Act III. Part IV.

"Not funny Toshiko," Mila said with an irritated expression. "You knew Ryu has been a little off lately and you go and write this."

"Write…" He didn't say anything else and fell silent. "Ohh, that writing. I wrote it a long time ago, and it was under mine. The desks must have been rotated."

Ryu heard what was said but at the same time, he didn't hear anything. "Sorry, what?"

The instant he asked Mila turned to look at him with a worried expression.

"The writing under your desk. It was me who did it." Said Toshiko.

"Err, don't worry about it." He said with a smile. "I'm just a little distracted so go ahead without me and look for the other Ryu. I'll catch up with you in a minute." He said as he took a seat next to the other Ryu.

"No problem. Let's go, Toshiko.

Ryu stared at the other Ryu without breaking concentration. He got up and started to frizzle the other's hair. He picked up the stained hand again, and reached into his shirt pocket, removing the coin he had taken earlier. He placed the coin in the stained palm and tilted his head as he stared at it.

"So, you're the third one, huh.."

Ryu took the coin, scratched his neck, and walked out of the room.

…

He found himself outside, on the school's track field, which was being used by a class. He looked around and saw Mila and Toshiko seated in the bleachers with someone else he couldn't recognize. In fact, he couldn't recognize everyone else on the field, rather he couldn't make out their faces. He walked up to the bleachers and squirmed his way through the narrow spaces between the seats as he went up. He finally reached the two, who were focused on the runners on the track below.

"Where'd the popcorn come from?" Ryu asked as he pointed at the bucket of popcorn the two were eating out of.

"No idea, we just found ourselves here." Said Toshiko, who was still staring at the field.

"No, we walked here after looking around the school and decided to take a break." Mila refuted, while also still focusing on the track.

"Uhuh…" Ryu groaned.

"We found another body. We put an empty popcorn bucket on his head so as to not to draw any attention when you came here," Mila said as she pointed behind her over her shoulder with her thumb still facing the front.

"And how does someone covered in a popcorn bucket not draw attention?!" Ryu yelled at the two.

"Shhhh. You're drawing attention." Said Mila as she held one finger up to her lips.

Ryu took a step over the seat the two were on and moved to sit at the very back with the other Ryu. He began searching the husk's pockets, and of course, he found the golden coin. Except this time, the coin was in its blazer pocket. Ryu quickly pulled it out with his right hand, and as soon as he did, a small piece of paper flew out and slowly glided in the air.

He stretched out his left arm and grabbed it before it could reach the ground. He pulled his right hand closer to his face and stared at the coin.

"Number two. You're the one who figured out part of this, I hope you can help me figure out the rest." He said to himself.

He then raised his head and looked at his left arm, which strangely had cuts on it. He couldn't feel them but they were clearly there: several red marks spread across his left. He closed his eyes, and once he opened them, the cuts were still there. He brought the piece of paper closer to his eyes because the writing was small.

The paper read: [DO NOT GO CLOSE TO HER MI..]

It looked like there was more to the sentence but the writer had ran out of space.

"Let's go, there's nothing here." Said Ryu, as he tucked his left hand into his trousers pocket, and stood up.

"That's the last one," Toshiko said as he tossed a popcorn kernel into his mouth.

"What do you mean?" Ryu asked with a lost expression.

"We already told you we looked around the entire school. This was the only other Ryu apart from the one in the class." Mila answered.

"What?" Ryu repeated in disbelief.

"Husk or not these are your bodies, Ryu. So where do you think you could be right now?" Toshiko said as he turned to face Ryu.

Ryu sat down and closed his eyes. He took a large breath and slowly exhaled.

"Let's check the train station. It's the only place I could be." He said as he opened his eyes.

"Shall we go?" Toshiko said with a smile.

The three walked out of the school and ran to the train station. They reached the glass doors and pushed them open. They ran until they reached the platform with no train in sight. Ryu looked around in a panic and he couldn't see any husk. He started to feel a sharp pain in his left shoulder, he couldn't scream so he gritted his teeth and quietly grunted.

"Anything?" Ryu asked.

"There's nothing here." Said Mila.

"This is the only other place I could be. It doesn't make sense" Ryu said with a defeated expression. "He has to be here!" He shouted.

