Loop [Part 8]

Shayne began to learn the pattern after the third time.

This time, their peace lasted shorter than a month. They were taking the Underground to Kew Gardens and the platform was abnormally crowded that day. Erik's shoelaces came loose and he bent down to tie them while Shayne was checking the map on his mobile, oblivious to the presence of a few mischievous kids cavorting and running around. One of them must have got shoved down the platform by accident and Erik reached out to grab the child's hand, missing it by an inch. A train was approaching. He leapt down from the platform without thinking and scooped up the wailing child. The child's family and Shayne immediately rushed towards the edge. Erik hoisted the child up and handed him back to his parents. He thought he could easily climb back up but he was wrong. The platform was taller than he expected.

'Erik, quick!'

Shayne caught Erik's hand and attempted to pull him up but the train was faster. Somebody had tried to press the emergency button and terminate the movement, but –

'Erik!'

Erik let go of Shayne's hand and looked at his boyfriend one last time with a calm smile, as if assuring Shayne that it would be fine. Everything would be okay.

The train struck him, dragged him into the rails and soon his entire body vanished from sight, leaving splashes of crushed bones and blood behind.

Shayne remembered shrieking at the top of his lungs together with the other passengers on the platform. When the train eventually stopped, Erik's body was no more than a grotesque puddle of mashed flesh. He didn't know what he was thinking, just like the day he took Erik's hand on the rooftop. Nothing was fathomable. Nothing made sense anymore. Instead of waiting for them to retrieve Erik's remains form beneath the train, Shayne struggled out of the crowd. It was drizzling outside as he left the station. He stood in the rain for a long time and teetered on the street, unable to wipe Erik's cadaverous face off his conflicted mind. He didn't follow his dead body to the hospital this time. Once he was home, he scuttled upstairs and crashed into his room. He took the watch out of the drawer and pressed the crown almost out of instinct, as if it was the right and sole thing he could do. The hand started ticking, moving towards the third interval.

It doesn't hurt to try.

And if it didn't work, he would join him this time for real.

His vision was soon subsumed by darkness. He fell weakly on the ground and passed out. In his dream, they were back on the rooftop. Erik was smiling at him. He held out his hand and Shayne took it. Erik pulled him back from the abyss but he himself dissipated into a billow of smoke. Shayne clutched the smoke but it escaped through the gaps of his fingers. He was then engulfed by a mass of black feathers.

'Erik!'

He woke up screaming, back on his bed. This time, Erik was lying right beside him.

'Shayne? Are you alright?' Erik opened his eyes and gazed at Shayne, who was sitting up and sweating. Soon, his face was twisted in pain. He didn't dare look inside his shirt because he was sure a few more patches had surfaced and his previous blotches had darkened.

'Shayne?' Now Erik was sitting up as well. He wiped the sweat off Shayne's forehead and examined his perturbed face. 'Nightmare?'

The hand in the pocket watch had stopped ticking. Shayne checked the time in his phone. It was four in the morning and Erik was still next to him. They had planned to take a day trip to Kew Gardens that day. Shayne shook off the image of Erik's flattened body under the train. It hadn't happened yet. They still had time to fix things.

'I'm fine,' muttered Shayne. He shut his eyes and clenched his teeth, hoping that the pain would subside soon but it never did. The sensation of being pulped and ripped apart only got aggravated as he slipped out of bed. He wobbled to the bathroom and rinsed his face with tap water, trying to drown out the pain with the coldness. He rolled up his shirt and examined the increased number of bruises scattered over his body. He gulped and decided to ignore them, rushing back to the bedroom to find Erik waiting apprehensively in their bed. He smiled.

It worked.

Erik was safe. He would always be safe now.

Climbing back into the blanket, Shayne wrapped an arm around Erik, who in turn kissed his forehead and hummed till they both fell back asleep.

They never went to Kew Gardens that day and the train rolled over the child.

