Again

---5:30---

Shiro shot up in bed. He was breathing heavily. He looked over at the clock. It read 5:30 AM. "Was that all just a dream?" he asked himself. He didn't feel dead, and all of his body was intact. "It must've been a dream."

He got out of bed to process the nightmare. It felt so real. Bits of the dream were hazy, but he could remember the end, and he was shocked at how fast everything turned south. As he was still trying to collect his thoughts, his alarm started ringing loudly next to him. He realized that the nightmare had awakened him before his alarm, so that was a good thing about it.

As he got out of bed he remembered why he had the alarm. There was a meeting this morning. He got dressed and ran over to Mary's diner. He saw the closed sign on the front of the door. He hesitated for a second; "It could be that she actually hasn't opened yet, the meeting might not even be here," Shiro thought to himself. In the end he stowed his doubts and went in.

As he entered, the bell on the door jingled. He looked around the front room; it was empty, none of the kitchen supplies were set up either, and there was a constant creaking sound coming from the second floor. He began to head to the stairs that led up there when he heard a rush of footsteps above him. When he reached the stairs he saw Mary who seemed to only be covered by the blanket she was holding. She began to hurriedly speak, "S-Shiro! Hi! I w-wasn't expecting you to b-be here so early!"

"Yeah, I didn't want to, but Cereal said that there was going to be an important meeting early in the morning," Shiro replied. "So, where is everybody? I thought they would already be here." As he finished speaking, he had a weird sense of deja vu, like he had done this before.

"No... it's uh... It's just me!" Mary replied. Shiro had an odd feeling that he knew this was a lie.

"So where's Gabriel?" Shiro asked. "I know he sometimes stays overnight here."

"Oh? Um, he went out yesterday to do something. Something time god related probably."

Just then Shiro heard Gabriel's voice coming from the bedroom upstairs, "Mary, who's there? What kind of idiot is up this early?"

Mary sat there in shame, "It's Shiro..." she responded.

Gabriel stepped out at the top of the stairs. He was wearing only a pair of boxer briefs and looked as though he hadn't gotten much sleep the prior night. "Shiro! How's it going! What brings you here so early?" he said cheerfully as he walked down the stairs, contrasting his tired appearance.

Shiro covered his eyes flustered and quickly yelled, "Go back upstairs and get some clothes on you idiots!"

While they were getting dressed upstairs, Shiro sat down at one of the tables in the back room. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had had that exact conversation before. He sat there thinking intently. "Was it in the dream, or did I recently have a similar situation like this one?" he thought. He didn't like that he couldn't remember well, and he had an ominous feeling that things would go bad if he didn't remember soon.

---6:00---

Gabriel seated himself next to Shiro while they were waiting for Mary. They sat there for a bit in an awkward silence. To break the silence Shiro asked, Do you have any idea what the meeting is about?"

Gabriel stared at him for a second, like he didn't know what to say, then came to a realization. "Oh, the meeting. No, Cereal was a bit vague with me too. It's annoying when he does that." he answered.

Just then, Mary came down, fully nude. Both of them sat there shocked for a second, then reacted appropriately. "What the hell do you think you're doing!?" Gabriel yelled.

"I always serve the customers breakfast in my morning attire," Mary responded.

"And that means that you wear your morning CLOTHES! Not what you were wearing in the morning!" Gabriel snapped.

He quickly took her back upstairs to get her dressed. "Sorry 'bout that. She is a bit of an airhead when she doesn't get enough sleep." Gabriel said as he returned.

"It's fine," Shiro replied. He felt like this had happened before. Shiro decided to ask, "Has this happened before?"

"Not that I can remember," Gabriel said, "Why?"

"I can't get rid of this weird feeling of deja vu, and it's really bugging me."

"Really now? Interesting."

"It's probably nothing, but it is shaking me up a bit."

"It'll probably pass, just give it a bit."

"Yeah sure." Shiro felt that it wasn't going to stop though.

