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Victor woke up once more to another painful fit of coughing and retching and good old
misery. He almost couldn't bear to open his eyes and force himself to his feet. When he did finally get up, he came to regret that decision almost immediately. [break][break]
He was back where he had landed the very first time he'd come to this little pocket dimension of hell; standing before what was
supposed to be a tree, just north of that all too familiar bend in the road, across the road from the break in the trees that lead to the cabin. Except now, the world was swaddled in the fabric of night, dark except for the twinkling stars that dotted the infinity of the clear sky above. If the morning that all of this started at was cold, then the night that followed was abysmally so. Victor rubbed his hands together and breathed into them, feeling the black chill of the winter night shake him to the bone. He looked up, and as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he discovered another new and more horrific change.[break][break]
TW: Gore, body horror[break]
Something about the boughs of the tree didn't look quite right at first. It was hard to place exactly what it was at first in the darkness of the night, until Victor peered closer at the branches. It was then that he realized that he wasn't looking at a branch, exactly, but an arm hanging limply, clothed in the same white fabric of his button-up shirt. His eyes widened in horror as his gaze swept over the rest of the tree's structure. [break][break]
Where there should have been branches, there were limbs, arms and legs clad in the same clothes and shoes that Victor was currently wearing. In some places, long, greasy tresses of brown hair hung like the boughs of a weeping willow. In others, pairs of glasses hung like macabre ornaments, their shattered forms draped across broken wrists and ankles or clutched by the tips of unmoving fingers. In others still, there instead hung thin delicate chains that each bore a single, plain metal band. Victor palmed his chest where he felt his own version of the jewelry through the fabric of his shirt; it was his wedding band, always kept close to his heart.
[break][break]
It was sort of amazing that Victor didn't scream at the sheer horror of what he was seeing. He instead took a couple of shaky steps back, turned on his heel, and sprinted towards the familiar cabin. Victor no longer cared whether he restarted the damn loop or not, only concerned with putting as much distance between him and that nightmarish sight as possible. As he broke through the trees, he immediately noticed another change that stopped him in his tracks. [break][break]
While the cabin was still there, situated in the small clearing alongside the picnic bench, there was a new formation that was most certainly
not there before. There was a god damn
shoreline. [break][break]
Looking out, the grassy clearing extended just a few yards out from the cabin until it met the edges of a tranquil lake. A small pier extended a few feet out over the water, starlight dancing off of it's surface. But this wasn't right; there was supposed to be more woods, and a rocky hiking path; there wasn't supposed to be a fucking
lake here, of all things. Victor stood dumbstruck as he took all of it in. It was then he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he screamed, [break][break]
“Easy Vic! It's just me,” greeted a soft and familiar voice. Victor whirled around to be met once more by his late wife. Naomi smiled softly at him and took one of his hands into her own,
“Walk with me.” [break][break]
Too confused and tired to argue, Victor allowed Naomi to lead him by the hand across the clearing, past the shoreline, and down the pier. She plopped down to sit, dangling her feet over the edge, and patted the space next to her as an invitation for Victor to do the same. Nodding numbly in acknowledgment, he readily complied, and landed with an unceremonious thump onto the damp wood. He heaved a weary sigh, and without thinking, Victor laid his head on Naomi's shoulder, staring out onto the lake. She laced her fingers with his in return. It was such a warm, familiar bit of comfort. He wished they could stay like this forever,[break][break]
“Vic – the other Vic – is sleeping in the cabin,” Naomi offered nonchalantly. Her thumb rubbed gentle circles over the side of his own,
“You've been through a lot, huh?” [break][break]
“You know about the loops?” Victor responded, surprised but probably not as much as he should have been. Weirder things had happened over the course of this mess. Naomi nodded in response, [break][break]
“It's strange; I have all of these memories overlapping each other. Of you, of us, and of this place. And of terrible things happening to you, over and over.” [break][break]
“I'm sorry I did this to you,” Victor sighed, defeated,
“God, I'm so fucking sorry.”[break][break]
Naomi gave his hand a gentle squeeze. Victor thought his heart was going to burst; he'd go through a million more loops just to be with her again. As if sensing his thoughts, she squeezed his hand a little tighter, [break][break]
“I know I'm gonna die tonight, Vic. And I know there's nothing that can stop it.” [break][break]
Victor lifted his head and turned to face his wife abruptly. How could she say that? How could she accept her own demise so willingly? What about him? He