Another time they were invited to a party organised by their secondary schoolmates. Shayne went there purely for food and liquor but Erik thought it would be nice to catch up with some of their friends. They had fun chatting with the others, gobbling up some pizza and playing Truth or Dare. The music blasted all night and Erik invited Shayne to dance. He laughed when Shayne stumbled in every move because he had thought that Shayne's gentlemanly father should have given him plentiful training on dancing. A step here and there, Erik took Shayne's hands and they swayed randomly in the sitting room as dim lights flickered over their elated faces and other resplendent wiggling bodies.

'You seriously suck at dancing,' teased Erik, watching Shayne struggle with awkward movements that began to attract a few pair of taunting eyes.

'Shut up,' said Shayne, his face a deep shade of red. He quit dancing with Erik and went back to the small bar table the host had set up near the kitchen. There were bottles of drinks for them to refill their glasses. He picked a clean glass and poured lots of wine in it.

'Oh, come on,' said Erik with a pout, treading after Shayne to the bar table and flopped down next to him. 'It wasn't that bad.'

'Here,' said Shayne, handing Erik the drink. 'Why don't we just sit around and chill and maybe do what they're doing?' He tossed a glance at one of the couples making out in one corner. Now it was Erik's turn to blush. He took the glass from Shayne and mumbled, 'Vulgar.'

'You love me that way, babe,' said Shayne with a flirtatious wink.

And then it happened again. Nobody paid attention to this quiet, bespectacled, obese guy with greasy, dishevelled hair, a shirt far too small for him and a pair of filthy flip-flops that revealed his hairy toes. Had the host seen him coming, he wouldn't have let him in. The unshaved boy had sneaked in secretly in the middle of the party and everyone had practically forgotten his identity. Shayne recognised him though. He was called Peter or something, one of those who never spoke in class, always failed in his assessments, got framed for stalking girls, had his money extorted and was beaten up almost every single recess; the kind that teachers wouldn't bother to defend and everybody refrained from interacting with because of his unpleasant look and horrid stench.

Who would have thought that a guy once forced to a corner as a human sandbag every day would appear in a party uninvited with a Butcher's knife? After spying on everyone, learning that they had all got into some reputable college at some point, started their life anew, hooked up with a decent lifelong partner or achieved remarkable success at their work, this boy decided to show them what it was like being a drop out; a human piece of trash; a parasite in the lowest of society.

The first victim was the cheerleader everyone was dying to date back at school. Peter stabbed the blonde a couple of times and thrust her lifeless body aside before stabbing the next one that came into his sight. People started to scream and ran in different directions. Some larger guys tried to stop Peter but all got slashed and chopped in the midst of hysteria. Before Shayne and Erik could react from the ruckus, Peter was standing near them with a blood-stained face, producing those exasperated breaths that reminded Shayne of a manic beast. He wielded his knife and lunged towards Shayne – always the proud, wealthy top student in class. Shayne remembered rejecting this guy once when he asked for his notes. He even said that he should go home, wash his hair and get lost. The stab was intended for Shayne but Erik blocked it agilely. He kicked the boy from the side and tackled him to the ground with his own weight. As Erik fell on the boy, the blade delved into his stomach and almost in an instant, blood seeped through his lips. Peter stabbed Erik several times before shoving him off his body.

Shayne, driven frenzied by the scene, raced towards the psycho with a chair before he could sit up probably. Peter held up his knife and started slashing in random directions to block Shayne's attack. Shayne ignored the slashes and kept striking the murderer with the broken chair. Soon after, some other boys seized the chance to toss whatever they could find at Peter and some had managed to grab their own weapons from the kitchen. Within seconds, the paunchy boy was pressed to the ground and police sirens came blaring down the street.

Shayne clung to Erik's body. He covered his stab wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but the blood wouldn't stop trickling down Erik's chin and pouring out of his gashes, soaking his shirt and both of Shayne's hands. Shayne was whimpering and trembling, refusing to let go even when the paramedics arrived.

Erik's heart had stopped beating long ago. He left Shayne a smile before his body went numb in his arms.