Chương 21: Chloroformed

I woke up dizzy and completely disoriented. It was pitch dark, and the sharp chill of the night air bit at my skin. I looked around, blinking through the confusion, and saw people standing around me. The pretty, black-haired woman in the turquoise dress... a short, bald man I didn't know… and… a mouse wearing a tiny red top hat, sitting squarely on the bald man's shoulder. I tried to shake my head to stir the fog away. The black-haired woman! She… she kidnapped me! Oh, the audacity!

"MMMMPH! MMMMPH!" I tried to shout, but my mouth was stuffed with a tight cloth gag. I tried to remove the gag only to discover that my hands were tied behind my back.

"AMMMMMMMM!!" I tried to stand up, but a wave of dizziness hit me and I fell.

"AMM MN UHE!!"

"Enough of that," said the bald man. And I first noticed he held a musket. He aimed it right at my face. I was suddenly very afraid. I forced myself to stay still and kept quiet. I took a deep, shaky breath through my nose, my eyes tearing up. What is this? What is happening to me?

"Look at her eyes!" the mouse squeaked. He had a heavy English accent.

"She cries! She's afraid… yes."

"It's just the chloroform," said the woman, waving him off.

"Now stop interrupting me." She then turned to me again.

"We want to talk to you," she said slowly.

"I will remove your gag, and you will stay relaxed and quiet and answer our questions. Nod if you understand." When I didn't nod she added, "If you don't, Victor here will blow your face off." She gestured to the bald man. Then I nodded.

"Good girl," she said, and untied my gag. I looked at the musket barrel pointed at my face and trembled.

"Please," I whimpered, "move it away, it scares me!"

"Told you she's scared!" squeaked the mouse.

"She's just maybe a really good actor," said Victor, still holding the gun to my face. I wasn't acting; I was barely keeping from wetting myself. Standing up to Mother was one thing, but looking death literally in the face... it was too much! I was scared of dying, very much so.

"Oh, come on Victor!" said the woman.

"Do you find enjoyment in scaring young women?"

"Oh no, just doing my job!" he said, and then moved the barrel to the side. Now I felt like I could actually breathe again. I looked around. It was dark, but I saw plants, trees. A statue? Oh, I knew it, they didn't take me far. We were actually somewhere in the palace's gardens. That knowledge somehow made me feel better, even if I knew it didn't necessarily help me get out of this alive.

"What… what do you want with me?"

"Like I said, to talk," said the woman.

"Answer truthfully and don't try anything funny, and you may live another two days, over and over and over." That's right. They knew about the repetition, so that meant…

"You have the repetition magic too, you—" SMACK! A sudden, stinging backhand slap connected hard with my cheek.

"We ask, you answer," she said quietly, her face inches from mine.

"That is what I meant when I said 'talk'. First question: who are you working for?" I looked at her miserably. I was angry about the slap, but truly too afraid to feel very strong resentment. And I didn't even understand her first question.

"Is it for the guild?" she asked.

"Maybe Julian's group? An Emperor dog? There aren't really that many options, so you better bloody answer!" I didn't have the faintest idea what she wanted to hear, and I desperately wanted to tell her, because I was absolutely petrified. My eyes then welled up with fresh tears. She then pulled out a long, vicious-looking knife. My eyes widened in pure, helpless terror.

"I don't," I tried, sobbing.

"I… I really don't know any… any of them! I'm sorry! Don't, don't hurt me please!"

"Liar!" the woman spat at me. She came really close, caught my hair with her left hand, and held her knife to my throat with the right.

"I assume you know what happens when a time looper dies," she whispered in my ear.

"We all know… they come. They come to take you… even knowing that, you still won't tell me what I want?" Then I remembered very clearly the vision while drowning, and the vision when Lucifer first gave me the repetition magic. That was the first thing the black-haired woman talked about that I actually understood. I knew who 'they' were. And I was so scared I could barely breathe. I sobbed and trembled horribly, while helplessly murmuring, "No, no... please, no..." between my ragged, gasping breaths.

Victor then came and put his hand on the woman's shoulder.

"Now it's you that's overdoing it," he said reasonably.

"Look at her. She really doesn't know." The woman looked taken aback. She blinked, looking suddenly uncomfortable.

