Every morning a woman and her son would pass by Kara’s house. He would trip and scrape his knee at exactly 7:34AM and his scream would immediately tear through the neighborhood.
At 7:50AM, her brother would storm down the stairs and out the front door. He was hardly ever late to school but Kara knew he forgot to charge his phone last night and the alarm never went off. It was too bad Kara couldn’t go back to fix that.
Exactly 48 seconds later Kara’s phone would buzz. It was her ex boyfriend, begging to talk to her. Each time he would scramble to explain why he was seen making out with a girl from another school. It was always the same poor excuse.
Whenever Kara was bored she’d talk to him about it and see what she could do to mess with him, but she wasn’t having it this morning.
She hasn’t been having it this morning for a few mornings now. Not since she noticed something was off. She’s lived over fifty repeats of the same day and finally she noticed that one particular person was changing something about herself every single cycle.
Not only would she wear something different every day, she would also change her hair style every day. She even went bald for a cycle before the day reset. Truly it was the baldness that finally caught Kara’s eye and got her to pay attention to the girl. In the last couple of weeks Kara considered talking to her.
Of course she considered that this girl could be like her, stuck in a time loop and fully aware of it happening. It would be nice to have company in these strange times and even better if it was someone who she could finally talk to without losing her mind.
But she couldn’t. After several cycles of investigation, asking around and even looking for the girl at school, she found out that she didn’t even go to her high school. Even worse, her ex-boyfriend had been cheating on Kara with that same girl.
And she was stuck with her in a time loop.
The subway’s deafening whirs and clangs went unnoticed by Joseph. What couldn’t go unnoticed, however, was the elbow jabbed into his arm. “I think I just met the happiest person in the world!”
His brow wrinkled, already uninterested in what his best friend had to say. “Who?” He glanced back down at the screen, three animated dots stared back.
“You! I saw that big dumb grin on your face,”
Joseph merely shrugged, hoping it was enough. But of course Noah was ever the nosy one. “Never not nosy Noah”, as Joseph would mock him with.
But as nosy as Noah was, he still had the common courtesy to never peek at someone else’s private messages without permission. He was definitely more of the upfront type. Unfortunately.
“You went on a date last night right?” He asked, competing with the screech of subway brakes.
Joseph didn’t have to look around to know that despite the ear-piercing screech of the subway’s breaks, Noah was definitely loud enough for people within the direct vicinity to overhear. Although Joseph was used to Noah’s outbursts, it didn’t help his second-hand-embarrassment crawling up his spine. Or the anticipation that was killing him.
“Yeah I did. Had a great time.”
“So… what’s her name?”
Joseph glanced back down again to not only escape from the judgement cast upon him and his friend, but to hopefully find some good news.
Still three dots. Still no answer. “Oh. Her.” He replied plainly.
“Yeah, her!”
He looked back down to the screen, more than content with the red heart and quick “okay” left by the sender.
“Uh, Brian.”
Only a breath’s worth of time and Noah’s strange brand of tact kicked in. “Oh. Sick. When are you gonna see him again?”
Joseph shot his best friend a triumphant grin. “Tonight.”
He is a young, cold-blooded prince-turned-king who is known for his brilliance.
After years of preparation, he murdered his parents and blamed another planet’s government for it to kickstart a war he believed to be inevitable.
As brilliant as the prince is, he is arrogant, costing his people major casualties in exchange for victories. He does not find joy in sacrificing his people, but he deems it necessary to end generations worth of conflict and prove his worth as a young ruler.
