The alarm doesn't surprise me anymore.
It's almost worse that way.
I wake up halfway through the first BEEP, hand already reaching for the phone on reflex. By the time I shut it off, the sound blends too neatly with another I can't un-hear:
Ba-dump.
That slow, heavy heartbeat that isn't mine, echoing in the space between yesterday's death and this morning's fake peace.
I stare at the clock.
7:00 a.m.
TUE 17
Like it always is.
My notebook lies open on the desk where I left it.
For a second, I just look at it.
Then I get up, cross the room, and pick it up with fingers that don't feel like they belong to someone who should still be able to move.
The last lines I wrote glare back at me.
PULLING THE ALARM GETS MOST PEOPLE OUTSIDE BEFORE THE BLAST. (FEWER DIE.)THE DISASTER ADJUSTS TO HIT SOMETHING NEAR ME NO MATTER WHAT.
Ink slightly smeared from where my hand shook.
I flip to a fresh page.
At the top, in block letters, I write:
LOOP 5
And underneath:
FIRE ALARM → MORE SURVIVORSSTILL GETS HURT / DIES (DEBRIS)MEMORY TAX CONTINUES
I pause, pen hovering.
"What did it take this time?" I whisper.
The question hangs in the room like smoke.
I close my eyes and start probing the holes.
Favorite snack? Still gone. Kids from the old park? Still faceless. That summer fireworks night with Mom? Just an empty outline now.
Something else. Something new.
I dig deeper. Elementary-school homeroom. Middle-school graduation. First day at Hoshimi High. Clubs I… never bothered to join.
Faces blur on the edges. Conversations lose their sound. But that's been happening.
Then I reach for a specific memory: last New Year.
Crowded shrine, cold air, Mom tugging me along by the sleeve, mumbling about good luck for exams. I remember complaining about the crowds. The smell of incense. The little paper fortune I drew.
I can't read it.
Not because it's in old kanji or anything. The paper in my memory is just… blank.
My stomach drops.
"Great," I mutter. "Now I don't even know if this year was supposed to be lucky."
I flip the notebook back to the rules page and add:
The erased memory doesn't come back, even if I see proof it existed.
Because that's the worst part. I know the shrine visit happened. There are probably pictures on my phone. But the living feeling of it is gone. I can't connect to it. It's like watching someone else's life.
From the kitchen, right on cue:
"Satoru! You're going to be late again! Get up already!"
Her voice still lands in the same place in my chest. But that place is getting smaller.
I close the notebook. Hard.
"New objective," I tell the empty room. "Find the root, not just lower the body count."
Pulling alarms, moving people outside—they buy time, they change the shape, but they don't solve the core.
Someone—or something—is making sure 3:17 p.m. on Tuesday equals fire and blood.
If I want this to end without my brain turning into Swiss cheese, I have to find out why.
Mom's morning script plays out like it always does: the threat of water, the rice and miso, the variety show jingle. I move through it with a horrible double-vision—part of me here, now, another part standing in a ruined courtyard watching concrete fall.
"I thought you were sick yesterday," she says as she puts down my bowl. "Feel better?"
"Yeah." I poke at the rice. "It passed."
Her eyes search my face. "You sure? You look tired."
"I'm not getting enough sleep," I say. It's technically true. Dying doesn't count as resting.
"You're always on that phone," she scolds lightly. "You'll rot your brain."
"Too late," I murmur.
She doesn't catch it.
I study her across the table. The way her hair keeps escaping the tie. The tiny wrinkle forming at the corner of her mouth. The way she winces just a bit when she gets up too fast—back pain she won't go to a doctor for.
I wonder how many more loops before I forget tiny things like that. How many deaths before one morning I wake up and she's just "Mom" as a label, not a person.
"Hey," I say.
She looks up. "Hm?"
"If I… if something… happens today, and I don't come home on time…" I force my voice to stay casual. "Don't assume I'm just playing games at Yuta's, okay? Maybe… call the school sooner than usual."
She frowns. "What are you talking about?"
"Nothing." The shadow in my chest shifts, warning. I smile, or try to. "Just saying. Better safe than sorry."
She studies me another beat.
"Don't creep me out first thing in the morning," she mutters, standing to grab her bag. "Lock up when you leave. And don't be late. Universities don't take kids who sleep through class."
"Got it."
At the door, she hesitates.
For a second I think she's going to turn and say something serious. Instead she just huffs, "And clean your room once in a while."
The door closes behind her.
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.
"Okay," I tell the apartment. "Let's go bother some science teachers."
I get to school earlier this time.
I leave as soon as Mom does, walking fast enough that the usual sights blur together: the alley cat, the vending machine, the old man sweeping. I don't linger. I don't test them.
By the time I reach Hoshimi High, the gate is only just opening. A couple of early keeners are already heading in; the main crowd hasn't arrived.
