Time Looped

Restarting eternity.

The loop began with a heavy sigh. Granted, this was a break from the usual routine—the rushing to the bathroom, the casual chats with people that Will had gotten to know rather well. Instead, he turned left, walking around the building, right to the school’s practice field. It wasn’t a long walk, although it wasn’t particularly short, either.

As he approached, the coach could be seen having a heated argument—or as ordinary people would call it “shouting”—with one of the jocks. To Will’s surprise, that turned out not to be Jace.

I definitely don’t miss this, the boy thought.

It wasn’t so much the shouting or the sport itself. The problem came from the boredom of it all. In the world of the school coach, there were two types of people: those who were willing to do anything it took to reach the top of professional football, and everyone else. The truth was that Will didn’t fit either of the two categories. He had the physique and initially the interest to play, though he never viewed this as more than a sport, which made the coach—and a lot of the jocks by proxy—seethe with anger.

In time, the coach had let it pass, focusing his attention on the people who had remained on the team. Apparently, Jace hadn’t, or he wouldn’t insist on all this.

“Luck, bro,” Alex said next to Will, seemingly appearing out of nowhere.

The suddenness was startling, though not to the point that Will would jump away. Being involved with loops for this long, he was starting to get used to people appearing without warning. It was just as well, since he noticed Helen was also a few steps away.

“You’ve gathered to see me get ridiculed, haven’t you?” he asked with a frown.

“N—” the goofball began, but was quickly interrupted.

“Why else?” Helen looked at him with an amused expression. “It’s difficult to see something new and amusing.”

That was what he was reduced to: a momentary source of amusement until the experience became boring again. Of course, all it took was for him to get it over with fast enough to reduce the time, and number of loops, he’d humiliate himself.

Jace was standing a slight distance away, leaning against the gym entrance. Being a separate building, the structure was close to all the respective training facilities: the track, the field, and the indoor basketball ring. Not having a swimming pool turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Mirrors and swimming pools would have been a terrible mix, especially considering the loose definitions eternity held.

Will checked his phone. About six minutes remained until the end of the loop. As long as Jace didn’t change the rules or add additional conditions, that was more than enough.

“Hey,” Will said as he approached his classmate.

“Hey,” the other said back with a pleased grin.

“So? Are we doing this?” Don’t play me around, you jackass!

“Sure. I just don’t see the ball.”

The comment felt like thunder in a clear sky.

“The what?”

“Football. The thing that you’re supposed to get past me with.”

“I thought you had the ball!”

“How’d you guess that?” The jock turned his head towards the gym door. “You know where they’re kept. Go get one.”

Damn you! Will rushed into the gym. His actions felt slow, compared to what he was usually used to, as if he were running through jelly. If he had the abilities of the rogue class, he would have already made his way to the storage room where the footballs were kept. Since he didn’t, it took him half a minute to reach the door in question. Sadly, the bad news didn’t end there.

Upon trying to turn the handle, the door turned out to be locked. That was hardly surprising. Class hadn’t started after all, and after multiple pranks throughout the years, combined with occasionally missing equipment, the police were to keep all gym supplies locked at all times when not used. The outer door being left open was likely an oversight on the coach’s part, granting Will a slight advantage.

Less than four minutes remained. The boy looked around for anything he could use to break the lock. With the loop ensuring there would be no consequences, there was no issue with him being rough in getting what he’d come for. In all the movies, there would be an extinguisher, or even a firefighter ax placed conveniently close by.

Come on! Will looked around. In normal circumstances, he’d try to kick the door open. Since he didn’t have the knight class, that would be impossible, not to mention incredibly painful.

Three minutes remained until eight. The levels of panic increased for a few seconds, then abruptly vanished altogether as Will came to a simple realization: there was no need for him to succeed on his first go. Like with any other task, the loops allowed him to slowly gather information in incremental bits until he had enough to solve it.

“Okay.” The boy looked around, this time with an eye for detail.

New plan, he said to himself. Figure out how to unlock the door. Get the football. Kick Jace’s ass.

With the small amount of time left, he did what any person would do when facing a new problem—browse YouTube for a solution.

Restarting eternity.

Since nothing in the general area of the gym helped with opening the door, Will had to bring it with him, which he did after a few bungled loops. While getting an extinguisher from the main school building was laughably easy, carrying one through the yard all the way to the gym attracted its share of attention. All attempts to hide it failed, attempts at sneaking were laughably bad, and trying to bullshit his way out of the problem took more time than he had. Ironically, in the end, it turned out that as long as he displayed a confident but bored attitude—and most importantly didn’t try to hide what he was doing—everyone seemed to instantly lose interest. After all, surely there was a perfectly logical reason for someone to drag two extinguishers to the gym in a grumbly fashion.

“Lit, bro!” Alex cheered, as an increasingly annoyed Will struggled to open the door to the gym. “Halfway there!”

Although one could argue whether “halfway there” was a valid description, half of his time was gone.

Leaving one of the extinguishers near the entrance, Will went to the storage door and slammed the handle with the other. Against expectations, he managed to bust it on his first go. With everything going on so far, he had expected to need a few more tries. Still, there was no point in looking a gift horse in the mouth. Rushing inside, he quickly grabbed the first ball from the football bin, then rushed back outside.

“Look at you.” Jace moved away from the wall with a mocking smirk. “Thought I’d die of boredom.”

“Shut it.”

“Aren’t you tough?” The jock took ten steps away, then turned around. “I’ll go easy on you. We don’t have to play on the field. Just pass by the end of the loop and you win.” He took a low stance. “Standard rules. I tackle you, you fail. I grab you, you fail.”

The way he phrased it, Jace was starting to sound a lot more like coach. The words must have been drilled into his mind for years.

