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It’s been a few days since A-ya died. A few exhausting, miserable days since his dearest friend died; a few days spent in a miserable, empty-feeling routine. C-ta hardly feels like a person these days; he gets up, follows the monotonous routine of going to school, going home, talking with family, sleeping, and doing it all over again. He wonders if this was how A-ya was always feeling. Why was it that losing him made him understand it more?
He doesn’t know, and doesn’t even think about it too much. He doesn’t know if he’s been thinking much lately in general. Everything is weird. The Occult Club no longer meets. A-ya is dead. D-ne is missing. B-ko’s also acting off, and C-ta doesn’t pry into it. No point. C-ta’s been trying his best to keep up appearances, but as soon as he goes home, that all falls apart. He’s told far too many people the lie of “my phone’s not working” to explain why he’s ignoring their calls.
A-ya is dead. Someone killed him, and C-ta couldn’t protect him.
It takes only a few days for the idea that this emptiness is all that’s left in his life to be shattered.
One day, C-ta comes home to find someone in his room. A boy he… doesn’t think he recognizes. He was wearing the same uniform as the one for his school, just with a hoodie added in, so there was little doubt they went to the same school. He had hair around the same length of his own, though with most of it in a ponytail. He was just… sitting there, silently, on C-ta’s own bed. He was odd and suspicious, yet something about his appearance gave C-ta a sense of deja vu that also set off alarm bells in his head, as if he needed to run now.
He was staring at C-ta, and remained quiet for a painful few moments. “...Ah! C-ta! You’re finally back.”
C-ta quickly tensed up. Why did he know his name? This boy, whoever he was, made him feel a sort of immediate hostility, but he tried to remain calm. “Who the hell are you and why are you in my room?”
The boy got up from the bed. He yawned, stretched a little, and slowly walked up to C-ta. He did not leave a lot of distance between the two, and reached behind C-ta to shut and lock the door. If C-ta started backing up now, he’d end up pinned against it. “You don’t remember yet? And I was hoping seeing me again would jog your memory…”
The boy brought his hand up to C-ta’s face, caressing it for some strange reason C-ta couldn’t comprehend. It seemed to have the intention of appearing like a warm gesture, but his hand was frigidly cold.
He maintained this for a moment, and then pinched C-ta’s cheek.
“Ow- what the hell?!” He flinched back, nearly slamming himself into the door.
“Yep! You’re alive, that’s for sure. Great job on that.” The strange boy pulled his hand away and smiled.
C-ta was getting more confused by the minute. “Huh..?”
“Have you lost all your memories? Seriously? I’m congratulating you on surviving the demise game. Soon, the exact time it started a week ago shall pass, marking its end. And you, you alone, have survived. Congrats!”
…He knows about that?
C-ta tenses up even further. “First of all, why do you know about that? Not only that, but aren’t you just plain wrong? B-ko’s still alive.”
The weird boy began to laugh. “Wait, you haven’t noticed?”
“Noticed what?” He was beginning to get fed up with this freak’s mind games.
“That isn’t B-ko.”
“...What?”
“It’s not! Hehe, the girl you see around the school is nothing but a doppelganger. Once a conclusion to this game is reached, it’ll go and disappear right into thin air… oh, if A-ya was alive, I’d love to see his reaction to it, ‘cause that’d give birth to a new urban legend in no time if the doppelganger is around people when it happens! A girl who vanishes right before her friend’s eyes…” He seemed to sigh almost dreamily.
“I have no idea who you are, but I know for sure you have no right to be mentioning A-ya like this.” C-ta felt horribly agitated. This guy was getting on his nerves.
“Aww, you really don’t care about anyone besides yourself, huh?” He smiles.
“Where the hell are you getting that from?”
“You focus on A-ya sooo much because it makes you feel good.”
“No I don’t.”
“Yes you do, silly C-ta.”
“Shut the fuck up. Don’t call me that.” In response, the weird boy only laughed. “Don’t laugh at me either!”
He crossed his arms. “I’ll stop laughing when you stop being laughable. Do you really understand yourself so poorly? Your love’s not innocent and kind and pure-hearted. It’s selfish! You care about him because focusing on A-ya is the basis of yourself, not out of the kindness of your heart. You focus on him so you can exist. Without him, you don’t exist! That’s why you’re so sad! You! Don’t! Exist!” He leaned closer. “But I think you should embrace it, ‘cause it’s so lovely seeing you act like such a freak over—”
C-ta shoved him away, and he toppled onto the floor. “Seriously, shut up!! I don’t even know you, so quit- quit making shit up as if you do!”
He didn’t even seem hurt by being pushed onto the floor. He just got up like it meant nothing. “So harsh. You really haven’t remembered yet? Even after talking to me… well, I’d better prove you wrong. C-ta, how many members were in the Occult Club?”
“F… four.”
“You’re hesitating.”
“No I’m not.” What was he getting at?
“C-ta, do you know who told you to go home for the day when the demise game began?”
“I.. no, but why would I remember that?”
He steps closer. “Do you know who the fox is?”
C-ta felt nervous. He didn’t like where this was going. “N- no, I don’t, and if everyone else is dead and it’s not me then there might not—”
“Do you know who I am?”
The room went silent. The tension was palpable.
“You’re… the fox.”
“Getting closer!” He seemed genuinely happy when C-ta said that, which was weirdly unlike how one would expect a traitor to be. “But that’s not all there is to me, you know…” The boy steps even closer. It’s incredibly uncomfortable. C-ta can feel his breath, which is cold like his hand was; the boy has such a cold, weak, unlively presence that it almost feels like a corpse is standing before him. It’s terrifying. “C-ta, who am I?”
