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gaia_nitemareright [ The Loop: ] You and one or several friends encounter and incident, and you can only watch in horror as they die before your eyes.

You wake up, and relive the day again, understanding immediately what you must do: save them. You manage to avoid the first incident, but because of it, you inadvertently kill off another friend or make the situation worse as your friend simply falls for another incident and dies again. You wake up and relive the day every single time you try to change the timeline and fail, watching your friends die in different sequences. Their deaths get more and more gruesome. At long last you realize what the problem is: yourself. If you had not changed the timeline, things would not have gotten so out of hand. You have a choice either to kill your friends and put them out of their misery or to kill yourself. As you commit to this choice, you finally wake up, for real, perhaps to relive the same timeline again.


Restarting ...

The first time was when Saya had been in the hospital. Every time it was always when she was in the hospital. Contrary to younger optimisn and ideals, hospitals were not necessarily a place of healing.

It often made the damage far worse when you gave patients time to think.

Saya thought that hospital stays, especially this one, would be normal, the kind of experience where you went in, spent some time there and went out. That was how it always seemed like it would be. Laying in bed, in a light sleep, after a giggling avid discussion with her current hospital roommate .. She didn't realize how the insanity would creep in. She didn't realize that the other trainee would reach her breaking point. The cool brush of the breeze against Saya's partially blanketed back let her to the assumption that fresh night air was a way to release the room from the stuffy scented confines of wounds and medicine. Like it had been every night, her roommate confessed that it was easier to sleep with the night air.

Saya took it as a preference, a simple fact. Even Saya preferred the open window, when resting because hearing the silence of the room was simply too much when insanity snuck in. The sound of the breeze, of the leaves or simply the beach was a calming influence, like little else. Sometimes, Saya wished she could just sleep on the beach.

But she would have never guessed how others couldn't take the insanity. She couldn't guess anything. Not as a detailed calculation of how far the drop was from the window or how long it might take for the girl next to her to break.

It wasn't out of the ordinary for things to break. When trainees felt that they couldn't take it anymore, all the reasons that hurt after battle, it just felt easier when you dropped a vase or two. When you kicked or punched the wall until it bled and you made your wounds hurt.

That night, the sound of the window opening hadn't been any different.

But the sound of her head against the pavement was.

Saya never wanted to hear that sound again. She hadn't even turned her back until the earsplitting sound of the body hitting.The blankets were a mess, Saya leaning over the window sill-- she wasn't sure what drew the nurses to the room in the midst of the night. Was it her screams or was it someone else's screams? She remembered tears staining her cheeks but she didn't remember screaming.

She didn't understand the next morning.

Restarting ..

That had been the first time. A dream, Saya concluded. A insanity-wrought dream, her fingers clenching the blanket tightly. She thought it happened but her roomate was there, right next to her side. Did it happen? Did it not happen? Saya couldn't tell. That was driving her crazy. She didn't want to eat breakfast that morning, the nurses leaving the tray by her bedside. Saya's panicked thoughts, what if the dream hadn't been a dream-- why had it felt like more so-- It was her second chance. She should take it, she thought hopefully. If she just said something, if she just told her, perhaps the other would admit it or just laugh over the silly nightmare. Saya told her, lifting her tired frame out of bed immediately, climbing over to the other bed.

How much more times did this exact scene, climbing out of the bed the next morning, replay?

Restarting ..

The second time had hardly been more successful than the first, the direct confrontation approach driving her friend away further.

Restarting ..

The third time involved Saya confessing to the doctor, who called her a liar and then a witch.

Restarting ..

The fourth time, she tried to confide in a nurse who promised to believe her. As Saya learned, promises were not as valuable as she once held them to be.

Restarting ..

How many timelines was this now? Saya had lost count and events could no longer be labeled. Instead, she started to write the events in her diary instead .. Even if it was the most dismal thing to do, it was necessary. She needed to keep track ..

but ..

Why did she need to keep track?

Hope .. Why was she going to so much effort to save a single trainee? if the timeline ended up with her and others dying every time, why did Saya bother? Did it matter so much, to save the one in front of her? It wasn't like this trainee was her best friend or anything. She was nothing, except a amiable hospital roommate who would go to a different division and different missions from Saya. What was she hoping?

The time would come when hope turned to despair. When Saya despaired, the dream might never end. With a wry laugh, Saya reflected, the dream never ended in the first place.