---6:15---

When Mary was finally dressed and ready to serve customers, she went over to the table where Shiro and Gabriel were at. "What would you guys like to eat?" she asked.

"The usual," Gabriel replied.

"I guess I'll have what he's having," Shiro said, then had a weird feeling about it, so he went back on his answer. "Actually I'll have an omelette."

After Mary went back into the kitchen to prepare their meals, Shiro asked Gabriel, "You got any idea when the meeting is?"

"I don't know that either," Gabriel responded, "Cereal was pretty vague about the whole thing. He just said that we had an important meeting early in the morning, that's it. He didn't really specify where it was, when it is, or what it's about."

"Wait a minute, did you say where? Is it not supposed to be here?" Shiro interrogated. He had assumed that it would be here, because they commonly held meetings here.

"I'm not really sure, but I don't think it is. If it was, then Cereal would've requested to reserve the diner for today."

"I gotta ask now!" Shiro then pulled out his phone to text Cereal, when Gabriel asked, "Why not ask if we can hold the meeting here? I mean both of us are already here, Mary hasn't opened up yet, and I don't think the meeting is going to start for a bit."

"Okay." Shiro realized that the nightmare that woke him up early didn't really help, so he felt a little down about that. He texted the group chat to see if they could hold it here. The second after they got confirmation that they could, they heard the ring of somebody entering the diner. "Did Mary just open up?" Shrio asked.

"No, I doubt it," Gabriel answered, "I'll go check who it is. If it's one of the regulars, then I can probably convince them to leave. In the meantime, go tell Mary to reserve the diner for us."

Shiro had a weird memory. "It might be Kana."

"Why do you say that?"

"She's always stalking me."

"You willing to bet on that?"

"Yeah, if it's Kana you owe me 20 bucks!"

"Deal!"

They both got up. Shiro walked to the kitchen, where Mary was preparing breakfast. He noticed that she was preparing a rather large meal, he had a vague feeling that that was Gabriel's order. "Hey could you reserve the diner for us this morning?" Shrio requested.

"Sure, why?"

"We decided on holding today's meeting here."

"Yeah, I could do that."

"Thanks, that helps us out a lot."

As he sat down, Gabriel returned looking a bit pissed. "Turns out the person who walked in was Kana."

As the two of them sat down, Gabriel slapped 20 dollars on the table in front of Shiro, turned to Kana and asked, "So, How long were you sitting there waiting?"

"A bit," Kana replied.

So how long would 'a bit' be shorty?" Gabriel inquired.

"Shut up, I'll kill you," Kana retorted.

"Oh! Your temper matches your height!" Gabriel mocked.

As Kana reached for her gun, Shiro grabbed her hand. "Hey, not while we're in the diner at least!"

Kana looked at Shiro, then down at their hands. She began to look very flustered and pulled her hand away. "Sorry! Sorry! Whatever you say!" She looked down at her hand blushing.

Gabriel read the mood and decided to make himself scarce. "I'm going to go see if Mary needs any help." He left the two alone to talk.

"Hey Shiro?" Kana asked.

"Yeah?"

She looked at him, then quickly looked away. "Never mind!"

Shiro opened his mouth to speak, but decided that silence was fine. They sat in an awkward silence for the next while.

---6:30---

The silence was eventually interrupted by the sound of somebody entering the diner. Then they heard Gabriel yell, "I'll check who that is!" from in the kitchen.

There was a bit more silence and then Gabriel returned with Corby. "Look who decided to show up! Corbs!" He exclaimed.

"I told you, please don't call me that," Corby responded.

Gabriel then looked at him and repeated over and over, "Corbs, Corbs, Corbs, Corbs, Corbs, Corbs."

"Alright that's enough! Shut up!" Corby yelled.

For a few seconds Gabriel looked surprised by the outburst, but then grinned again as if he were preparing another onslaught. Before he could continue his chant, Mary popped into the room. "Hey Corby, could you help me out in the kitchen?"

