He slid a metal ring onto my finger, all while his eyes stay locked onto mine. It should've been beautiful. Sweet. The kind of thing that makes your heart soar and your stomach burst with butterflies. The kind of thing you see in romance movies.
Instead, my stomach twisted. My hands went cold. The metal pressed against my skin like a shackle.
I wanted to smile for him. I wanted to pretend. I wanted to believe this was real. But all I felt like doing was scream. It felt wrong, all the way to my bones.
He didn't do this last time… He has never done this…
I looked at Cole, whose eyes reflected the love he poured into that hastely made ring. Cole, whose gaze was filled with resolve, like he'd seen the end. Cole, who didn't know what was going to happen when he finished today's game… He couldn't. He shouldn't.
His teammates called out for their star player, their eyes full of good spirits. I felt envious and ashamed. He looked up at them, then at me. He kissed me, eyes bright with certainty, and whispered, "I'll give you the real one after I win the game."
It should've been a promise. But all I perceived was a bad omen.
My knees gave in and the lump I had suppressed in my throat burst out with a shriek and bile. Cole, what are you doing? Why did you say that? How many times will I watch this game? How many more times will I be subjected to your death?! What cruel being put me in this nightmare???!!!!! Why did you do something you haven't done in my other lives…
I. Am. Cole's. Wife.
Or, safe to suffuse, soon-to-be…
But, not to this Cole.
This was my life before that nightmare started.
At first, I thought it was a dream—watching his college senior year play out. It became too vivid, too long. I thought I'd wake up. That I was just having a lucid dream from pre-wedding jitters. But too many side stories kept popping up… things I never knew. Dangerous, life-threatening things. And the nightmare always ended with my husband dying on the field, shortly after he won the basketball finals. I had to watch that happen many, many times…
Each time he died, I woke up a little earlier than before. At first, the differences in revivals weren't that long—two, three months apart . I had to go through a few more days in college each time he passed away.
Until I hit a year and a half. I couldn't leave, and I couldn't change Cole's fate no matter what I tried.
I tried dropping out of school with him. I thought that changing his senior year would free me from these horrifying lives. We skipped towns, slept in motels, and drove long hours. It was peaceful, we spent our time like a married couple. Days went by happily, until the day he was supposed to graduate. We were taking pictures at a cliff when tires screeched—skidding toward him. He plummeted down along with the truck that came out of nowhere.
I tried keeping stories away from him. I became a hidden shield protecting that man from harm time and time again. "This time, surely he'll graduate in peace," I often told myself as I got beaten up by bullies. A few weeks before senior year was finally over, he became a victim of a school shooting.
I tried killing myself. I grew tired of bearing witness to that man meeting countless ends. I went mad with frustration and wanted to escape, even if it was alone. The gods wouldn't allow it. No matter what manner of death I faced, I always came back to the same day I revived last. Only his death pushed me back further into the past.
Why? Why? Why? WHY? WHY? WHY ME? Why am I watching all this happen? Why can't I die? Why do I have to watch his mutilation over and over until all I see when I close my eyes is his blood?! WHY?! Why can't he survive past graduation?
The Cole I knew was thirty-seven years old and a working man. The Cole I knew was tall, a little stupid, but kind and funny. The Cole I knew was alive and married to me. The man I loved…
But here? Cole was just a boy who always succumbed to death's call.
I lost count. My mind is numb. I can't see the end of this. I'm mentally and emotionally withdrawn.
I decided to push through this life like a walking corpse. No changes. No effort. I skipped school to watch the creek flow in the forest. I flunked tests like I had no future. I don't, actually—everything will reset nine years from now anyway. My parents gave up on me in highschool. I wasn't good enough to get into college this time. Funny… the old me had a doctorate, but I couldn't care less.
I became a school janitor with huge eye bags and a disdain for everything happy. The students were roughly my age and they laughed their lives away, painfully oblivious of the endless circle of lives they've been living. So was Cole. I was close enough to see his life unfold, but not close enough to change anything.
He fell in love… or so the gossip says.
"He's been checking out the women's section a lot at the mall."
"I hear he goes to the forest with a fruit basket every Saturday."
"Didn't you say you saw him checking out rings at the jeweler's last week?"
Cole…
No. No. No. We promised not to care, didn't we?
But he's… my husband.
Do you think that boy is the same as our Cole?
But… where is "our" Cole, if not there?
Don't blind yourself. This is not your home. This isn't your world. We just need to get home, so let nature run its course.
I CAN'T!!! I'm so tired… I just want to rest. Please. I thought changing his fate would make me wake up, but it only stretched this nightmare longer. Why am I here? What am I supposed to do?
