JOLT.
Ethan opened his eyes. The transition was barely perceptible now, a smooth slide from the quiet green slope beside the Cloisters – Clara's vacant eyes staring up at the leaves, the mundane rock stained dark – back to the familiar pattern of the bedroom ceiling. Loop Twelve. The memory didn't bring the sharp spike of adrenaline or the crushing weight of fresh grief anymore. Instead, it settled like silt, a fine layer of cold, grey dust coating everything, muting sensation, dulling thought.
He had tried to give her a good day. He had tried to focus solely on her, ignoring the ticking clock, suppressing the hyper-vigilance that had proven so useless. And she had died anyway. A loose flagstone. A stray rock. The universe hadn't even needed elaborate pyrotechnics this time; simple gravity and bad luck, weaponized at the exact right moment, had sufficed. The effort towards kindness had been just as futile as the efforts towards protection. Everything he did, or didn't do, seemed utterly irrelevant to the final outcome.
The scent of coffee brewing crept under the door. Normally, this was his cue – get up, face her, pretend, strategize, fail again. But today, the motivation simply wasn't there. The engine had stalled. Why bother? Why endure the charade of another ordinary morning when the day was already scripted towards tragedy? Why put himself, and indirectly her, through the motions?
He heard her moving around the apartment – the clink of mugs, the quiet footsteps. He didn't move. Stared at the ceiling. Watched the dust motes dance in the invading sunlight. They seemed freer than he was. He heard her pause outside the bedroom door, then the soft creak as she opened it slightly.
"Ethan?" Her voice was tentative, already laced with the worry carried over from his strained behavior. "Are you awake?"
He remained still, silent, breathing evenly, facing the wall. After a moment, he heard her sigh softly and pull the door mostly closed again. He felt a distant pang of something – guilt? Regret? – at causing her worry, but it was buried deep beneath layers of profound apathy. Caring felt like too much effort, like participating in a rigged game designed solely to inflict pain.
He stayed in bed long after he heard the front door close, signaling her departure for work. The silence that filled the apartment wasn't heavy this time; it was just empty. Vast. Meaningless. He didn't feel grief in the same sharp way; it was a dull, chronic ache now, the background radiation of his existence.
Eventually, hours later, perhaps close to noon, sheer physical discomfort forced him to move. Bladder pressure, thirst. He got up slowly, his body feeling stiff, unused. He bypassed the kitchen, avoiding the ghost of coffee and humming. Used the bathroom. Drank water straight from the tap. Didn't look in the mirror.
He wandered into the living room. The throw blanket slightly askew on the sofa where Clara had read her book. He ignored them. He sat on the sofa, not sinking into the cushions, but perched stiffly on the edge, staring at the blank television screen.
His phone buzzed on the coffee table. He glanced at the caller ID – his office. Howard, probably wondering where he was. He ignored it. It buzzed again later. Ignored it. A text message alert followed. Ignored it. Work felt like something happening on a different planet, completely irrelevant to the stark, repeating reality he inhabited. What did blueprints or client meetings matter when measured against the certainty of Clara's death in a few hours?
Around 2:00 PM, his phone rang again. Clara's number. He stared at it, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet apartment. He knew he should answer, that ignoring her would only heighten her worry, potentially leading her to come home early, disrupting the passive track he was trying to let the day follow. With immense effort, he picked up.
"Ethan? Thank god! Are you okay?" Her voice was tight with anxiety. "Howard called me. Said you never showed up, aren't answering your phone. I've been calling your cell for an hour! What's wrong? Are you sick?"
"I'm fine," he said, his voice flat, toneless. "Just… needed a day. Didn't feel up to calling in."
A pause on the other end. "Didn't feel up to it? Ethan, that's not like you. People are worried. I'm worried sick! What is going on? You were so strange yesterday, and now this…"
"I'm just tired, Clara," he repeated dully. "Just need to rest."
"Tired doesn't mean you just disappear!" Her voice rose slightly, laced with frustration and fear. " Are you feeling… unsafe? Paranoid? Honey, maybe we should call Dr. Evans. Or I can come home right now-"
"No!" The word was sharper than he intended. He didn't want her here. Didn't want her worry, her attempts to help, her presence reminding him of everything he was about to lose again. "No, don't come home. I'm fine. Seriously. Just resting on the sofa. I'll… I'll see you tonight. Valenti's?" He threw in the name of the restaurant like a pathetic scrap of normalcy, hoping it would placate her.