"Yes.. yes." She said hesitantly, pulling the knife away and letting go of my hair.

"I think she might actually not know about the groups."

"I really don't," I sobbed.

"Please, believe me."

"Ok," the woman said, "So do tell us, who gave you the key to the 92nd?" Not again! What on earth did she want to know?

"Who made you a time looper?" explained Victor, helpfully. They called the day repetition a time loop! Then I finally knew the answer to this.

"It was Lucifer!" I cried.

"Lucifer did it! I didn't even ask him to! I even told him to stop it! I... I don't even like it!" The three of them suddenly looked at each other, appearing very confused. The woman dropped her knife hand and stared at me.

"Lucifer, as in… the fat cat Lucifer?"

"Yes!" I said. Finally, she understood something.

"Lucifer! He's my cat!" But now that I think about it, how come they knew he was a cat? They all still looked very confused, then troubled.

"Oh boy," said Victor, shaking his head.

"Oh boy!" the mouse repeated.

"What?" asked the black-hair woman angrily, looking at them.

"She is one of Tremaine's daughters!" Victor said.

"This was a mistake! That was stupid of you."

"How was I supposed to know that?!" she snapped back.

"Thought about actually asking her name first?" said Victor dryly.

"Before you tied her up and threatened to cut her neck?"

"You are sooo stupid!" said the mouse.

"Shut up!" she said.

"And why would the Liaison give her his key anyway?!"

"It doesn't matter!" said the mouse, adjusting his tiny top hat.

"You got us all in trouble with the Liaison! Big trouble!"

"I... I will fix it," she said. Then she looked at me and smiled… very falsely. She untied me and awkwardly tried to brush the dirt and grass stains from my dress where I had fallen on the ground. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"You're one of Tremaine's daughters?" she asked, all sweet and fake.

"What's your name, girl?"

"D... Drizella..." I was still shaken and crying, my brain still trying to work out what was happening here.

"It seems we had a... misunderstanding," she said.

"Sorry about… all that nonsense. But no one got hurt, really." No one got hurt? You shoved a musket in my face, a knife to my throat, then threatened to kill me in a very convincing way so I almost wet myself! Well, I think it was almost… I will have to check that later. Suddenly I felt like the situation I was in was far less dangerous. For some reason, these people seemed apologetic and… scared? Of my stupid cat? What did they call him, the Liaison? I needed to somehow take advantage of it.

These people seemed to know a lot about very important things. And to get the answers from them… I needed to act tough.

"Apologize, do you?" I mustered some courage to harden my voice.

"Oh, I will tell the Liaison all about it!" They looked taken aback when I said it. It was working. But… I didn't know what they were afraid of from a useless cat.

"And you will be in so much trouble!" I added.

"I bet he will… bite and scratch you!" Then I looked at the mouse.

"And you… he will eat you whole!"

"Oh no!" shrieked the mouse.

"I don't want to get eaten!"

"No one is gonna eat ya," said the woman, "and there is no reason for Drizella here to bore the Liaison with such trifles." Then she looked at me.

"I bet she only wants to know things, am I right Drizella?"

"Yes," I said, trying to sound tough.

"Now… I will ask the questions." I looked each of them in the eyes, now finally angry, and said, "Who on earth are you people? And why in blazes do the days repeat?" The black-haired woman looked at me for a long time, then started laughing. I looked at her in annoyance.

"It's just," she tried to stop her laugh, "I'm sorry, to think that you are a time looper without actually knowing anything about it is funny to me." I crossed my arms and squinted my eyes at her.

"So, I believe proper introductions are in order," she said, wiping her eyes.

"My name is Juliette, the short bald man is Victor, and the English mouse is Roger. And the day repeats because we are in a time loop, which we call the 92nd, because it's the 92nd time-loop event since the first time loopers started the records.

"Each loop repeats exactly for 112 Cycles, but they vary in the loop length. This loop length is two days, but they can be as short as half a day, and as long as a few weeks, but they're mostly a couple of days. Oh, and in this time loop, 63 Cycles have already passed, which means 49 to go. Yes, that is the basics." That… was a lot. I strained my dumb brain, trying to wrap it around everything she said. Each loop repeats 112 times, she said. She called the repetitions 'Cycles'… and she said…

"How many more Cycles you said?"

