Jeremiah woke to the pale light of morning filtering through the cracked window of his small room in the settlement. The ache in his chest was familiar now, a dull reminder of the weight he carried.....memories that slipped away like smoke, questions that circled in his mind but never landed. He dressed in silence, pulling on the rough work clothes the settlement provided, and made his way to the day's labor.
The routine was unchanging. He joined the other men at the mine's entrance, each of them moving with the same mechanical fatigue. They hauled crates, repaired tools, and cleared rubble from the old coal shafts. The work was hard, but it kept the mind busy....kept the questions at bay.
In the evenings, Jeremiah drifted to the bar, where the air was thick with smoke and the low hum of conversation. He watched the faces around him, searching for something familiar, something real. Lately, a new man had appeared in the settlement.....a stranger who claimed he'd been hired to work at the old mine. The others eyed him with suspicion, but there was little talk until the Owner returned, and the Owner was always away.
Every night, Jeremiah found himself drawn to Lila's brothel. It was the one place in the settlement that felt almost safe. Lila would greet him with a tired smile, pour him a drink, and ask about his day. He never had much to say. The words felt heavy, as if they belonged to someone else.
Days blurred into weeks. The new stranger kept to himself, and the Owner never arrived. Jeremiah's dreams grew more restless, filled with flashes of another life...a chase, a gunfight, the name Dirty Joy whispered in the dark. He would wake with his heart pounding, sweat soaking his sheets, but the memories always faded by morning.
One evening, as the sun dipped below the canyon rim, Jeremiah sat alone at the bar, nursing a glass of whiskey. The stranger entered, glancing around before settling into the seat beside him. For a moment, neither spoke. Then the stranger leaned in, his voice low.
"You don't belong here," he said. "You came for something. Someone. They made you forget."
The words struck Jeremiah like a bolt of lightning. Suddenly, memories surged....faces, names, the chase through the canyon, the sting of betrayal, the agony of loss. He staggered to his feet, clutching the edge of the bar.
"I have to find Lila," he gasped, stumbling toward the door.
The world spun around him. His chest tightened, pain radiating down his left arm. Each step was a struggle, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He pushed through the crowded street, desperate to reach the brothel.
He never made it.
Jeremiah collapsed just outside Lila's door, his vision narrowing to a pinprick of light. The last thing he saw was the concern on Lila's face as she rushed to his side, shouting for help.
******
Jake, Lila, and Samuel watched helplessly as guards wheeled a motionless figure on a cot down the fluorescent-lit corridor. Samuel's breath caught. "That's Jeremiah," he whispered, recognizing the familiar lines of his friend's face, even beneath the pallor and the tangle of wires and tubes.
They pressed against the glass of their cells, calling out, but the guards ignored them. Lila's heart pounded as she strained to hear the conversation between the scientist in a white lab coat and the lead guard walking beside the stretcher.
"…he over exhausted himself…," the scientist said, voice clinical and detached. "…the stress of memory retrieval, the time warping effects… his system couldn't compensate… he's gone into a coma… let's put him on life support and monitor for any neural activity…"
Jake slammed his fist against the glass. "Jeremiah! What did you do to him?" he shouted, but the only answer was the echo of his own voice in the sterile corridor.
Lila called out, her voice cracking with desperation. "Please! Let us see him! Let us help!" But no one came, and the guards and scientist disappeared around the corner, leaving only the fading beep of the machines and the cold, unyielding silence of the underground facility.
The three of them stood there, separated by glass and steel, united in fear and helplessness as the chapter closed on Jeremiah's fate...his body trapped in a coma, his mind lost somewhere between the loop and oblivion