I just wanted her back more than anything in the world, so I did what nobody should do. I dug up her casket and brought her back into the world from being buried in the dark crevices of the earth. I opened it to see her decaying body almost completely gone with nothing left but bones.

“Oh my love, I came back for you. I couldn’t stand knowing we were so far apart from each other,” I say to her.

I pick her up and sit her on top of her casket after closing it back up. I was ready for us to be reunited once and for all, so I took my pocket knife out of my back pocket, looked her in her almost empty eye sockets, and placed my lips against hers.

One last physical kiss.

I took the knife to my throat and swiped the blade from one side to the other. I started to choke on my own blood as I fell down below her knees to the ground gasping the last bit of air I would ever breathe again, never breaking eye contact with my love.

This endless cycle; will it ever end? Do I even want it to end? If I did, then I would have figured this out by now, right? I thought these same questions every night right before the day ends and tomorrow is about to become today. The day always starts the same. I wake up in Kylee’s room, this girl that I hooked up with last night, and she is fumbling through clothes that are spread out on the floor. She’s rushing because she woke up late for class. I know every single thing that is going to happen to her before it even happens and her day always ends up the same no matter how hard I try to prevent it. She dies. “Oh you’re awake,” Kylee said. I was just looking at her, sitting half way up on her bed. She looked at me since I didn’t respond and furrowed her eyebrows. “Is there something on my face? Or did our nightly activities make you already mesmerized by me?” I chuckled. “You could say its something like that,” I reply. At this point she was hopping on one leg trying to put her last sock on. “Okay well as much as I would like to go for round two, I really need to get to class. You can stay or leave, I don’t care, but make sure to just lock the door on your way out.” “Will do.” And with that she left, the door slowly closing behind her. I could never figure out who or what exactly kills her, I just know that I am somehow in this time loop for a reason and it probably has something to do with her, being that I start this day with her. Every day it’s different. Sometimes it ends with her getting hit and the driver runs, or she gets so wasted at this party she goes to that she drowns in the pool, or she falls off the roof because of her dumb drunk self deciding to climb to the top for who knows what reason. Last night I tried my best to not let her even go to that party, and we went to go look at the starts near this empty field. Turns out she’s allergic to spiders and of all things to bite her, it was a spider. By the time the ambulance came or if I rushed her there, she was already dead. I am so tired of seeing her die...but I can’t ignore it and when I do, the cycle still continues and I am left waking up to her every morning. At this point, I am thinking this might just be my hell. Maybe I am going to be left here to suffer and constantly witness this poor girls death for eternity, knowing that there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Maybe...I am the one that’s supposed to die instead. That’s the first time I thought about it like that. Only one way to find out if its true. I need to be with her at the exact moment she is supposed to die, 11:15 p.m. I finally get out of bed and find my clothes off the floor. I usually know where they are but somehow each time Kylee shuffles through these clothes she manages to move it differently each time, so my clothes are not always in the same spots. After getting dressed I took a picture of the the address to the party she goes to from a flyer on her desk. I went to my dorm room and showered and then I just waited. there was no sense in going to class because I was going to die right? Death is a bit scary to think about, but what other choice do I have? And I would rather die then to continue living like this. It becomes rather lonely. When the party came I waited for her to leave the party like she usually did at eleven. She would start to walk aimlessly down the street from the frat house the party was at. I waited at the street the car would hit her and I just prayed that this would end fast. She started to cross the street and I saw the car coming for her. I ran and pushed her out of the way and let the car impact me. Her scream was the last thing I heard before I faded away.

