Learning to Love Time Loops Without Going Insane

Loop 25

Cal woke up to someone’s hands around his throat. His room was still dark. It was the start of a new loop, and someone was already here, trying to kill him. He tried to pull the hands off his neck with no luck. He struggled and thrashed, trying to make as much noise as possible. He needed help; his vision was getting blurry. He tried a last-ditch effort of channeling a lightning blast between them. Nothing happened. He slipped into unconsciousness with his last realization of this loop. He couldn’t feel his core.

Loop 26

Cal woke up to someone’s hands around his throat. It was happening again. Instead of struggling, he tried to channel any mana. He was unable to. Every attempt he made to touch his core failed. Somehow, whoever was killing him had cut off his magic.

Loop 27

Cal woke up to someone’s hands around his throat. This was the reality he was now stuck with. He had to relax and take in every detail he had access to. This wasn’t forever. Unlike the person who was choking him, he had unlimited time to solve this problem. He just had to take this one step at a time.

He could make out what he was sure were three arms. Two of them were being used to choke him, and a third had its palm pressed against his forehead, pushing him down. So, this probably wasn’t a human. Or there was a second person out of his vision. That didn’t matter. For now, he was going to work on the theory of a single three-armed person. His vision blurred again. How long had it taken? In the next loop, do nothing and count your time. Ensure you get an accurate count, he told himself before his world went black.

Loop 28

Cal woke up to someone’s hands around his throat. He ignored the hands this time and started a count. One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi, Four Mississippi, Five Mississippi, Six Mississippi, Seven Mississippi, Eight Mississippi, Nine Mississippi, Ten Mississippi, Eleven Mississippi, Twelv…

Loop 29

Cal woke up to someone’s hands around his throat. He had eleven and a half seconds. That was plenty of time. No rush at all. He could do this. He tried pushing his head against the hand, holding him down with all the strength he could muster. Nothing budged.

Loop 30

Cal woke up to someone’s hands around his throat. He slammed his hands as hard as he could against the wrists on his neck. The pressure loosened slightly. He took a giant gasp of air. He had gained some time. The hands pushed against his neck worse than before. He was pretty sure he had gained a couple of seconds this loop. He needed more.

Loop 31

Cal woke up to someone’s hands around his throat. He punched the figure in its side the moment he became aware. It released his neck in shock. The hand on his forehead didn’t move. It was two people. He rolled to the side, trying to get out from under the hand on his head. He felt the first figure back on top of him. Something hard hit the side of his head. It was suddenly hard to think. He tasted blood.

Loop 32

Cal woke up to someone’s hands around his throat. Okay, that was a different result. He hit the figure again. Instead of rolling, he tried to kick his legs above his head this time. He learned that he was not nearly limber enough to do that. His back screamed in pain, and he missed the figure entirely, but they did lose their hold on his head.

“Dammit, just shoot him. We don’t have time for this.” It ordered.

Cal felt a blinding pain in his chest. A loud booming sound accompanied it.

Loop 33

Cal woke up to someone’s hands around his throat. They had guns. This would take even longer to solve. Punch, kick. Head free.

“DON’T SHOOT!” He tried a new path. It did startle them, buying him another few seconds.

“BUG, DAD HELP!” He screamed as he tried to roll off the bed before another gunshot. He didn’t make it.

Loop 34

Cal woke up to someone’s hands around his throat. He was firmly starting to understand how Andrew got so cranky. Instead of a punch to the side, he slammed his hand under the left wrist, choking him. He knocked it loose and grabbed it with his other hand. He opened his mouth and pushed the fingers in, biting down as hard as possible. He tasted blood. The figure was screaming in pain. Good. He spat two fingers out.

“Hard to fire a gun without fingers, isn’t it.” He tried intimidation. He again felt something hard hit in the back of his head. Dammit, he needed to get away from both of them and make sure they can’t shoot. He tried to roll out of bed but failed to avoid the next crushing blow.

Loop 35

Cal woke up to someone’s hands around his throat. After biting the fingers off, he instead put both hands around the arm, holding his head down, and pulled strongly down towards him. He spat the fingers and blood into the figure's face as soon as he saw it. They weren’t humans, after all. This one only had one central eye. He started to wonder how they spoke English but pushed the thought aside before it went too far. There were many, far more critical things to concentrate on here. He jabbed his fingers into the creature’s eye. It screamed in pain.

“SHOOT HIM ALREADY!” It yelled again this loop.

Cal kept himself between the yeller and the one with the gun. It didn’t work. He felt the bullets go through the body on top of him and into himself. He coughed several times before everything went black.

Loop 36

Cal woke up to someone’s hands around his throat. He was starting to have trouble controlling his anger. It caused him to screw up the bite and catch his own tongue with the attacker’s fingers. He screamed in pain. Which quickly increased as he felt the gunshot again.

Loop 37

Cal woke up to someone’s hands around his throat. He ordered himself to stay calm and focused. He had to find the way out of this. Everyone was counting on him. Punch the wrist, bite the fingers. Now what? He grabbed the wrist again, and instead of yanking the being attached to it onto himself, he tried what had worked so well already. He took another hard bite, severing several more fingers.

Both figures were screaming now. He charged at the one with the gun. It took his entire body to knock it over. He had to remember he was back in his child frame. Throwing his weight around wasn’t going to work here.

Something smashed into the door from the outside. He heard angry barking. It distracted him just long enough for the second creature to hit him with a lamp in the head. At least he knew what they had been hitting him. He collapsed to the ground. He felt the boots impact on his face as Bug tried to break the door down too late to help.

Loop 38

Cal woke up to someone’s hands around his throat. He repeated everything up until Bug’s bark. This time, he kept his focus, expecting it.

“BUG BREAK THE DOOR DOWN!” He screamed at her. From the sounds of it, she was doing her best to comply.

He rolled himself over and kicked out hard upwards. He broke the lamp before it could make contact with his head. He threw himself sideways just as Bug burst through the door. He had an ally now.

“Cal, what should I do?!” She sounded furious.

“Rip their throats out. They’ve killed me a dozen times already.” Cal had zero empathy for the creatures.

The one on the ground pulled something out of his jacket, and the entire room went fuzzy. Cal felt himself collapse back to the ground. He saw Bug and the standing monster do the same.

“Sorry, brother, no choice.” It tossed away a tiny object and pulled out a gun, pointing at Cal. “This would have been much less painful if you hadn’t fought back.” It fired.