Allison Carmicheal woke up to her mother asking her about pancakes. “Allison, sweetie, it’s time to wake up. You need to buy more pancakes because I just made you pancakes and I don’t want to leave the house because Deborah’s calling about her cat’s worms diagnosis later.” When Allison first figured out she was in a time loop, as in the film Edge of Tomorrow, a ripoff of the light novel All You Need Is Kill, she knew that there was going to be some sort of sign. Whenever people wake up in a time loop, in movies at least, there was always some sort of sound bite that informed them that yes, this was the same day. Allison was just pissed that her time loop signal was pancake interrogation. She got dressed haphazardly (putting on her “time loop outfit”, which we’ll get to later) and went downstairs to eat her pancakes, but did not enjoy them. As she ate her pancakes, she went over her list of top five “more interesting time loop signals”.
Number One: “Wake up, my dear Allison. We must make out in order to restore peace to the timeline. Posthaste!”
- The Guy on her Random Dude Poster
Number Two: “YOU’RE IN A TIMELOOP AAHAHAHAHA”
- The Guy who makes stories more meta by explaining the plot in a frat bro voice (this guy does not exist)
Number Three: “Oh my god, Allison. I won the lottery.”
- Allison’s mot…
“Oh, and Allison!” Her mother was yelling again, completely stopping her from completing her list of top five superior time loop signals, which happened every day. “Listen, you also may need to pick up medication for Deborah’s cat’s worm problem. I’m sure she’d really appreciate it.” Allison nodded sleepily. “What if I see any of my hypothetical school crushes there, mother dearest?” Allison was getting better at quips. If objects retained their physical effects between loops, she would be sure to keep a notebook of quips to say at specific times each day. But any changes were impermanent, so she just kept this hypothetical list in her head. Allison’s mother cackled at her expertly practiced quip. Allison experienced little validation, though she did notice that the cackle was slightly longer this time, perhaps because of Allison’s emphasis on the words mother dearest. Allison’s mother laughed whenever anybody verbally respected her, ironically or otherwise, which made Allison concerned for her mental health. She was a vaguely obese woman with an extremely nasal voice that Allison was decently worried she had inherited. Allison had one text on her phone that a friend had sent her that simply read “red hair is wasted on your mother”. Allison had enjoyed being an asshole with this friend from the looks of it, but based on further texts she had wisely stopped interacting with this mean goblin person. To this day, Allison could not remember who this friend was, from their gender to their name, but she had the texts at the very least.
Allison scarfed down her pancakes and thought about the worms medication, as she did at this exact time every morning. She usually only picked up the worms medication on loops where she felt especially bored. She would have to drag her new friend Danny Callahan there, of course, and she had learned several hundred loops ago that the tendril beast would follow them to the store anyways if she didn’t bring Danny home, so hiding him there wasn’t an option. Alison felt pissed. She had the feeling that she was saying sardonic things about the nature of time loops in pop culture interspersed with vague exposition that got a hypothetical viewer interested in her hypothetical story, all while occasionally being meta to a cringe extent. She was also saying- or rather, thinking– the word “hypothetically” too much. It was probably making her sound pretentious to herself.
Allison finished her pancakes and gently set the plate down on the counter with ballerina-like poise she had acquired after thousands of attempts of putting the exact same plate down. She grabbed a can of brand nonspecific Coca Soda from the fridge, discreetly stole seventy dollars from her mother’s secret cupboard (for future usage, hopefully), threw her backpack over her shoulder, and took off. Her mother saw her chichanery immediately and yelped like an aggravated sparrow. “THAT STUFF WRECKS YOUR TEETH, ALLISON,” she whined. “I’ll wreck your teeth,” Allison muttered just loud enough to be legible but just quietly enough for it to be unclear if that was really what she said. Allison’s mother almost got out an “WELL EXCUSE ME” before Allison shut the door.
