wasn’t the coach who was the other looper. That would have required a lot more explanation, and a few dozen loops of shouting.

“We’ve got half a minute left,” Helen noted. “Let’s get this done with before the loop ends.”

“So, the start is just ten minutes?” Jace asked.

“Yeah.” Will nodded. “By the way, how did you get here so fast? And with the crafter at that?”

“That’s your big question?” The jock looked at him, as if he dropped his phone in his school lunch. “I started at the nurse’s office. I mean, I stayed there. One minute I was helping coach, then I was alone, getting bandaged.”

“You started there?” Will blinked. “Is that supposed to happen?” he turned to Alex.

“Don’t look at me, bro. Eternity changes a bit each time someone joins. We’re still near our mirrors.”

“How come I’m not?” It would have been a lot easier if he started in the bathroom to begin with.

“Bad luck, bro.” Alex grinned.

“Probably because you’re a replacement,” Helen said. “Or maybe it’s just luck.”

With three of the four looped starting their loops at right next to a class mirror, it didn’t sound like it.

“Let’s just get it done.” The girl took out the mirror piece.

“What’s that?” Jace asked.

“Answers,” she replied, holding one corner of it. “When we found you, we received a gift. To unlock it, though, all four of us must touch the mirror.”

Will and Alex stepped closer, holding their respective corners. Jace, however, didn’t.

“Jace?” Will asked.

“So you’re saying you need me to get this thing to work?”

“We need all of us,” Will corrected, even as he knew where the jock was going. That was one of the reasons why he didn’t want him to end up being a looped. Ever since he’d known him, Jace wasn’t someone to do what he was told, especially when he could obtain a favor for it.

“Do it without me, then? You can’t, can you?”

“Loop’s ending, bro,” Alex said.

“Good. Gives you something to think about.”

“That’s not how it works, bro.”

Restarting eternity.

Will was back in front of the school, only this time he was furious—furious with Jace, furious with himself, furious at everyone else. With a grumble, he ignored Jess’ usual comment and walked into the building. Without hurrying he went into the bathroom, then tapped all the mirrors in order, just for the sake of it. Messages appeared one after the other, disappearing the moment he looked away.

Waiting several seconds longer, he slowly made his way to class. By the time he got there, all the windows were open. Infuriatingly, Jace was present.

“Hey, Stoner,” he said with a confident smile, suggesting that he’d already had a discussion with the other two and come to an agreement. Whatever the agreement was, though, it was a safe bet to say that Will wasn’t going to like it. “Heard you’ve been having fun so far.”

“You’re looped now. Is it fun?”

“Once you get used to it. Ten minutes of the ability to do anything you want without consequences. Want to know the first thing I did today?”

This loop, Will corrected him mentally.

“I told coach what a shithead I think he is,” the jock laughed. “The man couldn’t believe it. He was so shocked that he didn’t even say anything as I walked away. Best thing, tomorrow he won’t even remember.”

Next loop, Will thought again.

“Without me, you can’t finish what you started, right?”

“What do you want?”

“You catch on fast.”

“It’s not difficult, idiot.”

“Will,” Helen said. “We need his help.”

“It’s fine.” Jace’s smile widened. “I want you to do something,” he said. “Publicly and willingly.”

“And if I don’t, you won’t help. Nice try. If I do it, you’ll just ask for something else, then again and again.”

“Nope, I’ll just ask for one thing. Do that and I’ll join your little gang. And by join, I mean I’ll help out as if it was my idea to start with.”

An interesting offer. Will would have preferred if he had some guarantees, but if there was such a thing as a detect-lies skill, it wasn’t among any of the group had so far. It was incredibly tempting to refuse the deal. At the end of the day, the group needed Will just as much as they needed Jace. There was no way he could be forced into doing anything he didn’t want to do.

“What if I don’t want to?” the boy asked.

“Then we spend eternity doing nothing,” Jace countered, the smile vanishing from his face.

“Might not be so bad. I’ll find a way around it. Would be nice knowing you’ll never get what you wanted.”

“Aren’t you going to do something?” Helen whispered to Alex, who was leaning against a desk, eating a bag of muffins.

“Why?” he asked, mouth full. “Ith fun. Want one?” He offered.

The girl promptly declined. Meanwhile, the pissing match between Will and Jace continued. For several minutes, both of them went into arguments, aiming to prove that the other one would have a more miserable life within eternity. It didn’t bother them even when their classmates started arriving. Knowing full well that no one non-looped would have any memory of this, they kept on arguing on and on until the loop was over.

The same continued the next loop, and the one after that. It was almost as if the pair had found a passion for arguing, coming up with new arguments each time as if that would solve anything. In some cases, blows were exchanged, though nothing terribly destructive.

Finally, on the fourth loop, Will decided to ask.

“What do you want so much, anyway?”

“Win a game against me,” Jace replied.

“Huh?”

“Football. Me versus you. You have the ball, I try to stop you. Just go past me and you win.”

“That’s it?” Will felt stupid not asking the first loop. “What’s the catch?”

“You’re the catch.”

“You think I can’t do it?”

“Know you can’t.”

Granted, it had been a while since Will had actively played, but that sounded way too easy. Surely there was something he wasn’t telling him.

“We play in the yard for everyone to see,” the jock said. “I’ll get the gear.”

“Just you. You won’t be getting any help?”

“Nope. Just me. Also, just you.”

“Who do you think I’ll take to help me? Helen?” Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea. Thanks to her knight class, the girl could run over Jace like a steam train.

“No class. By you I mean you. You win this on your own and we’re good to go. You can go as many times as you want. I don’t care.”

“Deal!” Will said.

He was beyond dusty, but that didn’t bother him. After all, they literally had all the time in the world. There would be some pain involved, due to the effects of eternity and all, but he had started getting used to that. Besides, one didn’t need the rogue class to perform the tricks he’d learned.