Good.
Less noise makes it easier to sneak.
I slip off my outdoor shoes, shove my indoor ones on, and head straight for the science wing.
The third-floor hallway feels different in the morning quiet. No chatter, no slamming doors. Just fluorescent hum and the distant echo of a teacher's cough from the staff room.
The storage room door sits where it always does, small plaque reading "Science Prep / Storage – Authorized Personnel Only."
Last loop, by the time I opened it, the smell of gas was thick.
Now, when I lean in, I catch only a faint metallic tang. Like a threat warming up its throat.
I check both directions. No one.
I jiggle the handle.
Locked.
Of course.
I crouch, peering at the gap between door and floor. No visible smoke. Good? Bad? Hard to say.
"I'm not going to get anything from staring at wood," I mutter.
Next target: the actual science labs.
I pad down the hall to the big glass-windowed doors. Through them I can see rows of lab benches, neatly arranged equipment, whiteboards with formulas scrawled across them.
One of the inner doors is slightly ajar.
I slip inside.
The lab smells like ethanol and detergent. Sunlight spills over beakers and metal sinks. Cabinets line the back wall, full of chemicals with warning labels: flammable, corrosive, do not ingest unless you have a death wish.
I move quietly between the benches, trying not to imagine all of this shattering outward when the blast hits.
In one corner, a fume hood hums softly. Under it, a gas tap snakes from the wall. More pipes run along the ceiling.
This is where the explosion ripped outward last time—blowing off the whole front of the room like a lid.
If I squint, I can almost see the ghost of the damage overlaying the intact room. Charred beams where there's clean paint now. Blackened ceiling. Shattered glass.
"Hoshimi High doesn't have full building plans, but if I were gas, I'd hang out… there," I murmur, following the pipes with my eyes.
They disappear into the wall that backs onto the storage room.
So the storage leak isn't a random corner; it's basically the heart of the system.
If someone… encouraged that leak from inside—
"What are you doing in here?"
I jolt.
A voice behind me. Calm, tired, mildly annoyed.
I turn.
Mr. Kuroda, the chemistry teacher, stands in the doorway, lab coat already on, coffee in one hand, attendance clipboard in the other. His hair's a mess, dark circles under his eyes almost as bad as mine.
"Uh—" I scramble for an excuse. "Homeroom told me to… help clean up in here?"
Really, Satoru? That's the best you've got?
He raises one eyebrow.
"At seven-thirty in the morning," he says flatly. "Before homeroom even starts."
"Early… initiative?"
His look could strip paint.
"You're Ishikawa from 2‑B, right? The one who always sits by the window and looks half-asleep."
Ouch.
"Yeah," I admit.
"Students aren't supposed to be in the labs unsupervised," he says. "If you want to die, at least wait until we've covered proper safety protocols."
"Trust me," I mutter, "I've had enough dying to last a lifetime."
"What?"
"Nothing."
I lick my lips.
This is a science teacher. He deals with gas lines every day. If anyone would notice something off…
"Sensei," I say, forcing my voice not to shake, "have you… smelled anything weird in the storage room lately? Like… gas?"
His eyes narrow slightly.
"Why?" he asks.
"I just… thought I did," I say. "A while back. Near there. I told Takeda-sensei once."
He studies me for a long moment, then sighs.
"You kids and your horror stories," he says. But he sets his coffee down and crosses to the back wall, near the prep-room door. He leans in, sniffing the cracks.
His expression changes.
Very little. Just a tiny tightening at the corners of his eyes.
But I catch it.
He pulls a keyring from his pocket.
"Step back," he says.
He unlocks the prep-room door and cracks it open just a little, like Takeda did before. A whisper of air slides out.
Even from three steps away, I catch the faint, chemical breath of gas.
Not as strong as it gets later. But definitely there.
Kuroda mutters something under his breath that the school would probably fine him for.
He closes the door again, locks it, then marches back across the lab.
"You didn't smell this 'a while back,' did you?" he says.
"…Recently," I admit.
"And you came alone, instead of telling the nearest teacher," he says.
"I tried that before," I blurt. "They said not to panic people."
His eyes flicker.
"Takeda," he says, half to himself. "Of course."
He blows out a breath.
"I'll report it properly," he says. "They're overdue for a full inspection anyway. In the meantime, you—" he jabs a finger at me "—forget you smelled anything heroic and stay out of this room unless I'm here. Got it?"
My mouth works.
"Is… is it dangerous?" I ask.
"All gas is dangerous," he snaps. "That's why we're careful. Go to homeroom. If someone asks, you got lost looking for the bathroom."
He scoops up his coffee and clipboard, clearly done with the conversation.
The shadow under my ribs stirs.
Dangerous. Careful.
If they were so careful, we wouldn't be having this repeating little apocalypse.
