Cycles of Fate: The Time Loop Tragedy - Chapter 1

ayinke-timi (25)in #time-loop • last month

I jolt awake, my shirt drenched in cold sweat. Gasping for breath, I reach across the sheets for my girlfriend, needing to feel the reassuring warmth of her body beside me. But her side is empty. I frantically scan our bedroom. Sheer panic grips my chest as I scramble out of bed, my heart pounding. "Emily!"

There she is in the living room, the glow of her laptop illuminating her as she frowns in concentration over her big wedding event tomorrow. Relief washes over me and I tremble, running my hands through my damp hair. Just a bad dream...

I need to hold her, to reassure myself she's really here. Moving towards her, I wrap my arms around her from behind. "You really scared me."
Emily laughs softly, swatting me away playfully. "Down boy, you know I need to focus! This is the biggest event of my career."
I breathe in her familiar floral scent, already feeling calmer with her in my embrace. Just a nightmare, that's all. I'm overreacting.

Except...that's when the first twinge of unease prickles up my spine. Peeking over her shoulder, I glimpse her laptop displaying the schedule for todays rehearsal at the Sapphire Serenity Hotel. An unsettling echo ripples through my mind, I've seen those words before, those details...
Abruptly, I'm bombarded with flashes from the dream. Vivid imagery of that lavish lobby with the huge flower arrangements, the fancy gilded ballroom draped with glittering chandeliers and tall marble pillars. It all feels so hauntingly familiar.

A chill runs down my spine. Just like those nightmare scenes are burned into my mind's eye, I can suddenly recall random, mundane moments from earlier today with startling clarity.
Emily fussing over napkins clashing with the tablecloths. The faint rumble of the hotel's air conditioning kicking on around 3pm. The front security guard having a small mole on his left cheek.

It's like I've already lived this entire day before, beat-for-beat. And now I can somehow predict exactly what Emily will say next, even before she opens her mouth.
"You big worrywart, I'll be fiiiine!" She singsongs teasingly, swiveling in her chair to face me. "I'm not going to let some silly nightmare freak me out on my big day!"
My heart pounds in my chest as those very words tumble out verbatim. This isn't just deja vu...it's like I'm trapped in the dregs of some bizarre, repeating time loop.
"Emily, I'm serious," I start, trying to keep the waver of dread from my voice. "I have a really bad feeling about this event. Maybe we should postpone it or do it somewhere else..."
She laughs again, standing up to poke my cheek playfully. "And disappoint all those lovebirds on the biggest day of their lives? No way, mister! Now shoo, I have to finalize these table settings."
As she brushes me off just like before, my blood turns to ice in my veins. Because with horrifying clarity, I can envision the nightmarish events that will unfold tonight playing out in my mind's eye.
I know exactly how it's all going to go terribly, unspeakably wrong. But how can I convince Emily we're in deathly danger without sounding completely insane?
Taking a steadying breath, I watch her graceful figure retreat to her work with a sense of dread weighing me down. I have to try and change the course tonight happens, by any means necessary.
Because if my fragmented visions prove accurate, the cost of failure will be Emily's life. A price I can never, ever pay.

One second, Emily is calmly giving instructions to the wedding staff, her soothing presence putting everyone at ease. The next second, our world explodes into pure chaos and terror.
The ballroom's huge double doors blast inward with an ear-splitting crash. Shards of wood and metal erupt across the marble floor as thick clouds of smoke billow through. A nightmarish figure storms into the chaos.
He's a hulking man covered from head-to-toe in black military gear, his face hidden by an ominous mask. The only thing visible is his pale, clenched fist gripping a sickening curved blade. The razor-sharp edge glints, hungry for blood and violence.

Hotel security guards brave enough to react are instantly cut down as lambs to the slaughter. Gunshots thunder through the air as they empty clip after clip but it does nothing against this demon's blinding brutality.
He moves inhumanly fast, the blade whirling in deadly arcs that slice men in half with gut-churning ease. Severed limbs and bodies shower the floors in gruesome red geysers as screams pierce my ears from all around.
Within moments, the elegant ballroom has devolved into a frothing slaughterhouse, the floors slick with anguished wails and butchered bodies painting the ground in looping patterns of viscera. Terrified guests trample over the dead and dying in a frenzied stampede for the exits.
Yet amid the unholy carnage, the demon's vacant eyes burn through the smoke with remorseless focus, locked onto Emily as his sole target. She's his obscene reason for being.
Shrieks of agony echo from every corner, but the only sound catalyzing my instincts is Emily's terrified gasp as the demon zeroes in on her.
He charges across the corpse-littered floor, that curved blade arcing up for a killing strike. I don't think - I just act, throwing my body in front of Emily's with feral protectiveness.

A ferocious roar rips from my throat as I extend my arms, a pitiful human shield against this force of bloodlust. But I'll gladly be butchered too if it buys her one more second of life.
"Emily, run!" I beg, pleading for her to flee even as that sadistic blade descends. But my brave girl refuses to leave me, paralyzed by the nightmare unfolding.
White-hot agony blossoms through my back as the jagged steel punches through flesh and bone in one agonizing stroke. I choke out a gargled scream as Emily's horrified shrieks ring in my ears.
The last sight seared into my dimming vision is that bloodstained blade arcing down towards her beautiful face one final time. Then the smoke and screams distort outward until reality itself fractures and pops like a bursting aneurysm of perception...

...and I'm jolting back to consciousness, alone and drenched in sweat in our bed. But there's no reassuring darkness, no refuge. Because now I understand with soul-withering clarity the true hell I'm trapped inside.
It wasn't a vision or nightmare - it was an unwitting preview of the next cycle in my personal purgatory. Over and over, I've had to endure the torment of total helplessness as Emily is massacred before me in more sadistic ways each time. Like a demented, fractal kaleidoscope refracting my anguish into crueler realities.
The harsh truth settles into me with crushing weight: We're ensnared in an endless time loop, condemned to relive Emily's violent death until the depraved cosmos grows bored torturing us.
But not for another single revolution of this demented merry-go-round. I cannot bear watching the woman I live for perish so senselessly one more time. This has to be the final cycle.
By any means necessary, it ends tonight - even if I must forfeit my sanity or soul itself.
No matter what lines I'm forced to cross, what parts of my humanity I have to surrender, Emily's light will shine on. I'll rewrite the cosmic rules themselves if that's what it takes to change her destiny.
Because existing without her is the true hell I cannot abide for another torturous second. She is my everything - or we'll both perish trying to rewrite our existence into a place free from this cruelty.

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