The next morning, the day repeated itself as expected. I sneaked out of school right after Mrs. Briggs left me in the math class.
I came across a few students on my way out of St. Louis Academy's grounds. Even the school janitor gave me shifty eyes when I passed by him.
Hahaha...
I never thought that I too would one day skip school. Clumsily, I made my way toward the barber shop and arrived an hour late for my appointment with Lara and Theo. They were not inside the barber shop and they were not alone.
They were speaking in a low voice to a teenage boy of Asian heritage. As soon as I approached, all three of them perked up.
"ZhaoYun?" I guessed.
The new guy nodded and held out his hand toward me. "Hey. Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Allen Zhao."
I grabbed Allen's hand. "Hey, my name is Daniel Weston."
I gave Lara and Theo puzzled looks. How did they manage to find Allen Zhao so quickly?
"We arrived at 8 AM and took a look at the forum right away. The same post was posted there early in the morning. 6.32 AM. You did not come at eight, so we thought we would give ZhaoYun a call first to save some time."
"Sorry," I quickly apologized. "I did not have an earlier opportunity to sneak out."
Lara laughed. She told Allen, "Daniel here is a good boy. Never once skipped a class, let alone skip a whole day of school."
I pursed my lips. "Are we going to continue talking about me or what?"
"Okay, sorry, sorry."
Allen gestured for us to go to a nearby cafe.
"Let's go have some coffee and snack. My treat."
The cafe had some tables and chairs outside of the building. Each table was equipped with a huge white umbrella to protect the cafe visitors from the stinging sun rays. We chose to sit at one of these tables.
After we ordered four glasses of juice and some french fries and garlic baguettes, we started to talk about serious business.
"So," Allen slowly asked, "What happened to you guys?"
I told him my side of the story, and then Lara and Theo told theirs. For some reason, Allen's complexion grew worse and worse the more he heard from us.
By the time Lara and Theo were done, Allen looked so pale as if he just ingested poison.
Thankfully, our snacks and drinks came just in time. He stuffed himself with the fries and baguette right away. Apparently, he had not taken his breakfast this morning.
"I rushed out of the house as soon as I received your call," he nodded toward Lara.
After Allen ate and drank his fill, I decided to ask him about his own life story.
"What about you?" I queried. "How did you enter into this time loop?"
Allen furrowed his brows and tensed up almost immediately. It was as if he was unable to talk about his life.
"If you don't want to, you don't have to tell us," I quickly said. "Either way, knowing about each other's life had not even helped in the slightest. All we know is that all of us played Afterlife Dream and that this time loop is connected to the game somehow."
Allen relaxed and chuckled.
"No, it's fine. Let me tell you what happened.
A month ago, a school shooting took place at my school. Or so I thought. My whole class was murdered, including me."
The three of us stared at Allen in bewilderment.
"What are you talking about?" Lara was the first to speak.
"You are still here."
"Exactly," Allen said. "I am supposed to be dead. For some reason, I came back to life."
"Wait, this doesn't make sense," I said. "What exactly happened to you?"
"So in my memory, the shooter came to shoot us all dead. But when I came to this world, the day repeated itself. No shooter came. It was all peaceful and delightful. And then the day kept repeating and repeating."
"Wait, whoa whoa."
Theo grabbed the edge of the table with both hands. "You said you remembered that you died?"
Allen looked distressed. The muscle on his cheeks twitched visibly.
"I know that it is insane. We are all stuck inside this time loop, but you are all alive and everything. Your lives are perfect. I don't know what's wrong with me."
Allen pressed both palms to the sides of his head.
"Dude," I grabbed his shoulder. "Calm down. Let us help you."
"I don't know how you can help me. I don't know what will happen to me once I get out of this time loop. Am I going to die?"
Lara, Theo, and I exchanged worried glances.
Could it be that Allen was the key to getting out of the time loop? Maybe we were supposed to help him out in his life?
"I am sorry," Allen apologized again. "I know I am a mess."
"So uh. Other than the shooting, how has the day been for you?"
"It was..."
Allen rubbed at his forehead. "It was fine. My parents and sister are nice to me as always. Even my dog's leg is healed."
"How did you come to remember about Afterlife Dream?" I asked again.
"I just remembered one day. In my class, a few classmates and I used to play. For some reason, on this repeated day none of them was playing. Neither did I.
One day I had a huge headache when I tried to remember. Then I just remembered that there was this game that I used to play.
The fact that I am stuck in a time loop and coincidentally forgot about the game did not make sense to me. So uh, I try to find those who might be stuck just like me."
Smart.
I would not have reached the conclusion on my own.
"I just didn't expect our stories to be that different," he pointed out.
"How many days have you repeated the days? I asked.
"Today is the seventh."
"The same with us," Lara remarked.
"It will be the same for the others too," I said. "If there are more, I mean."
Lara narrowed her eyes at me. "Do you think there are more?"
"Maybe," I answered. "I am not sure."
"Why don't we try reaching out to more?" Theo suggested. "Allen can keep posting in the Afterlife Dream forum."
Allen nodded. "I will."
"We can try other ways too."
"Newspaper?" I suggested.
Lara and Allen shook their heads.
"All of us are fairly young. Who is still reading newspapers at our age?"
Theo hummed.
"What about social media? Chat servers?"
"That is only doable if we have phones. It seems that all of our electronic devices went missing."
pαndα noνɐ1,сoМ I suddenly realized something.
"Hey Allen, was your electronic device also missing?"
Allen nodded.
"I buy a new phone every day before posting on the forum."
Well, not every child had access to that much money.
"If I had no phone and I were desperate to reach out to people, I would reach for newspapers," I insisted. "Think about it. It's cheap. And easy to buy."
"Fine, we can try newspapers," Lara decided. "Tomorrow then?"
We all nodded solemnly.
"Eat up and finish the drinks. And then let's just wait."
The next morning, Theo hung out with Allen at the game cafe. Lara and I went to submit an ad to the local newspaper.
Our little ad was printed in the afternoon newspaper. It was only a small 10x5 box with the following message : " Dear fellow Afterlife Dream players, if you are stuck, please contact us at XXXX-8172636 or message us at [email protected]."
It was very vague, but we could not talk about time loops. The newspaper staff might think that we were insane. Or we might draw the attention of crazy people on the way.
The lady who took our submission form was already throwing us suspicious looks without us mentioning eerie things at all.
It was no wonder, because what were two children of school age doing outside of the school that morning?
We did not receive any news that day.
It no longer made sense to keep meeting in the morning, so we agreed to keep in touch and message each other as soon as we received any updates.
A week passed without any news. Lara and I had been submitting newspaper ads alternately while Theo, the youngest one, had to stay put and go to school diligently. He was not happy about it, but if Lara and I drew suspicion, then he would be worse off.
From time to time, the four of us skipped school and tried to do some brainstorming, but there was no use. We made no progress at all.
Until one day, the fifth person contacted Allen. It was a girl, and she wanted to meet us all as soon as possible.
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