Time Looped

Nine minutes remained until the start of class. That was nine minutes more than there were supposed to be. There could be no mistake: the old school clock showed so, a few people Will had asked said so, even his own phone displayed a time that couldn’t be real.

Two thoughts passed through the boy’s mind. Either he was going crazy, or someone had pulled him back in time to experience the last ten minutes of his life all over again. Neither option was good, but one was worse than the other.

Will rushed straight to the restroom. Planting himself at the nearest sink, he stared forward at his own reflection. The reflection stared back.

“Hello, boredom,” Will whispered. Nothing happened. “Hello, boredom!” he said louder, then punched the face of his reflection.

A loud noise of shattering glass filled the room, accompanied by pain.

“Hell!” Will bent down, holding his fist as the pain shot up his entire arm to the shoulder. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

Shards of glass were sticking from his skin. A dull burning sensation suggested that he might have broken something.

The bathroom violently swung open.

“Stone!” the coach yelled. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

An increasingly large group of students was gathering behind him, all eager to see the spectacle. And a true spectacle it was. What was left of the leftmost section of the mirror broke off the clips connecting it to the wall, shattering into the sink.

“Geez, kid!” The large man rushed in, pulling Will away. “What’s up with you? Are you hurt?”

Will stared blankly in reply, his mind still trying to figure out what was going on. He had been so sure that he’d gone back in time. The self-repairing mirror, the messages, ending it up ten minutes in the past, all had seemed so real.

“Hold your arm,” the coast said, carefully taking the boy into the corridor to the delight of the crowd. People were whispering, phones were recording videos, uploading them directly to dozens of places online. “Don’t touch the glass. You might nick an artery.”

The advice wasn’t remotely helpful. If Will wasn’t going into shock, he might have made a snarky comment about it. Cold chills ran through his body. His vision became blurred, while the sounds and voices got more and more distorted. All he could feel was being taken through the corridors somewhere.

“Go to class!” the coach barked at the crowd. “There’s nothing to see.”

Dozens of mobile phones disagreed.

“I’ll warn the nurse,” a girl ran forward. There might have been more, but Will wasn’t able to make it out. He felt unusually tired, more than a self-inflicted wound was supposed to cause.

The thought of fainting crossed his mind for a second. It was quickly followed by the humiliation he would have to go through if that were the case. A rush of adrenaline shot through him like an electric jolt. Suddenly, his vision became a lot clearer.

“Stone? You alright there?”

William nodded. The crushing sensation had gone, leaving only numb pain in his hand. An attempt to move his fingers quickly reminded him that he hadn’t spontaneously healed.

“Hang on,” the coach said. “We’re almost there.”

By design, the nurse’s office was at the furthest possible point from the first-floor restrooms. William had only been there once to get a few scrapes disinfected after a nasty fall during sports. The room was ridiculously small for a school this size, holding two beds in total, some basic first aid equipment, and a separate room for the nurse. Ironically, that was almost as large as the patient section itself.

“Put him on the bed,” the nurse said. Working in the field for eleven years, she had seen quite a lot from the silly to the serious. Having a boy dripping blood seemed to be the latter.

“He busted a mirror in the bathroom,” the coach explained, assisting William to the nearest bed. “I think there’s—”

“Tell the vice principal and call his parents.” The woman took charge. “Helen, you go to class and tell the teacher to excuse him.”

“I prefer to stay and—” the girl began to protest.

“You’ll only be in the way.” The nurse gave both of them a warning glare. “I need to disinfect the wound and, for that, both of us need calm and quiet.” The tone in her voice made it clear she wouldn’t accept any arguments.

With a silent nod the girl and the coach left the nurse’s office.

“That's a bit better,” she said to Will with a smile. “Now, let me see what we have here.”

Slowly, he extended his wounded hand forward. Despite the blood and the glass fragments, most of the pain seemed to have subsided to the point he was considering moving his fingers again.

“Helen wasn’t kidding.” The nurse shook her head. “Stay like that. I’ll get some towels so you stop dripping everywhere.”

“Thanks,” Will whispered.

“Smashed a mirror in the bathroom?” The woman went to one of the cabinets and took out a stack of paper towels. “What made you do that?”

“I’m not sure. I was angry, I guess.”

“Next time try to focus your anger on something less painful? I’m not a fan of coach’s methods, but in this case, maybe a few laps around school would be a better way to use up some energy?” Placing a few towels on the floor, the woman then put several more on Will’s knees. “Just relax your hand here,” she said. “Palm down, fingers extended.”

Will did just that. Considering everything that had happened, he was feeling remarkably calm… unusually calm even. It was said that being at the nurse’s office had a soothing effect. Experiencing it himself, he was starting to believe it.

“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” The woman asked, as she put on a pair of plastic gloves from another cabinet. “Something that’s worrying you?”

“What should be worrying me?”

“You tell me.” She took a pair of tweezers, some cotton, and a bottle of medical alcohol. “It’s not every day that someone smashes a mirror for no reason. The way you did it I’m surprised you didn’t smash the wall as well.”

The joke was hopeless, but it still put a smile on Will’s face.

“I guess I was just having a bad morning…”

“Mhm. That’s what the last person who did this said.”

A jolt of interest ran through Will’s mind. “Someone did this before?”

“Oh, yes.” Carefully, the nurse grabbed hold of a piece of glass with her tweezers, then gently pulled it out. “I can’t tell you who, of course, but the results were even worse than what you have here now.”