There was a long silence on the line, filled only with the faint crackle of the connection. He could almost feel her struggling, torn between respecting his wishes and acting on her fear for his well-being. "Okay, Ethan," she said finally, her voice small, uncertain. "If you're sure you're alright. But please, answer your phone if I call again later? Just so I know?"
"Okay," he agreed numbly.
"I love you," she added softly before hanging up.
The words landed without impact, hollow echoes in the vast emptiness inside him. He put the phone down, the simple conversation leaving him feeling profoundly drained, as if he'd run a marathon. He sank back against the sofa cushions, the fabric rough against his cheek, and closed his eyes. Waiting. Not preventing, not participating, just waiting for the inevitable curtain call at 5:17 PM. The apathy was a heavy shroud, smothering thought, smothering feeling.
He must have drifted off, succumbing to the sheer weight of exhaustion and despair. It wasn't restful sleep, more like a grey limbo filled with disconnected flashes – sunlight on water, falling leaves, the sharp glint of polished metal. He surfaced abruptly, not from a jolt this time, but jolted awake by a sound. A distinct, insistent creaking from directly overhead.
He opened his eyes groggily. The light in the room had shifted, softened. Late afternoon. He turned his head to the digital clock on the wall , squinting at the screen. 5:16 PM. One minute.
The creaking intensified, loud now, accompanied by a visible trembling in the bulky, old-fashioned ceiling fan mounted precariously in the aged plaster above the sofa. A fine shower of dust and plaster debris rained down, catching the slanted sunlight.
Ethan stared up at it, his mind sluggish, still half-caught in the dregs of sleep and apathy. He registered the danger intellectually – old building, heavy fixture, failing support – but the emotional response, the instinct for self-preservation, was buried beneath layers of soul-crushing fatigue. This was it, then. The loop's chosen method for this iteration. How pedestrian.
The creaking culminated in a sharp, violent CRACK, the sound of old wood giving way entirely. The entire fixture, plaster crumbling around its base, detached from the ceiling and plummeted downwards. Directly towards him.
For a fleeting instant, the primal urge to survive flickered – throw himself sideways, roll off the sofa. But it was extinguished almost immediately by a stronger, colder thought: Maybe this is it. Maybe this is the exit. If it hit him, killed him right here, now, would the loop break? Would Clara be spared? Could he finally rest? The thought wasn't suicidal in the active sense, but a passive acceptance, almost a yearning for cessation. Let it happen.
He didn't move. Closed his eyes again, strangely calm, waiting for the impact, for the oblivion.
He heard the terrifying rush of air, the groan of tortured metal. Felt the explosive concussion as something heavy hit the sofa right beside him with enough force to bounce the entire frame. Splinters and plaster dust rained down on his face. But there was no crushing agony, no instantaneous darkness.
He opened his eyes, bewildered. He was alive. Untouched, except for the dust. He pushed himself up slightly, looking down.
The heavy ceiling fan hadn't struck him. It had embedded itself deeply into the sofa cushions right next to where he lay, its fall apparently slightly off-center. One of the heavy, faux-wood blades had sliced cleanly through the upholstery and deep into the springs and frame.
Then he saw her.
Lying beside him on the sofa, so close they must have been almost touching. Clara. Her eyes were open, wide and unseeing, staring straight up at the gaping hole in the ceiling. He hadn't even realized she was there. She must have come home early, seen him asleep, and quietly laid down beside him, perhaps too worried or tired to wake him.
And the heavy fan blade, the one embedded in the sofa inches from his own body, had sliced cleanly, impossibly, horrifically, through her neck as it landed. Her head lay detached, resting incongruously against the armrest, tilted slightly towards him, her familiar features slack in instantaneous death.
Ethan stared, his mind struggling to process the sheer, visceral horror. The visual was so grotesque, so unexpected, it bypassed shock and plunged straight into a nightmarish unreality. He had wished, passively, for the fan to hit him, to end his torment. And instead, inches away, it had performed a monstrous, accidental execution on Clara while she lay sleeping beside him. Because she had come home early, likely out of concern for him.
The universe wasn't just killing her; it was using his own apathy, his own passive death wish, as the instrument. It wasn't just mocking him; it was implicating him in the most gruesome way imaginable.
He scrambled backwards off the sofa, stumbling over debris, his breath catching in ragged, tearing gasps. He backed away until he hit the opposite wall, sliding down it, unable to tear his eyes from the horrific tableau on the sofa. The quiet apartment, the late afternoon light, the stillness… framing an image of pure, unadulterated horror. 5:17 PM had arrived. And this time, the result wasn't just tragic; it was obscene. The weight of stillness had brought not peace, but atrocity.