"Sensei," I say, against my better judgment, "has there… been anything weird with the gas lines lately? Like… repairs? Or someone else going in there?"
His gaze sharpens.
"Why would you ask that?"
"I just—"
The invisible fingers tighten around my heart, sudden and vicious.
I choke, stumbling against a lab bench.
Kuroda straightens. "Hey. You okay?"
The pressure claws deeper, a clear warning: don't push your luck.
Not that again.
My hands shake. My vision tunnels for a second.
"I—I'm fine," I manage, forcing air out between my teeth. "Just… got up too fast. Sorry."
The pain eases, slow and sulky.
Kuroda watches me like he's trying to decide whether I'm about to vomit on his floor.
"You look like death warmed over," he says at last. "Go to the nurse if you feel faint. And don't touch anything in here on your way out."
"Yes, sensei."
I leave the lab feeling like I just tried to interrogate a landmine.
Homeroom blurs.
Mr. Takeda does his usual announcements. The pigeon hits the window. Yuta pokes my back with his eraser. I respond on autopilot.
My brain is somewhere else.
Kuroda smelled the gas. He's going to report it "properly." Fire department came faster last time because someone pulled the alarm. With enough pressure from a teacher, maybe they'll actually shut the whole line down before—
Before what?
Before Tuesday decides to invent some entirely new way to kill us.
I add another note in the margin of my notebook:
Science teacher noticed leak."Overdue for inspection" → this has been a problem for a while.
A systemic problem. Maintenance. Neglect.
The unfair part is how ordinary that sounds. Not some villain cackling in a cloak. Just an old building and people too busy or tired to fix it right.
Except…
A little itch at the back of my mind refuses to go away.
When I was in the store district—Loop 3—the explosion felt different. Sharper. Like a single point going off, not a whole system.
A gas stove left on. A lighter. A match.
The school blasts… don't feel random like that. They sync too neatly with the time, the loops, the heartbeat.
Maintenance mistakes start fires.
But they don't stalk one kid across realities.
I press my pen to the paper hard enough to rip it.
There is something using the school's problems as a stage.
The invisible hand doesn't squeeze at that thought. If anything, it feels… interested.
Great.
Lunchtime comes again.
I apologize to Miyu again, even though I already did one loop. It still matters. The bullies back off a little faster this time, shooting me wary looks. They're not used to anyone talking back.
Small adjustments.
I don't mention anything supernatural. I don't say "I've watched you die four times." My chest tightens just imagining it.
Instead, I say, "If anything weird happens, stick near me, okay?"
She tilts her head, puzzled.
"Weird?"
"Like… alarms. Rumors. People shouting." I force a grin. "I have good instincts for running away."
It's a joke.
She doesn't laugh.
But she does nod, very slightly.
"All right," she whispers.
Yuta slides into his seat with his tray, eyeing us.
"You scheming something?" he asks.
"Just planning my heroic escape route," I say.
He snorts. "You? Heroic? Please."
If only he knew.
The afternoon crawls.
I keep glancing at the fire alarm by the classroom door. I know exactly how it feels under my hand now. How the siren winds up like someone screaming into a microphone.
Do I pull it again?
I could.
Even with Kuroda reporting the leak, a lone teacher's complaint to the office can get buried under paperwork and budgets. A blaring alarm backed by "I smelled gas" is harder to ignore.
But the last time I pulled it, the explosion still happened. Just… with a different angle and different casualties.
I tap my pencil against the desk.
Maybe I'm thinking about this wrong.
So far, my pattern has been: survive first, understand later.
Maybe I need one loop where I throw the "survive" part away on purpose. Where I go straight toward the heart of it and see what's really there, no matter what it does to me.
The idea makes my skin crawl.
But the alternative is dying by inches, one memory at a time, playing defense against something that's laughing at me between beats.
I draw a small diagram in my notebook: classroom, hallway, storage room, lab. I mark where the explosions started in each school-based loop.
The lines converge at that back wall.
At the prep room.
At the pipes.
If it wants me near, maybe I should go knock.
The thought terrifies me.
It also feels, horribly, like progress.
The clock on the wall reads 2:20.
"Bathroom," I say when the teacher turns to the board.
He waves me out without looking.
I step into the hallway.
The fire alarm glows red in its little box.
"Not yet," I tell it.
I walk past, toward the science wing.
The corridor grows quieter with each step. Voices from classrooms fade. The hum of the lights is louder here.
The prep-room door waits at the end.
"Authorized Personnel Only," the sign says again.
I glance around.
No one.
My hand moves to the knob.
Last time, it was locked.
This time, my fingers brush metal that gives just a little too easily.
Unlocked.
Every hair on my arms stands up.
Someone's been here.
Recently.
I swallow and wrap my hand around the handle.
"If this kills me," I mutter, "please at least make it informative."
I turn it and push the door open.