"Yeah... Sure..." he said, his eyes slowly drifting downwards.

"Yo Corbs, her eyes aren't down there," Gabriel scolded.

Corby shot him an angry glance, and then followed her into the kitchen.

"Hey Gabriel, are you sure there hasn't been a similar situation?" Shiro asked.

"You're still thinking about that? Well, this is the first time I remember this stuff happening."

Kana interjected, "What are you guys talking about?"

"Oh, I've just been feeling like this situation has happened to me before."

"Nope! If this had happened to you before, I would know!"

"Right…" Shiro said a bit nervously.

---7:00---

After waiting and having some idle conversation to pass the time, Mary and Corby returned with their breakfast. Corby was pushing a rather large cart full of food. "That's yours right?" Shiro asked Gabriel.

"Yeah," Gabriel responded, "I didn't know you've seen me eat breakfast before, we normally meet here around lunch, and I normally eat average sized lunches."

"It was just a hunch," Shiro said. He didn't really know why, but even without having seen before, he knew. No matter how hard he tried to get rid of the feeling, he felt like all this had happened before. It was starting to really bother him, but he brushed it off once again and started eating. He then noticed that Gabriel was already finished with his meal.

Gabriel got up from his seat and said, "Okay guys, I'm gonna go look for Cereal, since he seems to be running late."

As Gabriel went into the kitchen to take care of his dishes, Shiro quickly finished off his omelette and ran in with him.

"Hey Gabriel," Shiro greeted.

"Yeah?"

"Could I join you to look for Cereal?"

"Uh," Gabriel hesitated, looking like he couldn't decide.

Shiro gave his reasoning, "I mean, he's always on time, so something could be going wrong for him, and I want to find him as quickly as possible."

"Sure then," Gabriel answered.

"Thanks!"

---7:15---

After they had finished rinsing off their dishes, they began to head out to find Cereal. Shiro realized that they should get a hold of Cereal first, so he stopped. "Hey, could we wait a minute?" Shiro asked.

"Yeah, sure. Why though?" Gabriel replied.

Shiro began to reach for his phone, but then had the feeling that it wouldn't work. "Nevermind actually. So, where are we checking first?"

Gabriel thought for a second, then answered, "We should try and look where he would most likely be, so like his apartment or the cereal isles of local stores."

"Seems like a good idea!" Shiro responded.

They started heading to the other end of town. There was a plaza there, where Cereal tended to hide out from Mary. When they were about halfway there, Shiro stopped. He had a feeling that Cereal wouldn't be there. "Hey, maybe we should start with his apartment. He might be there sleeping in or something," he offered.

Gabriel sat there thinking intently, then snapped his fingers as if he came to a conclusion. "Sure, we'll do that," he answered.

After arriving at his apartment, they tried opening the door. It wouldn't budge. "Well it was worth a shot," Gabriel said.

"Well, I guess let's check the other places."

The first thing they checked the plaza across town, with no luck. Next they checked the cereal aisle of some of the local stores; they didn't find him there either.

---7:45---

After no luck during their last half hour of searching they decided to check his apartment again. They noticed the door was ajar. "Cereal?" Shiro asked as he rounded the corner, entering the apartment. The lights inside were dim and there were bits of Cheerios all across the floor, spewing from the doorway leading into the apartment's kitchen. He had a sickening feeling as he began to walk into the room. He had a sense of dread like he had experienced a similar thing before.

"Hey could you help me Shiro?" Cereal's voice came from behind him.

Shiro jumped. "Jesus man! You scared the shit out of me!"

Cereal laughed. "Could you help me clean up this mess? I dropped a box of cereal earlier and need to clean it up."

"Yeah, I noticed," Shiro responded, looking down at the cereal covering the floor.

Gabriel quickly rushed in and instantly cleaned it up. "Now let's get going! We're already late!" he announced.

