CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER FIVE

I open my eyes, and look to the right, the horrors still in my head. It's 8:22AM and I'm late, I think and chuckle a little. It's time to get ready, if I don't hurry I might miss Chloe during first period. I get dressed and I brush my teeth, not as quickly as before, but quick enough to get to class on time.

    After I enter the classroom without hitting the teacher and apologise for being late, I take my seat next to Michael again.

    "Yo, check this s**t out" He says and hands me the dope, I bob forwards and turn to Chloe.

    She starts, "Dude, where were you last night? We were su.." 

    "Supposed to meet and Tyson's and I totally blew you off" I complete her sentence, "Chloe" I say, catching her off guard "pink wasabi"

    "What? That's not funny, where've you heard that?!" She gets defensive.

    "It's no joke Chu, you said it to me thirty minutes from now" Chu is my nickname for her, weird how I haven't said it the past day, or four days, in my time.

    She hesitates for a moment, but decides to give me a chance "I'm listening...."

    "Ok, so this is the fourth time I'm experiencing this day, and every time, a bomb explode halfway through the ceremony, right after the sixth period bells. When I die, I wake up back at 8:22, in my bed" I start explaining, "Are you with me so far?"

    She looks at me with narrow eyes, examining my face for a moment before nodding. I let out a sigh and continue. "We tried saving the school by pulling the fire alarm, but it turns out to be jammed, but when we tried alerting everyone by shouting, the bomb exploded before they reacted.... Killing Tyson at the process" I lower my voice as I remember all the horrible images I've seen.

    Ten seconds of silence pass as I wait for her answer, "Then before we save the school, we need to learn more about that power of yours", she states, "If we want to save everyone, we need to come up with a solid plan, and we can't do it in the time we have, not without knowing the full extent of your ability" 

    "What do we do then?" I ask, impressed by her sudden wisdom, was she always like this?

    "You said you died three times? And you always came back at the same time?" She asks.

    "Yeah, 8:22AM, when I woke up" I answer, where is she going with this?

    "Then either you come back to life at 8:22AM, or it's some time when you slept" Chloe explains, "Let's check that first"

    "But how? And why would it matter anyway?" I ask.

    "We need to know how to reset your 'checkpoint', or else saving the school won't matter anyway" She explains. Right! How dumb am I? 

    "So what do we do now?" 

    "My current theory is that your checkpoint is the last time you woke up, so next time you experience this day, go to sleep again, and when you wake up, restart"

    "Alright, and for now? Should I kill myself right now and check your theory?" I ask.

    She looks surprised for a second, but quickly conceals it, "Sorry, I was surprised by how seriously you were talking about killing yourself, I believe you now. No, let's use this day to gain information, it might save time, well, your time, not mine"

    "I know the locations of the bombs" I say, "And I think the officer said it was homemade PE-4, or something along those lines"

    "Wait, bombs? How many are we talking about?" She asks quickly

    "Three bombs, one near our seats a bit to the left of the stadium, second one in the middle of the court, and the third one at the entrance. It is jammed, so it doesn't explode, but if it wasn't there would've been no survivors" I say.

    "Ok.... Great, and do you remember the name of the officer or any details about her?" She asks, and I recite all I can remember of the lieutenant.

    "Then we gather a bit more, and on the day we're ready we alert the police" She concludes.

I attend the ceremony, as Chloe and Tyson sneak out the hole in the fence and go home. I'll observe and learn as much as I can before leaving a few minutes before the bomb goes off to join them.

    Michael is chewing a gum insanely with an open mouth, Jessica and her friends laugh at the students performing their dances, and Cole and Jake are cutting Miles's shirt. Cole suddenly laughs loudly and spits in Miles's ear, as a teacher gets up to shut them up.

    "F**K ALL OF YOU!" shouts Jake, satisfied as he gets kicked out.

    It's almost time, I pack up and leave the ceremony. I start running home when I get out of the stadium, and after two minutes I hear a loud BOOM!

    I'm far away, but it's so loud it hurts my ears even here, I continue running without looking back, afraid I might get reminded of the suffering occurring inside right now.

    A few seconds later, I can already hear sirens heading toward the school, and then another explosion following them. As I go on, somehow it seems the sirens are getting louder, weird.

    The sirens grow louder by the second, I turn around to see an approaching police car.

    "Stop right there!" I hear from their megaphone, apparently running away from school right before a bomb explodes is pretty suspicious.

    "Don't stay alive after midnight" I recall Tyson's words as I keep on running, I can't let them catch me or the checkpoint might reset. 

    "Stop NOW!" they continue, but I ignore them. I head to an alley between two houses and I turn right, back to the direction of the school, I guess my friends will have to wait.

After another minute or so of running, I feel a vibration in my pocket, and I pull out my phone, it reads "Cho! M/", Chloe is calling me. 

    "Uhh.. Yeah" I say, panting, "I'm.. Running from the police. I'm afraid I.. Won't be able to meet up.. With you guys this time around"

    "Todd.....et aw............ry" I can't hear well while running, I change the holding of my phone so it's always near my ear, but before I manage to ask what they were saying, I trip and drop my phone.

    The police catches up, now with a few more cars to their aid, so I get up quickly and start running again, leaving the broken phone behind. I get near the school as two of the cars get in front of me to block my way, but I quickly turn left and roll to evade capture. 

    A golden opportunity arrives, and without thinking twice, I jump right in front of the speeding firetruck.

***

I wake up and check the clock, 8:22AM, Alright, time to figure it all out.