"Wake up boy," Ar said to him
Ryu quickly came to and kept his head down.
"Ar? It's been a while, where have you been?" Ryu whispered.
"We've been talking throughout this ordeal, but it seems you're another one. Ugh," Ar said in an exhausted voice.
"You're not making sense, Ar, what ordeal?" Ryu asked.
"I'm going to say something to you boy, but do not react. Okay?" Ar oddly said.
"Okay." Ryu slowly responded.
"Firstly, where is the large window located in your class?"
"On the left side, right next to my desk." The moment he answered, he raised his head and turned to look to his left.
It was a window but it didn't lead outside or to the schoolyard, but instead, within the school, to one of the corridors to be exact. Astonishingly, the class was empty as well.
"Uhh…" He continuously groaned as he looked around the class. "Did I really walk into and sleep in the wrong classroom," Ryu said to himself.
"I think it's better if you see for yourself," Ar said and became very quiet.
He left the empty classroom and started to walk towards the west side of the school's second floor. Once he finally reached the corridor his class was on, he slowly walked past the windows which were before the door, and looked into the class.
He looked at Toshiko who seemed to be talking to someone as Laveda was teaching,
"Who is that though? She looks familiar" He said to himself looking at the red-haired girl Toshiko was talking to.
His eyes shifted to the window at the other end of the room- more specifically to his desk. Ryu felt bewildered, and just in shock. He scratched his head trying to make sense of it but nothing came to mind. He experienced what you would call a flaring hysteria which quickly settled down.
There was someone in his seat. Not just someone,
Him.
It was Ryu.
"Ar? What's going on?!" Ryu asked as he promptly backed away from the class' windows.
"This is what I was trying to explain. Ryu, you are regressing but not the way you'd think. Each time you do, you leave…"
"Leave what?" Ryu asked.
"A… 'double'." Ar calmly answered. "For example, you have a video game character and you move from point A, which is your house, to point B, the school.
You create a save file as you are at point B and move on to C. But each time you reach point C, you are sent back to point B, or rather a new 'you' is created from that save, And each time causing the day to become shorter. Leaving the body that reached point C, still at Point C as an empty husk."
"You said you've been talking to me throughout this whole ordeal, meaning that since the first 'me' we've been conversing. So, what do you think the cause of this is?" Ryu asked, trying to make sense of the situation.
"You're taking this too well but anyway. The problem isn't you as much as it is the space. Akin to that time at the museum, how you left that room but still found yourself in the very room. It's a sawed-off section of reality left on repeat"
"What you're saying is that there's someone like that woman here causing this?"
"Yes, and well, I and the second Ryu already discovered who our Rimsky is."
"Who is it? And how many times have I regressed? Also, what's a Rimsky?" Ryu asked piling question over question.
"He doesn't exist here?" Ar whispered to himself as if in deep thought. "This is the 5th time you have regressed if I'm not wrong, and you are our Rimsky, you are the cause of this." He answered, getting back to the topic at hand. "The second you threw a fit after we came to this conclusion. He ran around the school screaming. Quite odd."
"Hold on, you're going too fast," Ryu said as he moved to sit down in an empty classroom. "What made you think I am the cause?"
"The only oddities in this school are you and your friends but they haven't taken the lives of any other oddity. Strange things happen after one does. So, the process of elimination leaves only you."
"Huh… Did you talk to Mr. Laveda about all this? He said something about a stench or stenches I have on me." Ryu asked with a stern expression.
"Why would we ask your teacher? Your teach-— Boy! Listen to me, that man cannot be trusted. Under no circumstance should you talk to him about any of this!" Ar said in a serious tone.
"I hear you. I hear you." He said trying to pacify Ar. "You said I regress every time I reach point C, so what is point C?"
"That's the thing, we do not know what point C is," Ar responded. "The goal we have right now is to find out what point C is. If we find that out, we'll be able to get past it. But we were sidetracked because the third you couldn't hear me."
Ryu sat silently and thought about everything he had heard. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold coin he had got from the woman the other day.
"How many times have I respawned again?" He asked.
"This is the fifth time." A silence shortly ensued. "What is the last thing you remember? Before waking up here of course."
"Leaving the train station, why?" He asked as he passed the coin through his fingers.
Soon after another high-pitched bell rang throughout the school. Ryu got up and navigated towards his class waiting for Mila and Toshiko to leave. The moment they stepped out Ryu quickly intercepted them.
"Hey, guys."
"I thought we left you sleeping in class," Mila said as she walked back towards the class window.
"Long story. Can we find a quiet place to talk?" Ryu responded as he quickly grabbed a hold of Mila.
"Okay…" They answered in unison.
The three walked into an empty class, and Toshiko and Mila sat at the front of the class, while Ryu stood by the whiteboard explaining their predicament.
"A loop you say?" Toshiko asked.
"And we've experienced this day five times already?" Mila added
Ryu gave a nod to both their questions.
"I guess this is our life now. Don't even know what we're bloody fighting against." Toshiko sarcastically said. "So, what's your plan?"
"We need to find and search the other doubles for clues and the sort."
"Ar has been with all of the 'Ryu's'– sorry that feels so weird to say. If Ar has been with all of them shouldn't we just ask him about their- your findings?" Mila asked.
"There may be a pattern of clues only I could recognize that were left behind, and besides he's asleep." He answered.
"I see…" Said Toshiko as he rubbed his chin. "With all that said, let's go Ryu hunting."
The three walked to their classroom which was now empty because everyone else went for their next lesson.
They stood by the door and looked at the Ryu who sat at the back of the room.
"Kinda surreal, isn't it? Mila asked Ryu.
He didn't answer and just walked up to his desk. He stood over the other Ryu who laid asleep.
"Wake up." He said as he roughly shook him. But to no avail, he was as Ar said an empty husk. Ryu knelt and began to search his pockets, to find what he had expected, the gold coin.
He discreetly fished it out and quickly threw it into his shirt pocket. He got up and checked the other Ryu's shirt pocket as well but like the other pockets, they were empty.
He pulled out the hands of the other Ryu, used to support his head as he slept, they were clenched into a fist, a tight one at that despite the body being lifeless.
He pried the fist open and they were black as if soiled by coal. He knelt once again and this time he moved to check underneath his desk, and written in a crude way like to some sort of abstract art were the words;
"dO nOt TrUsT AnYone"
"Anything?" Toshiko asked.
"Nothing, let's check underneath the other tables, there might be clues there. The writing here isn't visible." Ryu answered.
Mila briskly walked up to Ryu's desk and knelt.
"Wait, Mila!" Ryu shouted.
She looked at the underside of the desk, while Ryu just gave up trying to hide it from her because it was too late. She turned to look at Toshiko with an angered expression.
end