JOLT.
Ethan's eyes flew open, Loop Six. Failed. Working late, miles apart, submerged in routine… utterly irrelevant. The fire, starting with impossible speed and precision just before the deadline… it wasn't random. It was orchestrated. Tailored. Inescapable.
He sat up in bed, the familiar weight of the duvet feeling leaden. Sunlight streamed through the window. The distant city hummed. And from the kitchen, the sounds and smells of another ordinary morning beginning: Clara, alive again, making coffee. The sheer, brutal resilience of the loop's beginning contrasted with the escalating horror of its conclusions was starting to feel like a form of psychological torture.
He swung his legs out of bed, the floorboards cool beneath his feet. Each step towards the kitchen felt heavier than the last. What now? He'd tried intervening at the last second. He'd tried locking them away safely at home. He'd tried changing locations within the city, changing schedules, even keeping them entirely separate and occupied. Nothing worked. The fatal moment – 5:17 PM – arrived like clockwork, dealing its blow through circumstance bent into grotesque, improbable shapes.
A new, desperate theory began to surface, born not of logic but of elimination. Maybe it wasn't just the intersection, or the apartment, or even specific activities. Maybe it was the city itself. Could there be some kind of… field? A localized curse? A nexus of catastrophic probability confined within the city limits? It sounded insane, like something out of a crackpot novel, but what other explanation fit the facts? He'd tried altering events within the geographical area, and failed repeatedly. The only remaining variable seemed to be the location itself on a larger scale.
Escape. Not just to the suburbs or a nearby park. Real distance. Put hundreds of miles between them and the city well before the cursed minute arrived. Maybe whatever force governed this was geographically bound. Maybe distance could dilute its power, or sever the connection entirely.
He entered the kitchen just as Clara turned, coffee pot in hand. "Morning," she started, her smile faltering almost immediately as she took in his ravaged expression. He knew he must look haunted, sleep-deprived, pushed to the edge. "Ethan… honey, you look terrible. Seriously, are you sure you're okay? Maybe you should see a doctor."
Her genuine concern was a painful twist of the knife. He couldn't burden her with the truth, couldn't explain the cycles of death and rebirth, the accumulating failures that were grinding him down. But maybe… maybe he could use her concern.
"I know I look bad, Clara," he said, his voice low, rough with fatigue he hadn't earned through sleep. He ran a hand over his face. "It's… it's the stress. This city. Work. Wedding planning. It's all just… piling up. I feel like I can't breathe here anymore." He let the desperation show, hoping it read as breakdown rather than impossible knowledge.
"Okay," she said softly, putting the coffee pot down and stepping towards him, her expression softening with empathy. "Okay, maybe you really do need a break. We can take it easy tonight? Forget Valenti's?"
"No, not just tonight," Ethan countered, shaking his head, latching onto the opening she'd given him. "I mean… right now. Today. Let's just… leave. Get out of the city completely. Now."
She blinked, taken aback. "Leave? Now? Ethan, where would we even go? We both have work…"
"Forget work!" he insisted, gripping her arms gently, trying to convey urgency without revealing the terror beneath it. "Screw Thompson, screw Finch! We need this, Clara. Seriously. Let's just pack a small bag, go to Grand Central, and get on the first train heading… anywhere. North. South. Doesn't matter. Just away from here. A complete change of scenery, for a couple of days. Please? I feel like if I spend one more day here, I might actually lose my mind." He poured every ounce of real desperation he felt into the plea, framing it as personal breakdown rather than temporal anomaly.
Clara stared at him, clearly conflicted. The impulsiveness was unlike him, the intensity in his eyes unsettling. But she also saw the genuine strain, the exhaustion lining his face. Perhaps the 'bad dreams' and 'stress' he'd mentioned in previous (to her, contiguous) days finally seemed plausible explanation for this sudden urge to flee.
"Leave… right now?" she repeated slowly, searching his face. "Just… get on a train?" She hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision. "Alright, Ethan. Alright. If you really feel that strongly… let's do it. Let's get out of here." The worry in her eyes remained, but it was overshadowed by a resolve to support him. "Go pack a bag. I'll make the calls."
A surge of adrenaline, tinged with fragile hope, shot through Ethan. This felt significant. A drastic departure from the established patterns. While Clara made hurried, apologetic calls to their respective offices, citing a sudden 'family emergency' requiring them to leave town immediately, Ethan threw essentials into an overnight bag with shaking hands – toiletries, a change of clothes, his wallet, Clara's medication for occasional migraines. He booked two one-way tickets on his phone for the next express train heading north, departing in less than an hour – a destination hours away, a quiet town nestled in the mountains he vaguely remembered from a childhood trip. Far away.
They barely spoke as they rushed out of the apartment, locking the door behind them on a life they were, Ethan desperately hoped, leaving behind for good, at least for today. The taxi ride to Grand Central was a blur of tense silence, Ethan scanning the traffic, the buildings, the faces of pedestrians, searching for ominous signs, while Clara sat quietly beside him, occasionally stealing worried glances his way.
