Submitted by Theeaglestrikes t3_zt60s7 in nosleep
I’m trapped in a perpetual Groundhog Day, but it’s more than a ‘day’.
The world feels a little grislier with every reset. I’ve always known that some sort of higher power must be the architect of my eternal torture. What other explanation could there be? But I no longer simply ‘know’ of that power. I’ve seen it.
Let me rewind. I’m used to doing that, after all.
I don’t know how many times I’ve relived the past two decades. Enough times to slowly go insane. I’ve done some crazy shit in a manic attempt to break free. I actually thought I could end the cycle by altering the course of the future. During the present iteration, I haven’t really bothered. I’m tired. So, you’re experiencing the ‘natural’ course of events, I suppose.
Let’s just say there was an iteration in which I invested wisely, became a billionaire, and spent my riches on changing the landscape of the world. I even paid extraordinary amounts of money to scientists who promised they could uncover the secrets of the universe. I thought they could fix whatever had happened to me. The problem is that I don’t think they ever truly believed my story. They didn’t really try to understand how a time-loop would work, so their research was half-hearted. Nobody has ever been able to save me.
And, before anybody asks, death is not the answer. It just resets the loop. I find myself waking up on the morning of December 31st, 1999. I celebrate the commencement of a new millennium with my family, and we admire the fireworks. At this point, of course, I’ve probably lived for a millennium.
The horror of waking up in my 13-year-old body with a 36-year-old mind never fades. Or maybe I’m 3600-years-old, eh? Who knows? I’m certainly not counting. Anyway, I always detest reliving those teenage years. I pretend to be a normal kid and blend in with my peers. A few months after the first reset, I managed to calm myself down and seize the opportunity to make better decisions. Maybe it’s a second chance, I decided.
I took care of my health. I married the same girl, but I was a better husband and managed to prevent the divorce. I spent more time with our kids. I was a better version of myself. As December 31st of 2022 approached for the second time, I thought I’d done what the universe wanted me to do. You can imagine my unbridled terror when the loop reset. And that’s when the penny dropped. I’m stuck.
Madness ensued. Four resets later, I tried killing myself. That didn’t work. I tried hundreds of times in hundreds of ways. No luck. So, I’ve given up and resigned myself to this hellish existence. During every fresh iteration, however, I do try something new. I have to attempt to save myself, right?
This time, I’ve posted about my experience on Reddit. That’s new. I’m reaching out for help. Maybe I haven’t fully given up, eh? I might say otherwise, but my actions speak louder than my words. I mean, I have to be honest. I’ve never gone completely wild. I’ve never completely ruined my life. I’ve stripped naked and run through the local park, but I’ve never, say, robbed a bank. I can’t risk doing something life-destroying. What if the loop has ended? Every time I reach December of this year, I start to wonder that. It’s what keeps me from entirely unhinging and doing something foolish. I don’t want to endure this infinite torture. I guess I still believe that I can break free of the cycle.
I believe in January 1st, 2023. I’m sure all of you will see it. Surely, when that day arrives, I’ll have discovered a way to move beyond the loop. Eventually, I have to make it to next year, right? What’s the alternative? I can’t seem to die, after all.
Well, that’s what I used to believe.
After a certain number of resets, I began to notice something disquieting. It started during one particular December of 2022. I noticed something watching me.
It always happens during this final month. For instance, I might stroll down the road and catch glimpses of something in my peripheral vision. On street corners, I’ve seen a man with eyes that have no pupils. That’s not all. I’ve heard things that other people say they can’t hear. There are shushing noises with no source.
I wake up in the night, bathing in a pool of sweat, assured that I’ve spotted glassy pinpricks in the darkness. Sometimes, they rapidly vanish, as if the thing has closed its eyelids to avoid detection. Other times, the eyes linger, hovering in front of me. The thing seems to be getting bolder, and that haunts me.
Last week, I was in an art gallery, and I saw a terrifying painting. My wife and friends said it was beautiful. They couldn’t comprehend why I suddenly had a gaunt complexion. I suppose it would seem like an odd reaction. After all, the painting simply depicted an ordinary man. But I felt as if I’d take a stroll through the uncanny valley. His eyes were dreadful. Something about him was marginally off. And, for the briefest moment, the gallery light caught the painted eyes in such a way that the pupils disappeared. I found myself staring into the vacant eyes from various street corners and my darkened bedroom. They were boring into my skull. I whimpered in terror.
The worst part is that I’ve been to the art exhibit before. On December 10th, 2022, my wife and friends always drag me there. That painting wasn’t there in any of the previous iterations of this loop. In that exact spot, there had been a painting of Big Ben proudly displaying eleven o’clock. And that’s something which petrifies me. It means things are changing, and I don’t think they’re changing for the better.
I have considered letting go. My fight is fading. Perhaps I should embrace the entity with open arms. Perhaps it has come to release me from this nightmare. It could offer a finite death and put an end to the loop.
But what if it delivers a worse fate? Every time I see the Glassy-Eyed Man, I feel my chest coil into a clove hitch. He isn’t good. He isn’t trying to save me.
I need to figure out how to reach January 1st, 2023.