The Loop

Chapter Four

There's a blinding white light. It takes Scully a minute, but eventually her eyes adjust, and she takes a look around. She sees a race track, tall bleachers, a few concession stands, and no Mulder.

"Mulder?" she calls out.

"Over here!" she hears from behind. She turns around to see Mulder standing only a few yards away, looking a bit dazed and confused, just like her. She hurriedly walks over to him.

"Where are we?" Scully asks as she reaches Mulder.

"I think we're at the racing track."

"How did we get here?" she asks, slightly shaking her head in confusion. Mulder pauses, looking around.

"I don't know."

"Well then, that makes two of us." Looking around once more, Scully turned her gaze back to Mulder, who was staring at her, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Are you picking up a faint deja vu vibe? Because I am." Mulder stated. Hearing this gave Scully the chills. It did seem as though she had done this before. Something weird was going on, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

"Yeah, me too." she agreed with a small nod. Mulder looked at her, a bit surprised.

"Really?"

"Yeah." she replied. Looking around again, Scully noticed something. "There are no police."

"Huh. Maybe they packed up early."

"Why would they do that if they knew that we were coming?"

"I don't know." Mulder resolved with a frown. "Let's go see if we can find anyone." he suggested, and with a nod of Scully's head, the two began to walk in hopes of finding someone to talk to.

As they began to walk past the race track, Mulder stopped, pointing at something on the ground.

"What's that?" he asked. Furrowing her eyebrows, Scully walked over to what seemed to be a wallet lying on the ground. It looked oddly familiar.

"Someone must've dropped their wallet." she said as she approached it, then leant down and picked it up. Walking back to Mulder, Scully turned it over a few times in her hand, examining it. The object seemed really familiar now that she was getting a closer look. Too familiar. In fact...

Scully opened the wallet, now examining the inside with a look of confusion and disbelief.

"Mulder..." she began, but trailed off due to her lack of words. Mulder stepped closer and took the object from her with caution, slowly opening it, only to be severely shocked by the contents. What they had thought was a wallet had actually turned out to be a badge. And not just any badge, but Scully's badge. Mulder began to examine it, taking out the I.D. to look at, then inspected the badge, but only to come to the conclusion that it was indeed Scully's actual Federal Bureau of Investigation badge.

"Scully, check your pockets." catching on and doing as he said, Scully began to check every pocket on her.

"It's not on me, Mulder. I don't have my badge. But how in the hell could it have ended up here?" she asked. Mulder didn't answer. He was too busy staring ahead at nothing. He seemed to be deep in thought. "Mulder?"

"I... I don't know, Scully." he finally answered. They stood there for a moment, trying to figure out how Scullys badge could have ended up at the racing grounds, but they couldn't come up with a genuine answer. "Okay, I think we should just continue to look for an officer, and then we can try to figure out how your badge ended up here." Mulder suggested. Scully nodded in agreement, and after taking one last skeptical look at her badge, she stuffed it into her pocket, noticing something.

"Huh. I could've sworn I had a tissue in here."

The two agents made their way to the scene of the suicide, which was on the ground at back of the bleachers. As they arrived and began to look around, they were surprised at how there was no evidence of suicide whatsoever.

"This is impossible, Mulder. How can there be no blood stain? I mean, I can get that they probably tried to clean it up, but still, I just don't think that-"

"Scully!" Mulder interrupted, bringing Scullys attention to him.

"What?" she asked, looking back at him. Noticing that he wasn't facing her, she followed his gaze, only to be met with a terrible sight. A man was standing at the top of the bleachers, on the outer side of the railing, looking as though he were about to jump. Just then, Mulder broke out into a sprint. Scully quickly began to follow after him, and soon the two of them were sprinting up the steps of the bleachers, but it was already too late. Once they reached the top, the man had already been lying on the ground for a few seconds. Out of breath and terrified, Scully and Mulder stared down at the man's body, watching as blood oozed out from under him. Scully shivered, not from fright, but from the great sense of deja vu that had suddenly come over her. The feeling caused Scully to look up, where she met face to face with Mulder, who she was pretty sure had just felt the same overwhelming sensation as well. As they continued to stare at each other, silently searching for answers, suddenly, everything went black.