"Calm down Ryu, we've gone this far so we still haven't reached point C. We just need to check your house or even Toshiko's." Mila said calmly.

"I wouldn't be at those places." He said with his head faced down. "And Besides, point C isn't a place," Ryu said as he slowly stooped to sit on the floor. "It's a state of mind."

"That's great news! Now all we have to do—" Toshiko suddenly paused. "Since when have you known about this?"

"Since I woke up. Since the fifth me woke up. It's the only concrete piece of information I've had."

"Then why didn't you tell us that?!" Mila shouted.

"Because it would have been pointless. This is the fifth time since this loop began, and in all the other four, assuming we all woke up knowing about 'Point C' why hasn't this loop ended?"

Mila was left speechless because Ryu had a point.

"The only other possible solution I could think of was to find an item all the other husks had on them before they reached point C, and use it as some sort of compass." Said Ryu.

"But you said point C was a state of mind, so how was this compass going to lead you past a non-physical place?" Mila asked with a confused expression.

"I don't know. It sounded like it could work in my head. Because, on the particular shared item, there are numbers that show what I think is which Ryu we are in the loop. And that theory was supported when Ar told me I was the fifth." Answered Ryu as he put his right hand into his pocket. "This one is mine, and it has the number five on it." He said as he held out the coin to Mila.

"But it doesn't have a five on it." Said Mila, with a dumbfounded expression. "It looks more like a 'T' than a five."

"What do you m—" Ryu stopped mid-sentence. "There's a 'T' on the back of the coin."

He began searching his pockets for the other coins and found nothing. Mila sat across Ryu.

"Regardless of what the other versions of ourselves came up with, we are here right no. And the only thing we can do is think of five, six, seven, eight more plans until we find the one that works," Mila said as she reached out to pat Ryu's back.

Before she even touched him, he promptly moved back and looked at her with a scared expression. They looked each other in the eyes, without saying a single word, and all Mila could do was look at him with a confused expression.

"Ryu!" Toshiko shouted from further in the station.

Mila and Ryu looked at each other at that moment and ran towards his voice.

"I present to you, Ryu." Said Toshiko as he stood by a metal bench, and right next to him was a husk.

Ryu quickly ran to the husk. He carefully checked all of the pockets one by one, but this time there was nothing inside them. Ryu sat next to the husk with a defeated expression while Mila and Toshiko argued in front of him. It was as if the volume of their voices was being slowly reduced, slowly fading into nothingness.

He sat and said nothing as all the hope he had in his idea fled from him. He then heard something that brought the volume of everything around him back to normal. It was the train.

"A coin?" Toshiko asked with a puzzled expression.

"There's a coin that all of the husks Have on them. Ryu wanted to use them as a compass or something" Sad Mila.

"Coin? Why is this the first time I'm hearing about this Ryu?!" Toshiko said angrily as he looked at Ryu who just stared back at him. "There's more you're not telling me isn't there?"

"Cool it, Toshiko. Ryu's just got a lot on his mind." Mila said as she turned to look at Ryu.

"Don't we all? Is it because of that thing underneath your desk?!" Toshiko shouted.

"Wait, I thought you said you wrote that," Mila said as she turned to face Toshiko.

As the two argued, the train pulled in, and the automatic doors opened. It looked completely empty, but Ryu felt drawn to it. He got up, and slowly took one step at a time in the train's direction. The two were so caught up in their argument that they didn't notice Ryu leaving.

He stepped onto the train, and as soon as he did it started moving. And not at the usual slow warm-up speed either, it was already moving at its top speed. Ryu put his knee on one of the seats and leaned against the window as he took a look outside. Everything the train passed turned to black, leaving a trail that looked like a sandstorm of darkness behind it. Ryu took a seat and closed his eyes. He took in a large breath and loudly exhaled.

"Are we going to talk, or?" Ryu said he scratched his neck.

The moment he finished his sentence, he heard a sharp chink sound from the end of the cart.

"I'm waiting for you to come here," Said the other Ryu with his legs crossed, who reached out to catch the coin he threw into the air.

Ryu focused on the coin as hard as he could trying to see what it had on it as it fell…..

The coin had the number '1' on it.

end