needed her; he didn't want to leave without Naomi by his side. But rather than barrage her with every anxious thought currently rattling around in his head, Victor simply asked, [break][break]
“How can you be so sure?” [break][break]
Naomi still stared out towards the water, refusing to face him. For all of the calm comfort she had been trying to project, Victor could see the slight furrow of her brow, telltale lines of worry creasing the corners of her eyes. She shook her head firmly, [break][break]
“Because you've done this... how many times now? And there are only a small handful of constants. Mainly, the fact that I will die, in my sleep, sometime tonight,” Naomi said with firm resolve. She turned to face Victor, her green eyes stunning and intense all at once,
“I don't think that's something that's meant to change, Victor. Like, it's woven into the fabric of fate-” [break][break]
“Fuck fate! I'm not just going to sit back and watch you die again!” [break][break]
Victor tore his gaze away from his wife and pushed himself up to his feet. Surely there was something he could do; call an ambulance, get a cab to a nearby hospital, something,
anything- [break][break]
He hadn't noticed that Naomi had stood up to until he felt her press against his back, wrapping her arms around him in a tight embrace. His resolve deflated almost instantaneously, and he felt a tangible pang of pain in his chest when he realized her shoulders were shuddering with muffled sobs, [break][break]
“I don't want to keep watching you die,” she managed to choke out, trying to keep her voice even,
“Please, Victor – I don't want to keep watching you die.” [break][break]
Tides of guilt and remorse washed over Victor as he reached down to gently pry Naomi's arms from around his waist. He turned around and pulled her close to his chest, Naomi's sobs now wracking her smaller frame as she buried her face into Victor's chest. He just held her, an arm around her waist, the other hand rubbing soothing circles into her back. [break][break]
God, he'd been so stupid, and so fucking
selfish. For all of his posturing about saving Naomi, Victor was beginning to realize that this whole shitshow had been less about her, and more about
him. He was the one that wanted to see her, to be with her, to touch her again. How many times had she watched him die while he had been preoccupied with chasing her? When she finally lifted her head, eyes red and cheeks streaked with tears, Victor kissed her forehead and looked at her from over his glasses, [break][break]
“I'm so sorry, Naomi,” he said, giving her shoulders a squeeze, dark brown eyes locked with green,
“I can't imagine what kind of hell this has been for you. I'm sorry I put you through this.”[break][break]
He slid his hands down to meet hers, giving them a squeeze of reassurance as he continued,
“But I'm gonna stop, now. I'm gonna make this right, so you can rest easy. I-” [break][break]
Victor felt his throat begin to tighten and tears beginning to form in the corners of his eyes. It was so hard to accept the reality of the situation. He had to leave Naomi to her fate; he had to lose her forever. It felt like giving up, like a pitiful defeat. But when he felt Naomi's warm hands reach up to wipe his tears away, his resolve was solidified. He wouldn't keep putting her through this nightmare, [break][break]
“I love you-” he began. [break][break]
“More than anything.” she finished. It was a recitation of their favorite profession of affection for each other, one they repeated before their marriage and for years following. [break][break]
They held each other a while longer before Naomi finally broke their embrace. She looked to the cabin, and back at Victor, [break][break]
“I have to go.” [break][break]
“I know.” [break][break]
There was a hesitation on both of their parts. Victor was reluctant to let her go; Naomi paused after just a few steps back up the pier. She turned to look back at Victor, her face illuminated by moonlight. His heart ached; Victor rubbed his chest, as if the physical action would soothe the emotional pain. They stared at each other a moment longer before Naomi finally turned once more and retreated back to the cabin. To her grave. [break][break]
Victor watched her go, and stood staring numbly at the cabin long after she had made her way inside, flicking the last light off on her way to bed. He slumped down onto the pier, his legs losing the strength to support him. Victor instead pressed his back against one of the supports that jutted out of the water, one leg dangling over the edge of the pier and the other stretched out before him. He stared at the cabin still, even as his eyelids grew heavy and exhaustion sank into his bones. Sleep was rapidly overtaking him, bewildering as it was given the strange circumstances, but Victor felt the weariness of a thousand lifetimes settling upon him. He was only jolted from his weariness when he realized he was slipping from his seat on the pier, falling, body crashing into the icy water of the lake beneath him. [break][break]
Everything was muffled and echoing as he tumbled through the impossible, Stygian depths of the lake. The water shouldn't be this deep so close to the shore, right? But it was not something he had the faculties to make sense of as darkness began to shroud his vision, lungs burning for oxygen that he couldn't take in. As his body journeyed through the dark, frigid waters, he thought of Naomi, walking towards the cabin, repeating the image in his mind's eye like a mantra as the last vestiges of conscious thought slipped into inky oblivion.