"49." This number was very important…

"So after 49 more two-day cycles…" I asked, "the time loop stops? Everything will be back to normal?"

"Yes," she said, "but what will be the new normal? It will all depend on the 'Last Cycle'; these are the most important words for a time looper. The last cycle will become the new reality. Until then, it's only… a rehearsal, like in a play." That was an interesting way to think about it… Wait, she said more important things. I needed to understand it.

"And you said there were many loops before," I asked, "so after this time loop is over… there will be more?"

"Oh, of course, there will be others," she answered.

"A time loop happens every few months, but it's very random. We can't know exactly when."

"So even after all the 112 cycles will be over, it will all happen again!?" I asked, frustration in my voice. It sounded so tiresome. And she said that each cycle could even be weeks in length. So weeks, times 112 cycles… that's… carrying the two... adding the... well, that was a lot of days! Way too many!

"I can't have that!" I said.

"I will be unmarried for a hundred more years!" Victor laughed out loud.

"You're funny," he said.

"For most time loopers, it means opportunity, even immortality; they want to spend as much time in loops as possible. But you shouldn't worry about it. You won't participate in any future time loops."

"Hey! What do you mean I won't?" I asked, suddenly offended. Because he used the word 'participate'; it felt like I was being left out!

"It's the key!" chirped Roger the mouse.

"You won't have anymore keys!"

"What is a key!?" I was really trying to sort things out here, and they just added more things I didn't know!

"Let me explain it to you better," said Juliette.

"Actually, everyone is inside the time loop, all the people in the world, even the universe itself. Have you tried looking at the moon and stars during the time loop? They repeat too." The moon and stars repeat too? What was she getting at?

"It's like something that always happens, from the start of history," Juliette continued.

"Every few months, time gets stuck, repeats in a loop for 112 cycles, and then continues. As long as nobody knew about it, it didn't matter, it had no meaning. But then somewhen, someone, discovered a magic we call a 'key'. It gives someone's soul the ability to remember what was in each cycle of a loop.

"But it's a complex magic that has to be tailored to a specific time loop event, and no other. And these keys are extremely hard to get. Only time looper organizations manage to get them, and even them, not always."

"So I won't have this magic key for the next time loop," I repeated slowly, "and so everything will be normal with me."

"Yes," Juliette said.

"What happened with you, probably, is Lucifer decided to give you his key, maybe because of something you did. It's just… it's never happened before. Lucifer is a Liaison, they... are not like us. I don't really understand that stuff well either. But it's not likely it will happen again."

"I see," I said. I thought I somewhat understood, at least the important bits. There would be 49 more cycles, then in the last cycle, I must make sure that everything will be perfect. After that, everything will be normal—at least for me. There will still be plenty of crazy time-loopers walking around, changing fates and using people like game pieces.

"So you will keep being, like, time gods," I said, "and I'll be just… normal." That hardly sounded fair.

"Hey, it's not so bad," said Victor.

"I'm actually not a time looper. Only Juliette and Roger are."

"You… you are not?"

"Victor is a time looper assistant," explained Juliette.

"He works for us, gets paid, and we supply him with a special time loop journal, so he can write and keep track of what happens."

"Best job in the world," Victor said.

"We do a job one time, and get paid 112 times that!"

"So," said Juliette, "I told you the basics, but I need to tell you one last important thing."

"And this is?" Juliette now gave me a dead-serious look and spoke in a low voice.

"You must not bring any attention to yourself. You must not be part of our world, the time looper world. We are militant groups that fight and kill and die for resources. For keys. This is… a hard life. And the risks… I mean, when a time looper dies… it's really bad." She went quiet for a moment, her gaze suddenly looking haunted and afraid.

"Drizella, use the time loop to do small things." She continued, "Get easy money, eat in fancy places, try every dress, learn the actions that will win you the most handsome man. And just have fun. You can even make sure that in the Last Cycle, you will come out of it rich and happily engaged. Just enjoy it as a gift." I got what she was saying. These were crazy people. Walking around with muskets, kidnapping people, killing each other probably. And I certainly didn't want to die. So I nodded.

"The ball and the mysterious Cinderella," Juliette said.

