Time Loops

“It started because you didn’t want to go, correct? You stayed home? A regret you’d like to fix?” The demon in the shadowy corner of her bedroom tilted his head.

Normally, Avery wouldn’t want anything to do with demons. They had limited power in the mortal world. If she saw one, she should leave the room, maybe call an exorcist.

But this was not a normal time. He was sort of right. She wanted to fix her mistake, and this demon granted wishes. He didn’t even make deals, he just gave people something. So she took his hand, and made her wish.

Her eyes shut. When she worked them open, she was lying on her bed again, but bright light was streaming into the room. She could hear her sister, Clover, shrieking with glee out in the hall.

Avery stared at the door, listening to the shrieks and thundering footsteps. She heard her mom’s more exasperated voice, asking for quiet. Meanwhile, her dad yawned, and she was pretty sure he asked what was going on. They were alive again.

There had been an accident on April 12^th, the night Clover had a concert. Avery hadn’t wanted to go, had been very insistent on it. A middle school orchestra would never be good. It was on a Saturday, and she wanted to enjoy her day off. She’d claimed she had important things to do, which was technically true, but she hadn’t planned to do any of them. She had slammed the door to her bedroom, and huddled up, hearing her family eventually leave without her.

It felt like it had been all of five minuets before she heard the news. Something in the school basement exploded, and caused huge damage in the building above. Her family was dead. Apparently, two close friends were too. Avery wasn’t the only one who had younger siblings at the middle school. (Just the only one who hadn’t gone.)

She didn’t get out of bed the next day. She didn’t leave the bedroom the day after. Locked in her room with the blinds closed, she wasn’t sure how many days it was before the demon appeared.

But he had, and her family was back now. Avery got out of bed and opened the door to the upstairs landing. She moved slowly, turning her head like she was still asleep. Sun was beaming through an open window down the hall. Her dad had a work bag on the stairs that he’d taken to the concert. A toilet flushed further down the hall. To her left, her mom stepped out of her bedroom.

“Oh. Good morning, Avery dear.” She frowned, moving a hand up to brush some hair out of Avery’s face, and check her forehead. “Are you alright? You seem awfully pale.”

“I’m fine,” Avery automatically assured her. A smile spread across her face, and she almost laughed. Or cried? “Everything is fine.”

But that didn’t last very long. Apparently, it was April 12^th again, which meant the same events were going to play out, and they were going to play out very soon.

Avery didn’t know how to stop the others from going to the concert. Magic was common. Avery herself had a magic wristwatch. But her parents knew she didn’t want to go. Making up an elaborate lie involving magic wouldn’t be out of the question from their perspective. And okay, maybe she didn’t want to fight her parents again.

So, she went with them. Almost as soon as they were inside, she slipped away, and went snooping for an entrance to the basement. She made it in time to see an explosion rushing towards her.

Avery woke up in bed with a gasp. The sun was streaming outside and there were some . . . familiar voices outside.

So, she had multiple tries to get this right. She was in a time loop of sorts. Okay. Right. She could do this.

After breakfast, Avery put on her shoes, and her watch, and zipped to the school. Her magic wristwatch let her go at super speeds, so it wasn’t hard. She wasn’t entirely sure how the watch worked. She needed it to go super fast, but it only worked for her, and she’d just found it in a secondhand store, so it wasn’t like it came with instructions. But it would help her now, and that was the important part.

Avery was able to get to the basement fairly easily, having already done it last time, but getting down there early didn’t help her. She didn’t know enough about the stuff down here to know what was wrong, or how to fix it. Maybe if she sabotaged the concert area, it would be postponed?

Yeah. That worked actually. The concert was moved to Sunday, and no one knew Avery was behind it. Clover was disappointed, but she was alive. Their mom decided they’d go out to dinner instead, keep Clover’s mind off it. The family got into the car. They were smiling, and talking, and not about to drive to that doomed concert.

A truck barreled across the intersection and hit their car. Avery was flung out by the impact, tumbling across the ground and probably getting several serious injuries. But she was alive. Anyone who’d stayed in the car probably couldn’t say the same.

The next time Avery went back, she faked being sick. She realized it was a bad idea almost immediately, but it was too late to go back on the idea. While she was convincing, the last three timelines made distress easy, only her dad stayed home to watch her. Her mom and Clover went ahead to the concert. It was part of Clover’s grade after all, not something you just skipped. Then her dad, worried about her, went to get medicine for her.

Avery was once again the only surviving member of her family, and the day hadn’t even reset yet. She zipped to the roof, and glared at the moon like it was a certain demon.

“I bet you think you’re real funny, don’t you?! Well, if you think I’m giving up, you’re wrong!” She balled her hands into fists. “I have super speed and infinite retries! I can beat you!”

The next time, she tried to convince her family she was in a time loop. They didn’t believe her.

She tried again to convince them. This time, she had enough foreknowledge for them to believe her. It didn’t . . . actually take that much.

It had worked well. They wouldn’t be going to the concert. But there was one more thing to worry about. Avery had to warn her friends as well. So while everyone else was busy, she slipped out with her watch to save her friends.

She tripped on a curb and fell across the ground going about 100 miles an hour. She wanted to scream.

When she next woke up, she had slept in. She always was brought back to the same time in the morning, but somehow it was later in the day by now, and the house was empty. She remembered from the other loops that her mom and Clover had been planning to go to a park? Well, better find which park.

***

A certain shadow demon sat and watched multiple timelines at once from Below. He watched Avery and her family die in multiple unpleasant ways all at once, but that arguably wasn’t the worst part for dear Avery.

She couldn’t save everyone she wanted to. That would be impossible. She foolishly hadn’t wished for that, either. She’d wished to fix her regrets. Before the time loops, her last interaction with her family had been fighting them, and locking herself in her room to ignore them without even saying goodbye. And who knew when she’d last spent time with those friends of hers. There were regrets that could easily be fixed without all of them living. And Avery could stop looping whenever she decided she was done.

But she’d never decide that. In fact, she was less likely to end it with each new try. The sunken cost fallacy.

The demon smiled. He enjoyed his job.