“What if I break you off?” Will gripped the football tightly in both hands.

“You win. Oh, just one thing. You have to come at me. Me versus you.”

“Boys and their egos,” Helen said, arms crossed a short distance away.

“Harsh,” Alex said next to her. “But true.”

Nothing indicated the start. No one said go or gave any sign. The two boys simultaneously sprang into action.

In his mind, Will imagined himself leaping over the jock. He had done so several times when fighting wolves or leaping on rooftops. Unfortunately for him, while he had retained his muscle memory of performing the action itself, without the boost of the rogue class, neither his leap nor his reactions were all that impressive.

A second into the air, he was met by Jace in full force. The jock charged at him, grabbing him by the waist and slamming him to the ground. The pain was intense. Will felt his body shattering to thousands of pieces, as if he himself was made out of glass… or a mirror.

“That all you got?” Jace grunted, his face also twisting in pain. “No wonder you quit.”

“I didn’t quit!” Will gritted his teeth. Pain was one thing, Giving Jace the satisfaction of admitting it was an entirely different matter. “What about you? You look like you’d faint.”

“Hah!”

Meanwhile, onlookers were starting to pay attention. A few took a few pictures with their phones, though most didn’t. Even with the explosion of social media, few wanted to get on the football team’s bad side. For some, it was out of fear of consequences. Others were actually hoping the team would win in the upcoming game and didn’t want to add to their stress. Others still considered the whole thing an internal matter—or a case of egos clashing, as Helen had put it. The presence of a football clearly showed the whole thing couldn’t be serious, so there was no reason to get involved or call a teacher. The only person who was actually recording the whole thing on video was Alex.

“Why are you doing that?” Helen asked. “You’ll lose it in a minute.”

“It’s lit,” the goofball replied. “Might go viral.”

Ending the recording, he quickly posted it to a few places and waited.

“Big oof,” he said with a sigh shortly after.

“Let me guess.” Helen glanced at it. “Not a single view.”

“Nah.” Alex focused on the number of views. “Would have been big.”

Restarting eternity.

Gripping the ball, Will tried to feign and shift direction. The attempt caught Jace slightly off guard, but not enough to keep him from grabbing Will’s shirt. Ultimately, the result was the same as in the previous attempt.

And again.

And again.

And again…

No matter what the boy tried, the jock seemed to be ready for it. After a few dozen loops, both had gotten the mutual condescension and pettiness out of their systems. From there on, the focus became the actual game. Will had brushed off the layers of rust accumulated throughout the years and was actually starting to think on the issue at hand, or in this case, the game.

While he remained in fit enough shape, his muscles weren’t used to the heavy amount of pressure. On the positive side, each loop came with instant pain relief. On the not so positive side, there was no way he’d build up any muscle no matter how many loops he went through. The only way to improve physically was through wolf killing, and that wasn’t an option right now.

“Almost there, bro!” Alex cheered, causing everyone in the vicinity to stare at the scene.

“You’ve been saying that for the last five loops,” Helen grumbled. Based on her expression, the novelty was starting to wear off. The only reason she kept going there was because even that beat staying in a stinky classroom.

“Yeah?” The goof looked at her with a confused expression. “When he gets there, I’ll stop.”

Only you can think of that, Will said to himself as he turned and twisted on his way towards Jace. This had become a tactical game. Both sides knew pretty much what they were capable of and now were only playing around with the elements to obtain victory.

Nine times out of ten, Will would try to change direction at the last moment, hoping to get out of the jock’s reach. So far, he had managed to do so a few times, but the follow up on the other’s part had put an end to his progress. If he was competing against a non-looped, his persistence would have yielded the result, but Jace adapted to his changing tactics as appropriate.

Just once, Will told himself. It didn’t have to be fancy; it didn’t have to be by a large margin, but just enough to pass.

Droplets of sweat ran down his face as the boy leapt to the left, just avoiding the jock’s reach. From there, it was tempting to continue in the same direction, but past experience had proved it to be the wrong move.

Leaping back, Will rushed in the opposite direction.

Jace didn’t react, standing his ground. He had seen enough feigns to know Will’s tactic.

“Nice try,” he said with a grin.

With half a minute left in the loop, it was time for a desperate move. Even if the chances of success were unlikely, it was no worse than letting the loop reach its end. From what Will remembered from class, the average person could only pay attention to one thing at a time. With everything going on between them, it was logical to assume that Jace was focusing on Will himself. But what if that wasn’t the case. Years of practice, and yelling on the coach’s part, might have hard-wired him to pay attention to something else—the ball. Right now, both were one and the same, but what if they weren’t?

Stopping in place, Will grabbed the football with both hands and thrust it upwards. It was a weird thing to do. This was a one-to-one challenge, so there wasn’t anyone to pass to. Jace was aware of that, yet even so, for a split second, he looked up to follow the path of the ball. Unexpectedly, there was nothing there to follow.

“Huh?” The jock quickly looked down, only to have the football slam into his face.

Receiving injuries in football was normal. More than that, it was expected. However, even during training everyone was equipped with protective gear, not to mention their pain sensation wasn’t enhanced to the current point.

The pain spread throughout the jock’s face to his head, then back. Before he could realize what had happened, he was on the ground and his ears were ringing.

“I win,” a voice said above him.

Fighting to ignore the pain, Jace cracked an eye open.

The first thing he saw was Will. The second was the sky behind him.

“I passed your game,” Will said. “Are we good now?”

There was no answer.

“Are we good?” Will repeated. “Or do you want to keep on wasting time instead of figuring out this crap?”

“What the hell.” Jace forced a smile. “You’re good for something, after all.”

Restarting eternity.