How can I love someone so much when all they do is everything but love me back? He says I love you constantly but as much as his fists have met my face, I doubt that is the case. Why can’t I leave? It’s like he has some sort of chip connected to my brain that won’t let me leave. Well today is the last I can take it. If I keep this up I’ll end up digging my own grave. He won’t be back home until tomorrow which is a surprise being that he never trusts me enough to let me stay home alone for just one night. I’m guessing this is the universe telling me this is my chance because I doubt I’ll get another one like this. As soon as I arrive home from work, I grab the biggest bag I could find and start throwing as much clothes as i could into it. I grabbed my toothbrush, pads, and anything I would really need to survive on my own for a little until I find a set place to stay. I have no family, or even friends to really ask for help and that’s because he wouldn’t let me befriend anyone. If I did it was always a huge problem, so after a while I just got used to being alone. I can’t even go to the police because he is a lawyer and has a lot of connections with the police. I should just run to another country at this point. If I stay anywhere in the US I bet he would somehow find a way to find where I’m at. I resume getting all I can together and head to the kitchen. Little did he know I had a secret stash just in case I ever did decide to flee from him somehow. I hid it under the the sink in a bleach bottle. He would never have guessed money was in there since he doesn’t do a lick of cleaning. I took the entire bottle and also put it into my bag. Finally ready to leave, I grab a piece of paper and leave a note for him even though he doesn’t even deserve that. It said, ‘I love you, but I can’t anymore. Find someone else to be your punching bag.’ I placed it on the fridge and then put the key to the house on the dining table. I headed for the door, stopped and took one last look at the house. The memories were never always bad, but that is usually how it goes right? You think it is all sunshine and rainbows until they decide to show you their true colors, and by the time that happens you’re so far into it that it becomes hard to escape. I hate knowing I became one of those people that became so lost and empty under his grasp that there wasn’t any way out. I wasted ten years of my life being trapped but now I can finally try to be free again. Love isn’t always worth the pain, especially this. I left closing the door behind me and I never looked back.

Joe was hanging onto the ledge trying not to let go due to his cramping fingers. “You cannot die here you piece of shit,” he mumbled to himself. He used all the strength he had left in him to pull himself up enough to use his elbow for support. Once he had one elbow, it was easier to get up from there. He wedged his feet into the rocks to push himself all the way up. “You are still trying to get past this level man?” Joe’s roommate, Claire said. Joe flinched from not expecting Claire’s interruption and because of this, his character in his Jungle Terror video game tripped and fell down the cliff. The words ‘YOU DIED’ in all red popped onto the screen. “Seriously Claire? You knew I have been stuck on this damn level since last Friday,” Joe bemoaned. “I know but I am bored and want to go out and do something. You have been so cooped up in this room trying to beat this dumb level or whatever and you should take a break from it for at least one night.” “I know but I am really trying to get past this, once I do then I am all yours. Even for a whole week if you want me to.” “Don’t make promises you can’t keep sir. You should hurry up then and not die.” “Easy for you to say. And if you want me to then get out and stop interrupting me!” “Okay, sheesh. I will leave you to it then and come Monday, I will be barging back in here to hold you to your word mister gaming nerd.” “Okay I gotchu. Imma try my hardest to get past this by Monday. I was literally about to before you came in here.” “Yeah sure you were. Imma go to the bar then without you. Have fun with your silly game.” And with that, she left his room closing the door behind her. Joe looked back at his screen and pressed the retry button. He got as fast as almost reaching the top of the cliff again, but no matter what he did he was not able to get to the top. It was fail after fail until he finally saw the sun rising outside of his dorm room window. He had to get up for class in the next two hours, which meant no sleep once again, but it was not something new for him. He decided to turn the game off for the time being and try to get an hour of sleep. “I wish I could go in the game because If I was in the game myself, I knew I would win this bullshit,” he babbled. He closed his eyes and fell asleep. Little did he know that he was not going to be waking up in his bed. The next morning Joe woke up and shot up, immediately realizing he wasn’t in his dorm room anymore. He was surrounded by trees and the noises of wild animals in the distance. “where the fuck?” He stood up to get a better look of his surroundings and then it clicked, “This isn’t really happening.” He was indeed inside of his video game. He knew he asked for this but it never occurred to him that it could actually happen. It was indeed some type of movie shit to get stuck inside of a game. “Am I dreaming? Nah this seems to damn real and this is the exact Spotify respawn at when I die. Welp onward I go.” He continued forward through the trees and came across to the high mountain he has to climb up. He wasn’t sure how he would actually make it up there since he doesn’t have any serious climbing experience other then the one time he went rock climbing for a school field trip. He looked for the edge where he would always start and placed his foot on it. He lifted himself up and thus began to climb. He finally got to the top and was hanging from the ledge trying not to let go due to his cramping fingers. ‘Damn this hurts more than it actually looks in game,’ he thought to himself. He used all of the strength he had left to pull himself up enough to use his elbow for support. He wedged his feet into the rocks to pull himself all the way up and he had no distractions this time.