“You’re—”
A headache strikes C-ta. It is sharp, overwhelming, and devastatingly painful, unlike any pain he’s ever felt before.
There are memories in his head. Memories of days that repeat. Memories of killing. Memories of being killed. Memories of a boy who shouldn’t be here. Memories of a boy who is here. Memories of knowledge he had before and forgot. The recollection of loops upon loops upon loops upon loops upon loops, shoved right into his head like a knife sharpened over thousands and thousands of years loops stabbing into his brain over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over
…
C-ta remains conscious, but collapses. The corpse-like boy holding the knife— no, E-noru, catches him.
“...huh, didn’t think that would happen. But hey, at least you remember now!”
C-ta’s voice was weak. “..wh.. what the hell did you do to me..” He sniffled a little. He felt pathetic. E-noru laughed.
“I provoked your memories just a little, and accidentally made you remember all the loops thus far. Oh, do I need to explain that? The demise game is a—”
“You.. you don’t. I know.” C-ta cut him off.
“Alright then! If you’re able to process all those memories, that might just save me a lot of trouble explaining everything.”
C-ta tried to free himself from E-noru’s grasp, only to fall right back into it when he began to stumble. The dizziness was overwhelming. “Why are you here..?”
“I said it earlier. I wanted to congratulate you for surviving until the end, all by yourself! That tends to not happen. No one survives.”
“It’s always a win for you…”
“A pyrrhic one at best. If I had truly won, the game wouldn’t repeat.” He sighs. “But, in a way, it feels like I’ve won a bit more today… hehe, I get to talk to someone who remembers just as much as me.”
C-ta gradually began showing signs of regaining slight amounts of stability, appearing less weakened, but E-noru held onto him nonetheless. “Why are you doing this?”
“That’s a secret… well, it’s not like that matters now. I, like you, don’t have a choice. You will never be able to comprehend why, but I might as well throw it out there.”
That didn’t make sense, but C-ta was too tired to question it. His head still hurts.
The room became quiet for who knows how long, before E-noru spoke up again.
“There’s something you’re taking for granted in life.”
“...what?”
“Forgetting.”
C-ta only felt more confused. “What do you mean?”
E-noru smiled. It was unsettling. “Every time the game ends and you die, you forget it ever happened. You experience it again, unburdened. At the climax of each recurrence, you experience it as if it’s never happened before. You kill for the first time, you die for the first time, you think you’ve won for the first time… all because you can’t remember doing it all before.”
“But isn’t it the worst the first time?”
“You may think that, but it gets much worse after the thousandth time. I know it far too well. You don’t like remembering all those loops, do you?”
C-ta remained silent, because he knew E-noru was right.
“Humans choose to forget because it’s better for them. It’s never involuntary, either. It’s just a matter of consciousness or subconsciousness. You’re my favorite example, y’know.” E-noru sat down on the floor. C-ta went down with him. “Your mind chooses to forget when it predicts remembrance will stress you out. You can even do extreme things, like killing A-ya with the belief he was the traitor, without recalling at all afterwards. Humans are like that, though usually to a lesser extent. They forget the unnecessary details, the painful details, the horrifying knowledge they can’t handle, whatever is too much for them, and continue to function…as a result, they often repeat the same mistakes, or enter a loop of remembering like it’s new and forgetting all over again.”
C-ta really didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t the type of conversation he fit the best in. It felt too personal, if anything. “...do you know that so well because you were like that?”
“No. I don’t have access to such a false luxury.” He paused. “But I’m quite familiar with someone else who still is.”
“I… see.”
E-noru sighed. “You don’t realize how convenient forgetting is until you can’t, though. Memory is a double-edged sword. I wouldn’t forsake it no matter what, but it’s quite painful nonetheless.”
C-ta paused before responding. He’d probably mess up this entire conversation if he didn’t at least try to engage in it. “Because… you remember all the loops, right?”
“Was that not obvious? Yes. I do. And when I say it gets worse after the thousandth time, I promise I wasn’t exaggerating. I…” E-noru paused, and winced a little. “It’s been a while since I hit that milestone. The time between the first time and the thousandth time seems to pale in comparison to how long ago that thousandth time was.”
“And you really remember all of it?”
“Hehe, as vividly as my brain can handle…” His laughter was dry.
“You wouldn’t be going through this if you didn’t betray us. You’re doing it to yourself.”
E-noru didn’t reply. He stared at the ceiling wordlessly for more unnecessary moments.
“...C-ta, did you ever trust me?”
“No. I hardly knew you before you did all of this.”
E-noru seemed to smile a bit wider. “That’s nice. I’m glad.”
He looked back down at C-ta. “There was a rule of the demise game that… I think you might be forgetting. C-ta, do you know what the proper ‘win condition’ for this game would be?”
C-ta tensed up almost violently. “It would be—”
“Killing the fox. Time’s up, C-ta. With this, things will be the same yet again. They’ll be the same the next time as well. Game over.”
And within just a few seconds, E-noru pulled out a boxcutter— C-ta’s boxcutter, which was likely snatched from his desk while E-noru waited for his arrival. He stabbed into C-ta’s abdomen once, then twice, then thrice, then a fourth time… he lifted up the boxcutter as if going to stab him again, but didn’t. The pain was agonizing. It burned, it was sharp, it was terrible, it was overwhelming, but a sort of numbness began to pour in as his blood poured out.
He weakly looked up at E-noru, who was now looking at the boxcutter. His smile had fallen. He moved it closer to himself.
“A leopard never changes its spots, huh… He understands. A traitor’s a traitor, and not much more can be said. And I—”
And with that, the world ended again.