Once entirely out, the shard was dropped on the paper towel on the floor as the woman focused on the next.

“Did he tell you why he did it?”

“Why do you think it’s a he?” Another piece was safely removed. “Whoever it was, they only said that they’d been having a bad day and that they’d been seeing things.”

“Seeing things?” Daniel, Will thought. It had to be Daniel.

The rumors about the mirrors in the toilets weren’t just rumors. It had actually happened. The realization made Will feel worse. Had Daniel gone through the same? If so, he had gone from seeing things and breaking mirrors to dying in a matter of months.

“What things?” Will pressed on.

“They never told me. Just things. I suggested that they get counseling, but I don’t think they appreciated the idea. All I could do was patch them up and hope for the best.”

And we all know how that turned out.

“You think I need counseling?”

“I think that every student in class needs counseling,” the nurse laughed, removing yet another shard. “The teachers too. But that’s just my personal opinion. If something really is bothering you, I think it would do you a lot of good. You may find it hard to believe, but I was young too once, so I know that there are things you cannot share with parents or teachers. Seeking professional assistance is always a better alternative than keeping it bottled up inside.”

“Sure. I’ll think about it,” Will mumbled. Of everything, going to the school shrink was last on his priority list.

“The more you delay, the worse it will get.” Removing the final piece, the nurse took a bit of cotton with the tweezers, then soaked it in alcohol. “Almost done.” She slid it over one of the cuts.

The stinging was harsh and sudden, almost causing Will to pull back his hand.

“Just a bit more.” The woman continued with the disinfection. “Try to move your fingers a bit.”

Bracing himself mentally, Will tried to, but quickly stopped as a strong sensation of pain went through his hand.

“That’s enough.” The nurse moved back. “I’ll tell your parents to take you to a hospital to have your hand checked out. I doubt anything’s broken, but better be on the safe side. Look here, for a moment.” She held a finger in front of his face, then started moving it left and right. “Any trouble following it?”

“No.” Will replied.

“Do you feel any headaches or nausea?”

“Err… why? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing to worry about. Just a few standard nurse questions,” she chuckled. “You should be worried more about your hand than anything I ask.”

“Did Daniel have headaches?” Will couldn’t help himself. “Was that the reason he died?”

“Daniel?” The nurse blinked. “Who’s talking about Daniel?”

“The person who broke the mirror. It was Daniel, right?”

“You know I can’t discuss such things, especially with students.”

“Was he?” Will did his best not to shout. He must have gone a bit too far nonetheless for the nurse’s eyebrows moved up in an expression of concern, maybe even slight fear. “Sorry.” He quickly added. “I just… I just want to know. I didn’t feel well when I was in the bathroom. That’s why I broke the mirror.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me. I’m just here to make sure everyone is well.” Composure returned to her face. “The principal, though. He’ll have you do a lot of explaining. Your parents as well.”

“I have been having dark thoughts,” Will lied. Just to make it more convincing, he looked to the side. The last time he had made such a transparent lie was back in middle school. It hadn’t worked at the time. Of course, he wasn’t bleeding back then. “And I don’t want to end up like Daniel.”

“Does that mean you’ll reconsider my suggestion and have a chat with the school counselor?”

Will had no such intention whatsoever. Still, he nodded.

“And you’re not just saying that to make me tell you?” the woman asked.

“Does it matter? You won’t tell me, anyway.”

“All I can tell you is that the person isn’t Daniel.” The nurse relented. “They are alive and well, and whether or not they took my advice, are doing a lot better. So, you don’t have anything to worry about there.”

That was a relief. Will felt the weight of a mountain fall off his shoulders.

“You’re right, though. Daniel did have some issues.”

Will blinked. This was a turn of events he didn’t expect. In today’s day and age, he knew how restricted medical staff were when discussing patients. That went double for schools. For her to openly address a taboo subject with such certainty, things must have been really serious.

“Are you being bullied, William?”

“What?” Where did that come from?

“I’m just a school nurse, so I can’t do anything, but if there’s something going on, I’d strongly suggest that you go to the police about it. Not the principal, not the counselor, but directly the police.”

The cogs in Will’s mind started turning. Had she just suggested that Daniel had been bullied? Given how often he got into fights, it was difficult to believe. The guy could take out a group of jocks on his own. There still were videos of him fighting them in the schoolyard. Slaughtering would have been a better word. True, he had used his backpack as a weapon, but it had still been four to one, and Daniel had ended up on top.

“Was Daniel—”

Restarting eternity.

“—being bullied?” Will asked.

A pair of girls gave him a nasty glare as they walked past. The nurse had vanished along with her entire office. On the positive side, so had the pain Will had been experiencing until a moment ago. Looking at his hand, he could see no blood or cuts. Holding his breath, he moved his fingers around.

“Hey, Will!” Alex rushed up to him. “Heard ‘bout the muffins?”

Ignoring him, Will continued moving his hand, as if checking that every part of it was fully functional.

“What’s up with your hand?” his friend asked.

There could be no further doubts—time had gone back, not once, but twice. Just to make sure, Will took out his phone. Ten minutes remained till eight.

“Bro, you ok?” Alex sounded marginally concerned, although with him it was difficult to tell. “How about some muffins?”

“Muffins?”

“You haven’t heard? Some boujie foreign stuff. Everyone’s talking about it. Want me to get you one?”

“Yeah, sure.” Will walked past him and entered the school.