Vanilla Dusk ✓

Loop Part 11

Shayne didn't use the watch in the bank that day. He couldn't risk wasting the last chance. When Shayne went back home bedraggled and weary, his father was sitting cross-legged on the sofa.

'I've been waiting for you,' said the blond-haired man as-a-matter-of-factly, as he stopped scrolling the news on his phone and met Shayne's eyes. Before Shayne could ask him to leave him alone, his father had already stood up and trod towards him, cornering him to the door. 'I knew something was up. Give it back to me.'

'What are you –'

'The pocket watch, Shayne,' commanded his father, waving his hand in the air. 'Where's it? You've been using it for a while, right?' His eyes were fixed on a bruise behind Shayne's wrinkled collar, stretching across his neck. Shayne was astounded, to say the least. So the watch wasn't just a random antique discarded in the storage room. It belonged to his father. He wondered if he had ever used it and messed up everything.

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'Shayne, listen,' growled his father, clasping Shayne's collar and shaking him vigorously. 'Don't ever touch that catastrophic thing, I'm warning you! Give it back to me.'

Shayne smacked away his father's hands and dashed towards the stairs. His father chased after him as he climbed upstairs and retreated to his room in a second flat.

'Open the door!' cried his father, banging the door deliriously. 'Damn it, you've got to listen to me for once.' His father kept yelling while try to boot open the door. 'I don't know how you dug that out from the storage room but you must dump that thing! I know you've been using it on Erik but it's not going to work. That bewitched trinket doesn't grant you the power to change the course of history. You're only creating multiple dimensions. If something's meant to happen, it will still happen. He has to die, Shayne. You're only shortening your lifespan.'

Shayne curled up on his bed, gaping at the quaking door. He held his golden watch in one hand, Erik's silvery watch in another.

'Erik said he was saving me,' cried Shayne. 'I was supposed to die long ago.'

There was a pause on the other side of the door. He heard his father slide down to the ground and lean against the door with a sigh, his fingers tracing around the knob.

'Listen, Shayne,' urged the man. 'When I was your age, I met that special someone just like you – thought there was a reason for our lives to intersect with each other; thought there was a natural way to explain why we felt...so connected, as if we had seen each other before, lived through each other's memories, been together for a millennium. But as it turned out, this connection was jinxed. There are thousands, millions, billions of universes out there and some just aren't meant to cross or overlap. I never expected the curse would pass on to you and Erik. You think you've met him before? Yes, you have, and not just once, or twice, or thrice... probably many more times than you could imagine. It won't stop unless you break the loop now!'

'I don't get it,' said Shayne, hands shaking.

'Between you and Erik, only one can live or else it will never stop. Erik must have known it – that's what he's been trying to do. If you use the watch again, you will mess up everything. Now open the door!'

'No.'

'It feeds on your time and memories. It consumes your life and soul. You can't alter his fate or you'll have to suffer in his place. Look at your body!'

His father was twisting the knob furiously and when it didn't work, he came back with a screwer to pry it open. It all happened too fast for Shayne. He tried to decipher his father's speech but his head kept throbbing, flooded with Erik's face, his own face, the times they spent holding each other's hands, kissing, drinking, cooking, eating ice-cream, taking photos, hiking, picnicking, dancing and making love... These images were soon replaced by Erik's multiple dying faces, in different dimensions, at different times, in different forms and manners.

Erik had been trying to suffer in his place. He shouldn't have intervened with Erik's plan. He was the reason Erik had to go repeatedly through the same tribulation.

He wanted Shayne to live.

But Shayne wouldn't live without him.

'Time will overlap and gets distorted,' warned his father. 'You will get trapped forever.'

His father wrecked the door with a chair and stormed in.

'I couldn't save him,' said his father bitterly. 'And now I can't lose you too!'

'This is a dream,' whispered Shayne, refusing to believe that everything happening was real. He clenched his eyes and remembered the day he went to the rooftop. 'When I wake up again, everything will be fine. Erik, it's going to be fine.'

But if he had never met him that day, would any of these have happened?

What if...

Right.

His father raced towards him and a second before he could snatch the watch away from him, Shayne pressed the crown and smiled.

'I'll save you no matter what.'

Shayne fell to the ground and squirmed in pain as three bullet wounds appeared on his back. He saw the bank fly past his vision, followed by the woods where Erik drowned in the river, the mountain where Erik fell off the cliff, the streets where the plank and the metal pipe fell, the park where he was attacked by the hornets, the dormitory he was burnt to death, the sea where he was lost forever, the cinema that blew up his entire body, the party where he got stabbed to death and the train station where he got run over by a train.

Shayne's head began to pound wildly as the images drifted and swirled, compressed and ultimately burst like bubbles. His mind inched closer to implosion. Everything dispersed suddenly in his head and shattered into pieces. They vanished like the ring of smoke Erik had dissolved into. Erik's face faded gradually from his vision, his name no longer ringing in his ears. It had reverted back to random letters which Shayne couldn't glue back together. When all the throbbing ceased, Shayne was panting on the rooftop, the two watches rolling out of his palms towards the railing. He no longer felt painful and his mind was empty – an absolute piece of blank paper.

He had forgotten why and how he ended up there, but a voice kept echoing in his head, inciting him to walk closer to the railing, urging him to explore the beautiful world on the other side. He climbed over the railing uncontrollably and stood on the ledge. He gazed down at the street below.

His heart was exceptionally at peace.

He was back to that day, the day he first met Erik, but he no longer remembered this name.

There was no turning back. He was bound to jump.

They shouldn't have met.

Never.

He felt that he had been here many times. He had loved someone for more than a decade but he didn't remember who. There was a dream below and this time, he wasn't afraid to embrace it.

'I'll always, always, love you.'

He smiled, spread his wings and flew in the air.