Cereal and Shiro looked at him and then got up. His spontaneous actions could be annoying at times, but sometimes they were helpful. "So, where were you?" Gabriel asked, "We couldn't find you anywhere we looked! We checked here earlier, but had no luck," Gabriel asked

"I was checking out the target for our final strike," Cereal explained, "C'mon, let's go back to Mary's diner. We have a meeting to hold."

"You were the one slowing us down though," Gabriel grumbled.

"Wait, final strike?" Shiro said.

As they started to walk back, Cereal explained what was going on to them. "Yep! After four months of hard work, tedious missions, and difficult planning, we finally will be putting an end to the gang that has been giving this city all the trouble it could possibly muster, or at least after Corby fills out the paperwork for the strike.

"Wow," Gabriel exclaimed, "It really was over fast. I'm surprised that you guys have come this far. It feels like it was just yesterday that you were just a couple of people who were sick of the tyranny of that damned gang. Now you have the backing of the local government and a specialized strike force. You really have come far."

Shiro looked over at Gabriel. "It helps to have a literal deity on your team."

"Yeah, for all the trouble you caused, you did come in handy a lot of the time," Cereal claimed.

"Aw thanks guys, you really are the best," Gabriel said, looking a little bit flustered from the complements.

"So, how's the strike going to go down?" Shiro asked. He had a feeling he knew where the hideout was

"The way I'm planning it is you and kana will be taking the front ent-" Cereal was cut off by Gabriel, who motioned them to be quiet.

They all crouched down. Shiro whispered to Gabriel, "What is it? Why are we stopping?"

"Something seems off over there," Gabriel whispered back, pointing into the alley they were passing by. There was a frightening aura coming from the path that split off inside the alley.

Shiro then remembered everything. This was what was in the dream. He had experienced this before. The feeling he had been feeling his entire time wasn't deja vu, he must've just brushed off the memories as a dream and forgot about it. This had all happened before, and he knew how it would turn out if they went that way.

"Could it be a trap set by the gang?" Cereal inquired.

"No, it feels like there is something that doesn't belong in this time stream over there."

"Even so, I'll go check it out just to be sure," Cereal said.

Cereal then got up, but before he could rush off, Shiro grabbed him. "Hey, it's probably nothing, let's keep going."

"But what if-" Cereal pleaded.

"We don't want to be late!" Shiro argued.

"But we already are late, so what's another five minutes?" Cereal responded.

"C'mon! Let's go!" Shiro said, pulling Cereal along with him.

"Fine, but we're going back later!"

As they were continuing to walk back to Mary's diner, Shiro reflected on what happened in what he assumed to be a dream. He didn't want those horrible memories to repeat, so he was going to do everything in his power to prevent them.

---7:55---

After about five minutes of walking, they heard screams from behind them. They all turned to see what was going on, and were met with a very large orb of glowing bright green energy. Shiro sat there shocked. He thought he had avoided it, but he didn't. He then remembered what Gabriel said before, "If left unchecked it could destroy an entire timeline." He was such an idiot. Just cowering away and avoiding it wouldn't help the problem.

The rift was growing exponentially larger and was decimating everything around it. Cereal yelled over the chaos "What the hell is that thing!?"

Gabriel yelled back, "It's called a tachyon rift! It's very unstable and displaces time or destroys space around it!"

Shiro thought to himself, "That last bit would've been helpful to know."

Gabriel continued, "I can seal it, but at this point it's too large to safely seal! When I do it, it will implode and take a massive chunk of this city with it, including us!"

"Is there any way to stop it from imploding!?" Shiro yelled.

"No!" Gabriel answered, he began to put up his hands, his palms facing the rift. "Cereal! I have one thing to ask of you, because you will probably be the only one to survive this!

"What is it!?" Cereal asked.

"If Mary's diner isn't in the blast radius, when you see her, tell her I love her!" Gabriel requested.

"I'll do that!" Cereal responded.

Shiro sat there helpless once again. He had failed to prevent this from happening, and just made it worse. He couldn't help at all anymore. He just sat there and watched as the blast enveloped him.