MidReal Story
Eternal Echoes: Breaking the Time Loop
Scenario: A group of time travelers are stuck in a time loop and they try to find a way to get out and return back
Create my version of this story
I wake up to the sound of my alarm clock.
I reach over and turn it off, then sit up in bed.
I rub my eyes and look around my room, trying to shake off the sleepiness.
I get out of bed and walk over to my closet.
I pick out a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, then head to the bathroom to take a shower.
After I’m dressed, I go downstairs and make myself some breakfast.
I sit down at the table and eat while I read the newspaper.
When I’m done, I put my dishes in the sink and grab my keys from the hook by the door.
I walk outside to my car and get in.
I start the engine and pull out of the driveway, then head to work.
The drive is uneventful, just like every other day.
When I get there, I park in my usual spot and go inside.
I take the elevator up to the fifth floor and walk down the hall to my office.
When I get there, I see that Thomas is already at his desk.
He looks up when he sees me and smiles.
“Morning,” I reply.
I walk over to my desk and set my things down.
I sit down in my chair and turn on my computer, then check my email.
After a few minutes, I get up and go to the break room to get some coffee.
I pour myself a cup and add some cream and sugar, then head back to my desk.
I sit down and take a sip of the hot liquid, hoping it will help wake me up.
But it doesn’t, and I can feel myself starting to doze off.
I shake my head and try to focus on my work, but it’s no use.
My head is too heavy with sleep and I can’t concentrate.
I close my eyes for just a minute, thinking that maybe a short nap will help.
But when I open them again, I realize that I’ve been here before.
The shrill sound of my alarm clock fills the room and I groan as I sit up in bed.
I’m so tired of this.
I rub my eyes and try to shake off the grogginess as I get out of bed and go through my morning routine.
Everything is too familiar.
The way the sunlight filters through the curtains as I walk by, the creak of the floorboards beneath my feet, even the taste of the toothpaste I use is exactly as I remember it from yesterday.
Or was it the day before that?
It’s so hard to keep track anymore.
Once I’m dressed, I go downstairs and make myself some breakfast just like I always do.
And like always, when I’m done I put my dishes in the sink and grab my keys from the hook by the door.
I walk outside to my car, get in, and start the engine before pulling out of the driveway and heading to work.
The drive is uneventful, just like every other day, but this time I can’t help but wonder if things will be any different once I get there.
But they won’t be, because they never are.
When I arrive at work, I park in the same spot as always before going inside and taking the elevator up to the fifth floor.
As I walk down the hall to my office, I see that Thomas is already there, sitting at his desk and typing away on his computer.
I wave at him as I pass, but he doesn’t look up or acknowledge me in any way.
I’m not surprised, though.
He’s been acting strange for a while now, just like Sarah and I have been too, if we’re being honest with ourselves.
It’s hard not to be after everything we’ve been through.
We were never meant to be stuck here like this, reliving the same day over and over again for who knows how long.
We were supposed to be traveling through time, jumping from one era to another as part of a grand experiment that had the potential to change everything we thought we knew about history.
Because everything feels wrong, like pieces of a puzzle that don’t quite fit together the way they’re supposed to, no matter how hard you try to make them do so, and it’s starting to get on my nerves.
The alarm clock blares its obnoxious tune as I sit up in bed, my head already heavy with sleep even though I haven’t been unconscious for more than a few hours.
I groan as I struggle out of bed, wondering how many times I’ll have to go through this before it finally stops, or if it will ever stop at all.
I turn off the alarm and sit there for a moment, staring at nothing in particular as a profound sense of déjà vu washes over me once again, making me question what’s real and what isn’t before getting up and going through the motions of another day that feels exactly the same as all those that have come before it.
When I’m dressed and ready to go, I go downstairs and make myself some breakfast, then sit down at the table and eat while I read the newspaper.
My mind is somewhere else entirely, though, and I don’t pay much attention to what I’m reading as I eat, the words on the page blurring together as they lose all meaning.
When I’m done, I put my dishes in the sink and grab my keys from the hook by the door, then walk outside to my car and get in.
I start the engine and pull out of the driveway, driving down the street and blending in with all the other cars around me as I make my way to work.
The drive is uneventful, just like every other day.
As I pull into my usual parking spot and go inside, I’m struck once again by the sense of déjà vu that has become all too familiar to me by now.
Thomas is sitting at his desk already, his fingers flying over his keyboard as he types away.
He doesn’t look up when he hears me come in, but I wave at him anyway before going to my own desk and setting my things down, then turning on my computer and checking my email.
After a few minutes, I get up and go to the break room to get some coffee.
I pour myself a cup and add some cream and sugar before going back to my desk and sitting down to enjoy it.
It’s too hot, though, and I burn my tongue on the first sip before giving up on it entirely.
It’s time for this nonsense to stop now.
When I look in the mirror, I see a stranger staring back at me.
My eyes are tired and bloodshot, with dark circles that seem to grow more pronounced every day, while my skin is pale and sallow, like someone who hasn’t seen the sun in far too long.
He doesn’t seem to be having much luck finding anything interesting there, however, and after a few minutes he sits back down with a frustrated sigh.
I glance over at the clock on the wall, then look at my wrist for the device that should be there to remind me of the time.
It hasn’t been there for so long that I’ve nearly forgotten what it looks like or how it feels against my skin, but I still find myself looking for it every once in a while, as if I might suddenly remember where I left it or when I last had it with me.
Thomas is staring at the computer screen again, his brow furrowed in concentration as he scans through the data we collected yesterday for the thousandth time.
