The Phenomenon: Time Loop

Chapter 3: Are We Alone?

Injeonghagi sileo ajikdo geuriwo

How could I forget? Yaksokaenneunde

Injeonghagi sileo ihaehagi himdeureo

How could I forget the day you lied to me

The song played again, as it had played every morning since that first Monday. I had no means of counting other than my own memories. But I knew I had woken to the song enough I wished for the death. A few times, I'd considered it myself.

Every day, every Monday the fifth day of February, I died some horrible death. Some days, like the third one, I didn't even make it out of my apartment. I tried staying in bed twice, both times a tree collapsed right on top of me. I tried ignoring the phone entirely several times, slipping in the shower once, tripping onto my butcher knife another.

Shade seemed unaffected, the lucky bastard.

No one else seemed to realize that the day played out over and over. Kang Jiwoo called every morning. I'd asked her if she thought it odd it was Monday again. The death that day had been particularly gruesome. I chose not to think about it. Won Ara was as cheerful as ever, day in and day out.

April was a vindictive bitch. Sometimes she was worse than normal.

In fact, as I scrounged through my mind for something, anything I could do differently from what I had... I came up empty.

Eodi gaji malgo gyeote isseo jwo

Malhae bwatja imi neomu neujeosseo

Kkumeseodo geuryeowatdeon neo

Eoneusae byeonhae beoryeotji mwo

Hoksi molla doraol su itdago--

I answered my phone with a sigh. "Hello?"

"Is this Adi Frost?"

I froze, sitting up slowly in my bed.

That was not Kang Jiwoo. "Chan?"

I winced at the pitch of my own voice. In desperate hope, I checked the date and time: 5am... February 5th. My shoulders wilted before I remembered that this was different from all the previous days. That Chan was the one calling. Not Jiwoo.

"I don't have a lot of time," he said in a whispered rush. As if I don't have all the time in the world, I thought bitterly. I heard rustling cloth, then a deep breath. "Please, please tell me you are also living Monday over and over again."

For a second, I couldn't voice a response.

He sighed, probably taking my silence as an answer.

"No, no, no," I managed to squeak. Emotion choked my words, but I pushed through. "I am too. I thought... I thought I was alone."

"Fuck," he breathed, the relief in his voice behind the expletive nearly tangible. "So we're not alone."

"I've lost count of how many times I've died," I cried, tears spilling over my cheeks unbidden. "How do we fix it? Is it something we can fix?"

"I don't know," he replied. His voice was gravel, and I was reminded he was my age once again. "What have you tried?"

"We'd be here until Jiwoo calls me in three hours if I tried to go over everything," I told him. "I know exactly how the day goes forward and back unless I change something, and the something I change only manages to kill me every day. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later."