Day 5

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

I opened my eyes, and I could see through both.

"It's morning."

I sat up, still feeling the pain of being devoured by scissors, but could see that no blood nor holes littered my body. I looked at the clock across my room, and saw that it was 8:00 am. I sighed, noticing a faint gust of condensation that left my mouth. It was extremely cold in my room, so I wrapped myself with my blanket and sat in bed, contemplating everything. I wanted to believe that morning had finally come for real this time, and that I wasn't just waking up to the fifth loop of this horrendous nightmare that kept repeating itself.

But I had lost all hope by now. I had my severe doubts.

I tried to get out of bed, but my body shook uncontrollably when I tried to. It were as if my mind rejected the idea of leaving safety, as if it knew that danger lurked outside my door. But even while staying in bed my body continued to shake. It shook with memory of the pain I'd just felt in being stabbed over and over again by a pair of horrific scissors. The image sent shivers throughout my body, and I clenched my back forwards and fell into a fetus position.

I was traumatized by what I'd experienced. The pain was too unbearable. Even if it was just a dream, or if I was still in the dream, I needed to ask myself: "Why did the pain feel so real…?"

I found it impossible to feel such realistic pain in such a nightmarish state. There was only so much imaginary pain one could physically envision in a dream after all. So with that thought in mind, and with my now unstable state of mind from the repeated experiences of death, my ideas came to expand unrealistically.

"Am I not dreaming, but rather, is this all real…?"

It couldn't be. "Obviously not," I almost laughed at myself. But how the hell did the pain feel so real? I didn't know. I couldn't know. I felt like I was trapped, but there was a chance that I was free now.

There was only one way to find out.

I headed downstairs and went straight to the kitchen. At this point, I didn't care if my face broke out from failing to follow my daily routine of facial care. I just needed to know if I was in the real world or not. I was looking for two things, and two things only, in order to clarify my reality or not.

Those two things sat on my kitchen table; an orange and a paper note.

"FUCK!" I slammed the stair railing. It rattled the entire thing, and I sat down on a step with tears forming in my eyes. It was at this point in time that I realized I was truly stuck in some sort of a hellish loop. Purgatory: that was the only word that came to my mind. I was experiencing anguish in a seemingly never-ending purgatory.

I went downstairs and picked up the note to read it just for clarification:

{ Your father and I will be tending to business priorities in Xavier District for the next month or so. We don't know exactly when we'll be back, but you can take care of yourself anyways. I've bought enough fruits to last you a daily breakfast for at least a month. But they only had oranges available at the store we shop at. It's okay though, you like oranges anyways, right? Eat healthy while we're gone.

- Mother }

I scrunched it up with rage like usual, but this time threw it into the trash along with the orange. Then I sat on the ground, and waited.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

The sound of a clock from a room over played repeatedly in my head. I was awaiting demise. I didn't know what to do, so I closed my eyes. I fell into a momentary limbo, almost relaxed within the quietness of my empty mind.

The peace was interrupted as soon as it'd settled in.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

"—!!!" I fumbled in my position and fell over in shock.

I realized here that peace was unattainable in this world, because the moment I was reminded of the other entity that lurked within my vicinity, panic was inevitable. Fear was inevitable. Pain was inevitable. That cruel, gruesome pain.

SHLLRRRK—!

My back was suddenly warm, oozing with an excessive amount of blood that came from a gash that sliced past my body.

"Ough—!" Red spat forward from my mouth, and I began drooling an uncontrollable amount of blood. I'd given him too much time to find me, and given him too much freedom to approach me with not enough struggle. Now I would pay for my lack of effort, by experiencing the pain that I could not even begin to describe.

"Ahhh…" I croaked through the viscosity in my mouth. The shock began to wear off and the true pain unraveled itself. It hurt too much.

"AGHHHHHHHHH!!!" I felt more stabs from his scissors etched into my back.

Would I have to experience this every time as I loop through the same day over and over? With my mind now overloaded with pessimism, I had to assume that even after dying this way I would wake up to it all over again. I would have to experience this pain all over again. The thought made me want to hurl, so I gagged and even more blood erupted from my inner throat. I didn't want to believe it, but I knew I was stuck in this loop. I didn't know for how long, but if it meant experiencing the same pain over and over again, I'd rather just die.

This is torture. "TH—IVFF IVF TVROTHURR!!!" I tried to scream it from my lungs full of blood. I couldn't even speak anymore. But soon I would be able to again, again when I woke up to repeat this loop all over again—anguish, all over again.

As my life quickly withered away, my mind slowly scanned through the concept of numbing to overused pain. The thing was I couldn't ever believe that I would ever get used to the pain that I'd been provided in just these five loops thus far. It was too excessive, too unbearable, and too unrealistically real for me to handle and get used to. I'd rather run for my life from this man in black and avoid the pain he provided, even if the pain would catch up to me eventually. I didn't care if my effort constantly sought vain. I wanted to find a way to avoid this death that he bestowed, a way to run from my impending doom, and to escape this inevitable pain so that I could live past this never-ending day.

This day would end, one day. I would escape his grasp, one day, I hoped.

SHANK—!

My eyes clouded up.

Death.