He’s been at this all morning, and I can tell by the look on his face that he hasn’t made any progress so far, that there’s still nothing there to tell us what we need to know to break free from this endless cycle we’re trapped in.
Sarah is sitting across from him at the table, a notepad and pen in hand as she scribbles down some notes of her own.
She glances up at the clock on the wall as well before setting her pen aside and running a hand through her wild red hair with a sigh of her own.
“What time is it?”
she asks no one in particular, but neither of us answers her because we both know all too well that she already knows the answer.
She just wants us to say something—anything—to break the heavy silence that hangs in the air between us like a thick fog that won’t lift no matter how many times we try to clear it away.
We’ve been talking about this for weeks now—months?
It’s hard to say exactly how long it’s been since we first got stuck here in this endless loop of days that refuse to move forward—but no matter what we do or how many times we try to retrace our steps or consult every piece of technology we possess to find the anomaly that set us adrift here like a ship without a rudder or a compass to guide us home, we still can’t find it.
It’s like it’s hiding from us on purpose, waiting for us to get close enough to see it before slipping away into the shadows, laughing at our feeble attempts to follow, and though I know that’s not exactly what’s happening, that’s how it feels to us right now, and I don’t think any of us can stand much more of this before we all go completely mad.
I’m not sure, though, whether that’s the worst thing that could happen to us or not.
I sit up in bed and stretch my arms out in front of me as I look around the room, taking in the familiar details of my still-fresh surroundings—the way the sunlight filters through the curtains, the creak of the floorboards as I walk, even the taste of the toothpaste I use—and for a minute I try to remember when it was exactly that I first started doing all of this, when my life first became so predictable and so monotonous that I had to find something, anything, to break up the tedium of my very existence every single day, and then I realize that this isn’t just some vague memory of days gone by, but right now, right here in front of my eyes, and that somehow I’ve managed to forget my life along with everything else that used to be important to me while I was trying to figure out what exactly it was that went wrong with our experiment and how to fix it.
At first I thought I was dreaming, or maybe just imagining things, like I’d seen something on television or in a movie and my brain had somehow transplanted the idea into my own life and made me forget that I’d ever seen or heard of it or anything like it before, but now I know that I’m not dreaming and that I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this before, and that no matter how many times I close my eyes and wish for things to be different when I open them again, they never are, and that I have absolutely no idea what to do about any of it.
I turn off the alarm clock and get up to take a shower, and by the time I’m done and dressed and ready to go meet Thomas at work there’s no sign that anyone else has ever been in this room with me—no piles of clothes on the floor by the bed, no damp towels hanging over the edge of the bathtub, no half-empty bottles of shampoo and conditioner on the edge of the sink—nothing to show that we’ve already gone through all of this before and that we’ve already tried—and failed—to make today different than it was yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that one too.
When I get to work, Thomas is already there in his usual spot at his desk in the corner of the room where he can keep an eye on everything but still have some privacy to do his own thing.
He hasn’t been very productive lately, though, and it shows in the way he sits hunched over in his chair with his head resting in one hand while he stares at the computer screen in front of him with a frown on his face.
He looks up to see me, and I can see his eyes instantly harden with anger, and he shifts a little in his chair to put his hand carefully back down on his desk, but not before he brings it down hard against the wood with a bang of frustration.
I don’t say anything to him about it, though.
He’s had a rough few days, and I know he’s not mad at me.
He’s just mad at everything, and he’s taking it out on his desk.
I walk over to my own desk and sit down, turning on my computer and bringing up my work for today.
It’s nothing special—just one more attempt to figure out how to recalibrate this goddamn machine so we can make our jump back to our own timeline and get out of here.
But I’ve tried everything I can think of, and none of it has worked.
We’re stuck here, and I don’t know if we’re ever going to be able to leave.
I don’t know if it’s my fault, or if there’s something wrong with the machine, or if we’re just not meant to be able to go home at all.
Either way, I’ve got nothing left to try at this point.
“Did you find anything yesterday?”
I ask him after a minute, even though I’m pretty sure I know what his answer is going to be.
He gives a small shake of his head without looking up from his computer screen.
“Not much,” he says.
“I looked through every bit of research that I’ve got saved here, but there wasn’t anything new.”
“And what about Sarah?”
He shakes his head again, and then gestures behind me toward the door.
“No sign of her yet.”
The door opens just as he says that, and Sarah walks into the room with a huff of breath, as though she’s been running.
She looks even grimmer than usual, which is saying something for her, and she frowns when she sees us both so preoccupied with our own work.
“Nothing,” she says curtly when she reaches us and sits down at her own desk.
“I didn’t find anything new.”
Well, they never said this was going to be easy,” Thomas says with a small sigh as he turns back to his computer.
I don’t say anything to that.
When we first realized that we were stuck in this time loop and that we couldn’t get out, we all agreed that the best way to try to deal with it would be to try to keep living like we were still back in our own timeline and that we were still doing the work that we had come here to do.
But that only works for so long.
After so many weeks—or months, or however long it’s been—it gets hard to keep going like this when we don’t even know if we’re making any progress or if we’re just stuck in limbo.
And it’s even worse when we don’t even have any memories of what we did yesterday or the day before or the day before that one.
I think that might be the worst part of all of this.
We don’t know how long we’ve really been stuck in this loop, but it has to have been long enough for us to lose all of those memories.
I think it has to have been almost as long as the amount of time that we were actually living in this timeline to begin with.