"These are big events. Time loopers will come to check in every few cycles, like we did. You should either avoid the ball entirely or attend exactly as you did before you were a time looper. Other groups might notice you—some are far less friendly than us, and some are much more trigger-happy, too."

"I understand," I said.

"I will be careful."

"Well then," Juliette said.

"Take care… and again, sorry for the rough treatment."

"Wait," said Victor to Juliette, "ask her about it!"

"Oh, that's right," Juliette turned to me again.

"We did tell you so many things, maybe you could tell us about Cinderella? Where is she from? What is her deal?" she asked, then immediately added, "We won't harm her in any way! You have my word for it!" They… didn't know where Cinderella was from? She was a mystery to them. Let's think for a moment. What would a well-informed citizen know about Cinderella? I tried to run through the events of before the loop; A mystery girl appeared, no one saw her before, she danced with the prince, ran away, then…

the Grand Duke was in our house and discovered that it was Cinderella… but it wasn't common knowledge. People would know they found her, her name, and of course that the prince decided to marry her, but I guess the Grand Duke preferred to keep Cinderella's lowborn identity quiet. And of course, Mother and my sister wouldn't talk about it; it shamed them. So the time loopers probably searched for her! Maybe they wanted to play her! Control her! Use her to get to the prince… this was all a game to them!

And no, I didn't trust Juliette at all.

"I just saw her outside the palace when I came in," I lied.

"She looked pretty and I befriended her. We... we talked about silly things, the dance, her dress, the prince… I don't know where she is from."

"Oh, that's too bad," said Juliette, squeezing her eyes at me. She didn't believe me, but I didn't care.

"If I do find anything about her," I started, "shall I.. inform you?"

"Well yes," Juliette answered.

"That'd be very kind of you."

"So... how shall I contact you?" I asked. I needed a way to find these people again if I had more questions about the time loop, as I had absolutely no one else to turn to. Juliette then looked at Victor, who just shrugged his shoulders. Juliette sighed.

"Go to Widow Claire's, the small house with the red door just past the North Gate. Be there in the morning, on any day of the loop. Get inside. There is a bell on the table in the main room. Ring it twice. After some time, someone will come and take you to our base. Note that your face will be covered. To us time loopers, secrecy is the difference between life and death." Widow Claire's house, morning, ring bell twice. Ok, I get it.

"We will go now," Juliette said.

"Have fun in your loops, and remember, don't get involved."

"Well then," I said, "goodbye." They scrambled away quickly, completely disappearing into the dark shadows of the garden night. I smoothed my dress and went back inside to the ball. I was glad they were away. It was useful, I learned so much, but I wasn't comfortable around these people at all. All these time loopers were extremely dangerous. I had better do what Juliette said and stay away from them as much as I could. I entered the ballroom and saw Cinderella was still out on the floor, dancing with the Prince.

She looked so happy and beautiful. I could look at her for some time like this. Sadly, I probably shouldn't come here with her anymore. The only safe way to do it was exactly as it happened before the time loop: rip her mother's dress and cause her true despair. But I wouldn't let that happen again. Besides, with all those time-loopers sniffing around, it probably wasn't safe anyway. I recalled my talk with Cinderella from earlier, about how to make sure we would be fast friends when a new cycle began.

She thought it was possible, that she could just tell me the exact right things to say and do to win her trust. But… I'm not so sure that would work. If there was only a way for Cinderella to somehow tell herself after she forgets…. Wait! There actually was! Juliette mentioned that time loop assistants have this magic journal where they can write things for themselves, and the writing would magically persist across every new cycle. With a journal like that, Cinderella could write a message to herself!

In her own handwriting, which she would immediately recognize and trust! She could tell herself… well, that she likes me. And that she trusts me. With this, she could be with me each cycle, help me do things. Like… Time looper assistance! I wouldn't be alone anymore! This would solve my biggest, most depressing issue with the time loop! I must get a magic journal like that! I will go to this Widow Claire's house tomorrow morning and ask Juliette for the journal.

Cinderella and the prince seemed to finally finish their dance, reluctantly parting from one another's embrace. She hugged him amiably one last time, looked around the crowd until she saw me, and hurried my way, looking very cheerful. Good. I have much to talk with her about. Since I was dumb and she was smart, I could tell her the million things I learned that made my brain hurt, and she could make sense of it all.