Ah…
It's almost graduation again. Well, I'm not graduating—might as well keep scrubbing. Maybe if I scrub long enough, maybe I'll get to next year. Heh… hehehe… hehehehehehe—
"Uhm, Annabel?"
I froze. I didn't recall ever giving the students my name.
"Hey, it's you, right? You live down Applemay Street. I've known you since we were kids."
Why does this voice make my soul ache so much?
"Did you get the fruits I left at the creek? You used to go there without your bag, so I figured you'd get hungry."
Wait. Those weren't from the squirrels? Little bastards, I raised you!!!
"Hey… talk to me. It's Cole."
Ah, yeah. Only Cole could talk to me while I look like this… Wait. C-Cole?!!!! I finally turned to the direction of the nosy student.
He stood there smiling all goofy with a bouquet of lilies and a small decorated box. I loved lillies.
What? What? What??!
I stayed away from him all this time, and now he suddenly comes to me?
Fuck you, whoever put me here. FUCK YOU!!!
It pained me as he spoke his will and left for the game. Is this okay? Should I still have hope after all this time?
Don't be fooled. He will die.
Die… die…
di.e… dīE!!!
I see. I have additional friends in my subconscious again. Sigh, they are probably right.
I watched the first half of the game, then went to the workers' changing room. I needed a nap if I was going to wake up riding the bus to middle school again.
I had finally drifted off when someone rudely barged into the room. Cole? No… can't be. He should be dying.
"ANNABEL! GET UP!"
The voice ripped through the haze of sleep like a knife through canvas. My body felt too heavy to move. Too tired. I just needed to rest, to let the reset take me—wasn't that the deal? Wasn't that always the deal?
Then it came again. Louder. Fractured. Like it was tearing itself apart just to reach me.
"ANNA! AnNa! DON'T—GO!!!"
My ears rang. The room tilted sideways. For a heartbeat, it wasn't just Cole's voice—it was every Cole, from every death, echoing through me at once. His words didn't sound like sound at all, more like the world itself shoving me awake, shattering something I wasn't supposed to touch.
I gasped. My throat burned like I'd been screaming, though I hadn't. My heart slammed against my ribs, begging me to listen. To believe. To—stop.
The darkness engulfed my mind in an eriee silence.
I opened my eyes. I was in my bed. Did I go back ten years ago this time? I don't know what day it is or why Cole was telling me not to go, but I sure am—
Wait, Cole? He told me not to go? What did he mean? Could he have known? What day is it?
…
It's… the same day I woke up last time. That means…
I died? I actually died this time? I was just asleep in the changing room. Sure, it's smelly, but that can't be something that kills me, right?… How did he know where I was? Am I hallucinating? Did that Cole know I was skipping time? Did he live past the game? Why am I still here, then?
You can't leave, Anna.
The voice in my head doesn't sound like mine.
YōU çAñ't.
Who are you? What is going on? What is this loop doing to me? Why did Cole sound like he knew something?
My sisters burst into my room, laughing, calling my name, pulling at the curtains—just like last time. Exactly like last time.
The sunlight spilled across my face, and I knew. I knew.
The loop hadn't broken. Cole was gone. I was still here. Nothing had changed. Nothing would ever change.
Something inside me split. My chest heaved. My throat tore itself raw.
I still can't piece it all together. My memory is shredded, scattered like broken glass, and every time I try to pick it up it cuts me deeper. Annabel—that's me, right? That's still me. I repeat it over and over. I am Annabel. I am Annabel. I am Annabel. But the more I say it, the less it feels true.
Cole used to laugh when I said his name too many times. He said I made it sound like a hymn. Cole, Cole, Cole. I thought if I said it enough, I could make him stay. But he didn't. He slipped away, like they always do. Like the loop demands.
The loop—that's what I call it. The endless circling of days that bleed into nights, of love that curdles into loss. I've been here before. I've screamed here before. I've clawed my way through these walls, left marks in the plaster just to prove I was real, only to wake and find them gone. The house resets. My body resets. Only the ache stays.
And Cole. Always Cole. His smile flickers in my mind like a faulty bulb. Sometimes I see his face so clearly I almost believe he's in the next room. Sometimes it's nothing but a blur. But I know he was real. He had to be real. Because if he wasn't—what was I even screaming for? What is all of this for?
I begged the loop to give him back. I traded sleep for memories, blood for hope, sanity for silence. But the loop doesn't bargain. It only takes.
I screamed until my throat split open. Until my voice was sand. Until the walls shook with the sound of me breaking.
I screamed until I forgot what silence felt like. Until I forgot who I was.
And when I stopped—when the air burned and I had no sound left—
No one could hear me.
I realized I couldn't even remember his laugh anymore.
The loop had taken that too.