Grand Central Terminal was its usual majestic, chaotic self – a swirling vortex of commuters, tourists, and echoing announcements under the vast celestial ceiling. Ethan kept a tight grip on Clara's hand, navigating them swiftly towards their platform, purchasing bottles of water and packaged snacks along the way. They boarded the train minutes before departure, finding seats in a relatively empty car towards the middle.
As the train slid smoothly out of the station, leaving the underground tunnels and emerging into the daylight, Ethan felt a physical sense of release, as if shedding a heavy skin. The familiar skyline of the city receded behind them. They were moving. Escaping. Each mile marker flashing past the window felt like a victory.
He tried to relax, to engage Clara in conversation, pointing out landmarks as the urban sprawl gave way to suburbs, then countryside. She responded, but her replies were somewhat muted, her earlier concern still evident. He knew his manic energy followed by intense quiet was likely unnerving her, but he couldn't help it. The clock was always ticking in the back of his mind.
Hours passed. 1:00 PM. 3:00 PM. 4:30 PM. They traveled through rolling hills, sleepy towns, dense forests. The scenery outside the window was peaceful, a stark contrast to the frantic energy of the city they'd left behind. Ethan bought them lukewarm coffee from the service cart, shared the snacks he'd bought. He felt calmer than he had in… he couldn't even remember how long. Maybe this was it. Maybe distance truly was the key. He allowed himself a sliver of fragile hope. He could almost picture arriving in the quiet mountain town, checking into a small inn, breathing air that didn't feel thick with impending doom.
5:00 PM. He checked his watch. Seventeen minutes. His palms grew sweaty. He looked around the train car. Elderly couple reading across the aisle. Businessman typing on a laptop. Young woman listening to music. Nothing overtly threatening. The rhythmic clatter of the wheels on the tracks was hypnotic, steady.
5:10 PM. He glanced at Clara. She had dozed off, her head leaning against the window, her breathing soft and even. He felt a pang of protectiveness. Let her sleep through it, he thought. Let her wake up after 5:17 to a world where nothing happened.
5:15 PM. He watched the landscape blurring past. Fields, trees, a distant river glittering in the late afternoon sun. Everything seemed serene. Normal. His hope grew stronger, battling the ingrained dread.
5:16 PM. He held his breath, bracing himself without knowing what he was bracing for. He scanned the interior of the car again. Looked out the window. Nothing. Just the steady rhythm of the train, the peaceful scenery. One more minute.
Suddenly, a violent shudder ran through the entire train car, accompanied by a high-pitched metallic scream from beneath them. Not the screech of brakes, but something harsher, tearing. The rhythmic clatter devolved instantly into a chaotic, jarring series of heavy bangs and jolts.
Clara snapped awake, eyes wide with alarm. "What was that?"
Before Ethan could answer, the car lurched violently sideways, throwing passengers from their seats. Luggage tumbled from the overhead racks. The lights flickered, then went out, plunging the car into emergency-lit semi-darkness. The awful sound of tearing metal intensified, mixed with shouts and screams from adjacent cars.
Ethan grabbed Clara instinctively, trying to shield her as they were slammed against the side of the carriage. Through the window, the peaceful landscape was now a terrifying, tilted blur rushing past at an impossible angle. Derailment. Catastrophic.
He saw it for a fraction of a second – a huge, jagged piece of metal, maybe from the coupling or the undercarriage, torn free by the initial failure, whipping upwards alongside the train like a scythe. It smashed through the window right beside Clara's head, shattering the reinforced glass inwards in an explosion of shards.
He didn't see it hit her. He just felt her go abruptly limp against him as the train car scraped and bounced along the ballast of the track bed before finally shuddering to a violent, grinding halt, tilted precariously on its side.
Silence descended, thick and sudden, broken only by the whimpers of the injured and the distant hiss of escaping air. Emergency lights cast long, eerie shadows. Ethan, miraculously mostly unharmed besides bruises, pushed himself upright in the wreckage-strewn, tilted car.
He looked down at Clara, still held in his arms. Her eyes were closed, her head resting against his shoulder at an unnatural angle. The jagged hole in the window beside her told the story. The flying metal debris… He reached out a shaking hand, touching her cheek. It was already cooling.
Numbness washed over him, colder and more absolute than any grief he'd felt before. He didn't need to check for a pulse. He didn't need to look at his watch, though he knew with sickening certainty what time it would be if he could. 5:17 PM.
He had put hundreds of miles between them and the city. He had changed the environment completely. And still, it found her. A mechanical failure. Flying debris. Improbable? Absolutely. Impossible? Apparently not.
Geography meant nothing. The city wasn't the nexus. Distance wasn't salvation. The horrifying truth settled into his bones: this force, this fate, this thing… it wasn't tied to a place. It was tied to her. Or maybe to him. Or maybe just to the inexorable march of the clock towards that single, cursed minute. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere was safe.
He sat there, cradling Clara's lifeless body in the wreckage of the train car, surrounded by the shocked silence and the distant sounds of approaching sirens from the nearest town. He didn't move. Didn't cry. He just waited, empty and hollow, for the familiar darkness to gather, for the inevitable lurch backwards, for the start of Loop Eight. And for the first time, he had absolutely no idea what to do next. Where do you even begin when you know nowhere is safe?