Kill Me, Kiss Me

SIX

    THEODORE shot up, gasping.
   
The world spun around him, white, bright, glaring like a searchlight; it blinded him, he could not see. His feet stumbled backwards, and his back collided into a cold, hard wall. She was shot. The woman was shot. He needed to call the police!
   
His eyes spun wildly across the space, and he took out his phone with shaking hands.
   
12:10.
   
The same date.
   
Everything seemed to grate to a stop. Rubbing his eyes, he stared down at the black numbers on his lock-screen: 12:10. A coldness froze the very depths of his guts, and he looked up at the expanse around him. White walls, the gleaming silver of elevators, the golden number 10 pinned above the machine doors, the warm light that streamed in from the window beside him... where was he? This, this was not right.
   
He spun around slowly, breaths pulsing into his body in short pants. 12:10, the elevators, floor ten, yes, he had been to this floor for lunch at the cafeteria restaurant, but that, that had been hours ago. That was far before leaving work, riding the taxi, walking down that darkened street, hearing those crazed words, running and BANG!
   
Bang.
   
Theo's breath hitched, and he clenched his chest, the chasm of the hole through the woman's chest bleeding again and again before his eyes with that bitter iron in his mouth. That was real. It was! But then, what was all this? How could he be in that moonless, desolate street one moment and then here, more than six hours ago?
   
It was as if all that had been a nightmare; something he had conjured up in his mind.
   
Clutching his head, he ran through the corridors, past the turning heads of people, past the soft waft of food, past the impartial tick of the clock on the wall into the silence of a washroom. He hurtled across the tiled floor and gripped the edges of the sink, staring at the pallid face reflected in the mirror. It wasn't a face he was familiar with. He recognised the dark, flint hard eyes, the straight arrow of a nose, the thin pursed lips, but they made up the face of a shaken man. The twisted shadow of the man's face stabbed a needle through his chest. He hadn't look like that since... since the accident.
   
He had vowed to himself that he'd never look like that again.
   
Everything was all wrong.
   
Opening the tap to the largest flow, he splashed his face with the freezing coldness. Again and again, he tried to wipe away the molten hot stains left on his face and within his mind. But the scalding fever of her blood still seemed to burn through his skin.

It's only a game, he chanted through the turmoil of his mind, trying to drown out the fear in the woman's bright green eyes.
   
But shouldn't the time be up already? Shouldn't he be back home with Lily now, preparing for tomorrow's work?
   
The girls' hysterical screams sang in unison with the woman's desperate cries in his mind.
   
"Don't kill me!"
   
"...You'll probably die even if you do."
   
He couldn't seem to believe himself anymore. He looked up into those conflicted eyes and took a deep breath that swirled from his lungs down to the bottom of his feet. Calm down! That old command drove a glassy stillness through his twisted insides. There was nothing else he could do but calm down.

Wiping the cold water from his face, he tried to untangle the threads in his head. There could only be a few possibilities, either he had the ability to see into the future, or he had gone back into the past like a... save point. Both prospects ran a chill up his fingers. He was never wrong, even when he wished that he was, but this time, he truly hoped that there was still a slim chance that neither option was correct. And as for just when this game will end...

Theo shook his head and threw the crumpled paper towel into the bin with a violent force.

A soft whistle spiralled from the entrance.

His head jerked upwards. There, at the door stood a man with impossibly smooth dark caramel skin and sharp fox eyes that swung over him with bored amusement. The man strode in, graceful and flawless from the very core of his aura. Not a mark marred his white Italian suit, not a crease was out of place.

Theo straightened, his muscles tightening with a strained ache. This man too, was of the same sort as Alexandr, he could tell from the very way he walked, head lifted, eyes lofty with egotism. It made the amusement dancing in those orbs all the more nauseating. He gave the man an undisguised head to foot appraisal, but the bloody redness of the man's tie cut straight into him, and he bit back a flinch.

The man's lips lifted marginally, his probing gaze still fixed on him. Theo's jaw tightened, and he turned to leave. What was his goddamned problem? Was there something on his face?

Ding! That electric ring buzzed through his ears, and his heart fell straight into his core.

"Game target Elyas Azer met, relationship status opened."
   
Theo's fingers tightened and the urge to crunch his fist into a wall ripped up his arm. What was this stupid system even doing? Do they fucking think that he had the time or heart to be dating?
   
One more time and he swore he'd break a mirror.
   
"Do you work here?" The man's voice rippled through the space like oud music, but even his beautiful acoustic voice couldn't hide the hubris.
   
He glanced back, lips turning down at the shimmering 5% in the heart, "Yes, I do."
   
The irony in the man's eyes deepened, and he finally drew his gaze away, "That's rather hard to believe, with a face looking like that."
   
Tapping his fingers on the side of his thigh, Theo narrowed his gaze, "And why is that?"
   
The man shook his head, running his slim hands under the tap.
   
"Hmph." Theo whipped away and pushed through the door, away from the man but not from the irritation. This game was filled with nothing but trash, and he refused to be on the same level as them.

   When he returned to the office, the work that awaited him were the exact same as he had to do 'before'. He had half expected it after having the same daily special in the restaurant, but only now that the instructions were given to him again, did his hypotheses seem more and more true. The only difference he could name was meeting that second capture target... The first time, he hadn't felt sick and therefore never needed to go to that washroom. It was natural that he'd avoid meeting the man. But this time, that had changed.
   
What else would change because of that meeting?
   
It seemed more and more likely that instead of foretelling the future, he had truly gone back in time. But what had been the trigger? The woman's death or... his own death?
   
A bitterness washed the back of his throat, and he tried to concentrate on the work, but no matter how hard he tried, the thoughts kept creeping back. He finished a whole hour later than last time, and by the time he expected to be dismissed, that horrible headache had sprung back within his skull. Glancing at his watch, each second ticked in time to the pounding in his head. Sometime around now, 10 past 6, Alexandr should be coming to send him away, that is, if his hypothesis was true.

Clack.

Theo straightened in his chair, but a second later, his brows furrowed. There was one more set of footsteps; something had changed.

Alexandr's long legs rounded the corner, his hair coming loose of its gel, and yes, every detail was as he remembered, but apart from that, nothing was the same. The man in white strode by his side, and when their eyes clashed like ice and fire, he stopped in front of the desk, lips bending upwards like they had done before.

Those dark irises drew over his face again, like they had done before at lunch, but the only thing he said this time was, "Interesting... You really do work here."

Ding!

The number in the white heart rose to 8%.

Alexandr too stopped before Theo's desk, but his black eyes seemed to darken a fraction at the man's words, and his gaze wasn't quite as neutral as before. He gave his watch a quick glance, and said nonchalantly, "You can leave for today."
   
Theo studied the two of them, a turbulence rippling through his stomach, and just before he stood to leave, another electrical pulse pinged uneasily through the silence. Dun dun. The 6% within Alexandr's bubble dropped all the way down to 3% again. His brows creased sharply and without looking at the two, he knew that they had caught onto his change.

Alexandr's gauge had risen before, when he had left the office, but this time, it had dropped for no reason. Or was the reason, the man's fly-away remark?

He couldn't care less, it didn't matter.

"Have a good evening Mr Hew, and Mr... Azer." He said, leaving his seat.

The man's brows flew upwards. Ding! The 8% turned into a 10%, and before Theo could even fully leave the office, a huge crashing Dun slashed through the space. His shoulders flinched, and he glanced backwards quickly. Alexandr and the man were already heading towards the office, but the percentage above the COO's head was now a grand total of 1%.

Well, fuck, he had more things to worry about, like Mariah.

She was going to end up dead.