Chapter Text
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“----so you think they would- hang on, I think there’s something there.”
“What? Seriously? It better not just be some random brick.”
“Give me a second, geeze… Holy shit, I think it is a statue.”
“Fuck, if there’s more of this shit, this site might as well be an archaeology site.”
“Should we call it in?”
“Guess we need to call in an expert, a statue this size is not gonna go unnoticed.”
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“So this is the statue huh?”
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“I don’t think you are supposed to glow…”
Joel rubbed his eyes and looked again only to find a simple statue standing in front of him. Why was he looking at it again? He’s an architect, not an archaeologist. This bloody statue was the thing that caused the project to be delayed for at least another a half a year if he was lucky.
Joel couldn’t wait til he could take off these stupid non-breathable safety gear, get out of this construction site, go home, forget about this stupid statue and enjoy the day off.
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It was a Saturday morning, Joel looked at the clock and saw it displayed 10:44 AM. He debated if he should sleep in a bit more but decided against it. Got up, did the usual routine of washing up, breakfast and coffee, grimacing about the lack of food in the fridge and added grocery shopping to today’s to-do list.
The grocery shopping did not happen until late into the afternoon, who would have thought bingeing a show would take the whole day?
He went out only to regret going out on a weekend as the traffic was horrendous, and the traffic accident did not help in the slightest. At this rate, the ice cream in the back of his seat would melt by the time he reached home.
Joel ended the day with take outs anyway as he did not have the energy to cook after getting back. He finished the show while eating the half melted ice cream and went to bed.
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Loop 1
It was Saturday morning… Saturday? Joel did a double take at his digital clock, it’s 10:44 AM yet again and it clearly said SAT beside the date.
“Don’t tell me this stupid thing is broken.”
He turned on his phone to check the time so he could reset the clock only to find the phone telling him the same thing.
Today is a Saturday.
He checked his fridge to find it as empty as it was the previous morning, there wasn't any take out box in the trash, any indication of yesterday had happened was nothing more than a memory only he had now.
Joel turned on the news to find the weather man saying what a beautiful Saturday it was and Joel felt like he was being mocked at this point. If Joel had to relive his Saturday, he was not going to waste it on speedrunning depression.
All evidence points towards today being a Saturday and… and what? Was this a really vivid dream or was yesterday a dream?
Joel marched into the bathroom, turned the water all the way to ice cold, and splashed a handful into his face.
“Nope, this is real.”
Was yesterday a dream then? Looking back at everything he did yesterday, it all blurs along with the mundane.
Well who was he to deny another weekend, perhaps he was so tired that he dreamt of having a weekend before it even started.
Joel decided to have a fresh start of the day and get groceries out of the way early if there really was going to be horrible traffic later the day.
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Joel stood in front of the fruit aisle with a bag of apples in his hand and was hit with a wave of déjàvu. He had gotten apples in his dream and getting it again weirdly felt existential.
He put down the apples, and got oranges instead.
The drive back was as smooth as you can get on a Saturday morning, no traffic accident to slow him down.
Joel came back to his apartment and laid down his groceries on the table to find that it was not even noon yet. For the first time in ages Joel felt like a productive adult, maybe he would finally do his chores and file his taxes….
God that sounds exhausting and not what weekends were for. He swiftly put away all of his groceries, basically dropped himself onto the sofa, and started catching up on his shows.
Except he had seen them already.
The history shows this was supposed to be his first watch but he already saw them yesterday, or last night’s dream.
No matter how vivid the dream was, he couldn't possibly make up the exact same show he had never seen before.
Was yesterday really a dream?
It had to be. Then, did Joel suddenly start having prospective dreams? Did he just see what was going to happen today in yesterday's dream?
It's kind of nice to be able to look into the future but having to live everyday twice sounds exhausting. Or this could just be a one off thing and Joel just wasted his future seeing power on an uneventful Saturday.
Guess he will find out tomorrow. For now, it would be nice to distract himself from all these fantasy theories and potential crises by watching British Bake-off.
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Loop 2
The SAT on his clock was now a pure mockery to his sanity.
Like everyone in this generation, Joel turned on his phone and found the same SAT staring back at him. He then rushed to the TV and turned on the news, only to be faced with the same weather man describing what a bloody beautiful Saturday it was, in the same annoyingly fake cheerfulness he remembered.
Cool, his previous theory is out the window now, amazing, fan-fucking-tastic, just absolutely peachy.
Right, Twitter, whenever something happened, people flock to Twitter. Joel tried everything he could think of, 'prospective dreams', 'day repeating', 'Saturday again', but as he tried, all he could find was emo poems about going through the motion, Groundhog Day, Sci-fi stories and role plays.
Though as he scroll through them, the idea of a time loop kept coming back… a time loop, what a bloody joke. But the more he thought about it, spiralling into stories and theories about time loops, the more Joel believed he was in one… well, believe was a strong word, but there was nothing left to believe in.
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Loop 3
Joel believes it now.
It was Saturday again, the weather man was still saying what a beautiful day it was. The nonsensical time loop theory was making more and more sense by the minute. But isn't time loop suppose to be a fictional concept?
Fiction or not, there has to be something on the internet if this, in fact, was possible, right? Continuing down the rabbit hole he was in yesterday, he ended up skimming through a scientific paper theorising this whole bullcrap only to give up when the big words started giving him an headache. This was why he's an architect and not an engineer or a bloody rocket scientist.
He proceeded to spend the entire day looking at dead ends after dead ends, endless of useless made up bullcrap, and eventually watched three movies about time loops 'for research'. When the credit rolled, Joel glanced at the clock and saw it was 11:16 pm. Usually he would have gone to bed already but he doubt he could actually fall asleep anyway.
So he chose to sit back and stare at the clock, curious to see what would happen at midnight, maybe he could witness the moment time turns back, that would be cool; or maybe, if he didn't sleep, time wouldn't loop, now that sounds like another kind of hell.
By the time the clock hit half past, Joel was already fighting sleep. His head had became immensely heavy, and every time he was jolted back from sleep when his head hit the back of the sofa, he was feeling more and more drowsy. God, midnight could not come any sooner. Though he persisted through sheer force of will, it was only eighteen more minutes, if he missed this, he would have to wait a whole other day and he didn't have the patience for it.
He watched the clock the same way he did during new years, counting every second. When it was the finally minute, his eye lids were heavy but not as heavy as his heart as it beats in his chest. Honestly, he didn't even know why he was excited? Nervous? Scared?
Joel blinked and the number went from 25 to 32, fuck he was falling asleep. He took a breath an watched the last 10 seconds like a hawk, though his body refused to cooperate as his vision started to blur. Through the haze, he could see 57… 58… 59…
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Loop 4
10:44 AM.
SAT
Joel was in his bed.
Fuck.