Allison strutted down the front stoop, walked down her driveway, took a left, and chucked the pop can into a nearby shrubbery. She paused, assuming she had gotten somebody on the head with her impromptu lobbing weapon, and was greeted by a scuzzy looking man bursting out of the bushes and screaming. “YOU ASSHOLE,” the man screamed. “WAS THAT FULL?” The man looked like whatever you would picture a mystical hobo to resemble. He was bald except for some vague patches of hair, which appeared to be the result of a poorly intentioned buzzcut, had a scruffy beard, and wore a jacket with many haphazard patches and whatnot. He stumbled angrily towards Allison before he inevitably recognized her. “Oh god,” he whispered in a mixture of amazement and embarrassment. Allison knew the ensuing monologue, but she had time to kill. She decided to listen to the crazy man, perhaps for the convenience of some incomprehensible entity observing her day-to-day life.
The man stumbled backwards and pointed at Allison. “Listen,” the man said. “You’ve gotta listen to me.”
Allison played up her mock fear. “P-please don’t hurt me, mister!”, she whimpered in faux-helplessness. The man grabbed her by the collar and she let out a tiny scream. A teenaged boy across the street, mowing his lawn in an ill-fitting Speed Racer shirt, began shouting at the crazy hobo and began to walk over, howling threats. “There’s not much time,” the man muttered. “Danny Callahan. He goes to your school, right? Listen, there are people out there looking for him. Bad folks, as it were. You’ve gotta help him. Get him someplace safe after school. You’re the only one who can help him. There’s people coming for…” The man was suddenly thrown backwards by Allison’s stunningly attractive neighbor Josh Nevcled.
The man fell on his ass and screamed. “I oughta slap you ‘round some more,” Josh said in a vague Clint Eastwood impersonation. The man ran off, stumbling over his own feet before dashing into a nearby convenience store. Josh turned around to look at Allison, and absentmindedly flexed his biceps as he smoothed his hair over. He pointed at her outfit, snapped his fingers, and said, in a raspy whisper, “Nice outfit.” Allison had now lived through the Josh Nevcled encounter numerous times. She grew smitten with him quickly and had very slowly come up with numerous hot quips to throw at him. The outfit Josh was referencing was not nice, and was actually pretty bad. I maintain we’ll get to it later, though. I know now would be a good time, but there’s flirting going on so it would actually be kind of bad.
“I can say the same thing about you,” Allison said with what she assumed was a cute smirk. Allison’s outfit was pretty bad, but Josh’s wasn’t much better. In a futile attempt to get more charm points, Allison had watched most available Speed Racer media since being trapped in the time loop. The movie was pretty good, as per her general consensus. The show left quite a bit to be desired. “Speed Racer,” she said. “I love the Wachowskis.” Josh did what was presumably another hot pose. “This is from…[*brief pause*]…the anime.” Allison had slowly realized that Josh thought it was sexy when she pretended to know a small amount (but not a ton) about things. It made her seem like a peer who was also slightly less good than the guy she was trying to charm. Taking advantage of the lull in conversation, Josh made yet another expert observation. “The Wachowskis didn’t make the anime. It’s by Japanese people.”
Allison did a wink which had gotten progressively less awkward over the years. “I’ll be sure to check it out.” And with that, she set off on her way. “Call me if he comes back,” Josh piped up, but Allison was already gone. She hadn’t heard him, but she knew what he had said.
***
Allison rounded a corner. She was now on a sidewalk adjacent to the highway. A quick trip through the forest and she would be at school…she didn’t much care about missing her first period, as math with Mr. Crosby left much to be desired. She probably would have attended if she wasn’t looping, but having experienced the class hundreds of times she felt as though she knew it by heart.
Allison came to a stairway slapped haphazardly onto the highway and walked down. A middle-aged woman walking her dog up the stone steps spun around and screamed gleefully at her. “Oh ALLISON,” she gargled, “IT’S YOU!” It was Deborah, owner of the cat with worms. She had a dog too, Allison pretended to notice for the first time. “You’ve sure got a lot of animals,” Allison said in a voice that reeked of fake hesitation.
“Quite a few, yes,” Deborah said somewhat sadly. Allison found Deborah to be a strange woman. Allison’s mother had regaled her with story upon story about her odd behavioural patterns, and Allison always listened with glee, no matter what loop she was on. At thirty, Deborah had gotten plastic surgery that somehow worked wonders to an impossible extent. She looked rather odd…not flabby exactly, but you could definitely see that she used to be. She had dyed her hair an unflattering shade of purple and cut it into a bob shortly after meeting Allison’s mother, and when Allison first met her she looked like a fast food mascot who was also an orphanage worker. Allison’s mother always said she and Allison looked alike, which often made Allison feel like she needed to get better parents.
