Chapter 1: Fractured Reality

Scene 1: The Alarming Ritual

Sylvia Lee counted the cracks in the bus windowpane for the twentieth time.

Minute by minute, the fissures spiderwebbed across the acrylic—exactly as they had during the previous seven iterations. Her fingers traced the jagged lines, memorizing their angles like a soldier memorizing a battlefield map.

This ritual became her only semblance of control in a world that refused to follow physics.

The Coastal Highway 45B bus, its paint peeling like old skin, rumbled along its familiar route. She could recite every pothole by heart: the one at mile marker 13.7 where a drunk driver swerved into oncoming traffic last February, the puddle near the bridge entrance that always reflected a distorted moon.

Today, however, something was off.

The hum of the engine felt slightly off-pitched—a violist tuning her instrument a semitone sharp. Sylvia blinked, convinced it was fatigue talking. After all, she'd only slept three hours before boarding—due to that blasted music box melody invading her dreams again.

Scene 2: The Awakening

The blaring ringtone proved her wrong.

A Baroque music box melody, not the generic pop songs that plagued her subconscious. The notes vibrated through her bones, amplifying the queasiness in her stomach. Sylvia gripped the rusted seatback, her nails digging into the fabric. This wasn't a dream—it was the same song that had awakened her during the first... and second... and now third anomaly.

"Miss?" A gravelly voice cut through the chaos.

Driver Joe's face loomed inches from hers, his left eye flickering with an unnatural blue glow. Sylvia froze. In prior loops, he'd always called her "Sweetheart" with a smoker's rasp. Today, his lips formed,and that mechanical eye... it pulsed like a strobe light.

Panic clawed at her rational mind. She opened her phone to check the time—1:17 PM. The digital clock flickered twice before stabilizing. In every iteration, the anomaly occurred precisely at 1:17:03, but today's seconds stretched into eternity.

Then came the crash.

Scene 3: The Geometry of Violence

Reality unfolded in slow motion.

Sylvia watched her reflection in the cracked windshield wobble like a funhouse mirror. The bus's brake lights screamed red, but the vehicle kept accelerating. Passengers尖叫merged into a single distorted note, harmonizing with the music box's eerie cadence.

Her head struck the seatback with the force of a sledgehammer.

But this time, pain registered. Cranial trauma pulsed through her temples, and her nose filled with the acrid smell of burning rubber. Unlike previous loops where she blacked out instantly, she remained conscious—witnessing the horror unfold in excruciating detail.

A woman in the front rowed, her high heels slipping off as the car careened onto the median. Sylvia saw her life flash before her—not in memories, but in fractal fragments: the woman's earrings glinting, the paint flaking off the bus's "Safe Travel" decal, the homeless man sleeping on the bridge railing, his tattered lab coat pocket bulging with mysterious instruments.

Then silence.

Complete, suffocating silence.

Except for the music box.

It continued playing, its melody now intertwined with the distant hum of approaching sirens. Sylvia's vision blurred as she realized: the ambulance lights outside the window... were rotating clockwise.

Scene 4: The Fractures of Memory

Reality shimmered like a soap opera on bad reception.

Sylvia opened her eyes to find herself back in the bus. No injuries. No screaming passengers. Only the driver, his mechanical eye now calm and steady.

"Time to disembark, Sweetheart."

His voice was normal now. The music box stopped. Sylvia stood unsteadily, her knees trembling. On previous occasions, she'd exited immediately, eager to escape the confines of the looping nightmare. Today, something held her back.

A piece of glass caught her attention.

Embedded in the seat cushion, a shard from the windshield. In prior loops, the glass had been whole. She picked it up, inspecting the tiny cracks running through it—not random, but following a precise geometric pattern.

That's when she noticed the writing.

Etched into the glass with what looked like blood: "13:17".