Deborah paused and then glanced at Allison’s pocket. “I don’t have much time to talk, and neither do you…well, obviously, you’re off to school I suppose…but, um, just before I go, could you do me a favor? I’ll be out of town for a while and I’d really appreciate that worms medication by the end of the day.” Allison nodded respectfully. Deborah nodded back. Allison was prepared to nod again (sometimes Deborah nodded a third time, sometimes she didn’t, it was one of the few things that was inconsistent between loops), but Deborah simply spun around and walked away. Allison paused, waited until Deborah had passed over the curve of the bridge in the distance, then walked down the concrete steps to her left, heading into the deep forest. It was time to see what was waiting for her today.
***
Allison sauntered through the woods. She was right next to a fork in the road. One path led to school, the other…a place that was rather important to her. She looked at her watch. The first period was halfway done, and she was now in “maybe get in trouble” mode. She had, of course, gotten in trouble many times already- Allison was quite well-behaved before she began looping, at least based on what she could gather, and so being two periods late didn’t cause as much of a stir as one might expect. Allison decided to go down the right path- the one that didn’t lead to school. It would be a productive detour anyhow.
The right path quickly became gnarled with roots and trees. The town of Byron was actually rather pristine, but a large forest that took up a significant portion of the town’s right half blemished the landscape. The mayor detested it. “We’ll take the forest down someday,” he said on the radio constantly. “It’s a blight. It distracts from the mall.” So far, his plans had not come to fruition. Allison glanced around- going off of pure instinct, this was the point where she should glance around- and spotted a carved mark on a nearby tree. This was her sign. The mark looked to her like some kind of alchemical sigil. The shape was hard to describe- it could really be anything, but to Allison it was probably just a scattered mess of man made scratches. Below the scratches, however, was an arrow.
Allison followed the arrow, and quickly came to another tree, with another, slightly different carved mark. She repeated this process, moving from one tree to the next around twenty times, before she came to a small, flowered meadow. The meadow was small- it probably couldn’t be seen from above the forest, but seemed expansive from the ground below. The meadow, however, was not what interested Allison. What interested her was the perfectly circular hole that was directly in the middle of the meadow. A manhole cover was just slightly pushed off to the side from the hole, inviting someone to go inside. Allison complied.
The hole was a tight fit- it had made her claustrophobic when she had first explored it, but now it seemed like second nature to shove herself down into the pit of darkness. She grabbed onto a ladder that was bolted onto the dirt-covered wall, and continued climbing downwards. Eventually, the hole opened up a bit, and the ladder stopped. Allison slowly slid off, and landed in a pristine hallway. She grabbed the ladder and pulled it down the rest of the way- the ladder was similar to those found on fire escapes- before observing her surroundings. She was in a square room. The walls and floors were completely white, the brightness enhanced by the fluorescent lights above her, to the extent that Allison could not tell where the walls started and the floors ended. From where she was currently, Allison could see three red doors, all completely the same in their make and build. She opened the middle one, and the door continued into a yellow hallway. The hallway stretched in front of her for what must have been about fifty metres. Allison pressed onwards.
The hallway continued into a sharp right, and once Allison turned the corner she could see a red door only ten metres away from her. She opened that door in turn, and finally her overly long door opening adventure was over. The room she was in now was dark blue, and within it was a single oak box, with a door behind it. The box was small- Allison was both excited and concerned by this- she had never seen such a small box in this room before, and its contents could either be good or disappointing. She flicked open the box, took a deep breath, and looked down. She was overwhelmed with excitement- within the box was a tiny, camo-green grenade with a delightfully chunky pin. This could do some real damage. She placed it in her backpack and waited, counting down the seconds with her fingers. And, on cue, from the opposite side of the door behind the box…
KCHUNK. KCHUNK. KCHUNK.
Allison opened the door and dashed out. She had succeeded. Now all she had to do was run.