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Sklonda drops to her knees in the middle of the busy street, protecting her son’s body with her own. The cars move slowly around them, rubbernecking for these two goblins in the middle of the road, one sobbing and one still. So, so still.
Sklonda sits forward in her uncomfortable chair, wishing that hospitals had a slightly higher budget for the chairs in which visitors sit vigil at the sides of their dying loved ones. She wonders how she can be thinking about chairs at a time like this.
Sklonda gets a call on her phone, letting her know that, as the emergency contact of one Riz Gukgak, they’re requesting that she come to the Aguefort Adventuring Academy immediately. She knows why, at this point. She knows why.
Sklonda Gukgak wakes up to the sound of Riz’s old-fashioned alarm clock, just like she has for the past thirty days, on the morning of October 13th. A Tuesday. An endless Tuesday. She has been living this same Tuesday for weeks and weeks, wondering if she’ll ever see November.
She yells at Riz to turn the alarm off, knowing that he takes a moment to register the sound of the ringing when he wakes.
“Kid,” Sklonda calls out, knocking on the shared wall between their rooms. “Time to get up. You’ve got school.”
Except, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if Riz makes it to school today because he’ll never make it to tomorrow. That’s the only thing she knows for sure. No matter what either of them do, Riz does not make it to Wednesday, October 14th.
She pulls out a notebook from her bedside table and scribbles out a code that she’s been working on for the past few weeks.
DCCDMCDFHAEAMOPSBLFIARMSHHFCVFFSPSZ
No one else could decode it but her but she knows what it means. It’s a list, in order, of the ways that she’s had to watch her son die.
She stares at the list and her eyes begin to unfocus as she falls into memories of what those letters stand for. PSBLFIAR. Poisoning, strangulation, blood loss, flu, infection, allergic reaction. That was a tough week. She remembers where she stood at the end of it. Fractured, empty, and hopeless. The next morning when she woke up, she refused to let Riz go to school. She couldn’t stand letting him out of her sight.
Instead, they left for a day in Bastion City. Sklonda was afraid of cars ever since the first day of the loop when a car crash left Riz smeared on the asphalt of Main Street, but she needed to get the hell out of Elmville before she went crazy so they absconded. Bastion City was a beautifully grimy place but the people there…
Some were more reasonable than others.
A knife was pressed against Sklonda’s back, along with a demand for her purse. Sklonda tried to hand it over, not wanting any trouble, but Riz fought to disarm the mugger. He got the dagger out of his hand quickly but neither of them saw the gun tucked into the mugger’s belt until it was too late.
Sklonda was left alone. Again. Sobbing over the body of her son.
She would think that she would run out of tears at some point. Maybe in thirty more loops.
Riz knocks on her bedroom door. “Mom?” he asks. She puts away her notebook and leaps to her feet, covering the despair on her face with affection as she swings open her bedroom door.
“Hey, sweetheart,” she says, pulling him into a hug. “Ready for a good day today?”
Riz pulls away from the hug quickly, and grins down at Sklonda. It’s so strange, she thinks, having your child outgrow you, but this year, Riz sprung up another inch and now stands just a fraction taller than she does. “Always,” he says.
Sklonda wishes she could force the universe to give her son the good day that he deserves but she knows what’s in store for him. Not exactly, not down to the little details. But she knows he’ll end Tuesday, October 13th no longer in the land of the living.
He’ll die. Like he always does, he’ll die.
And Sklonda will be forced to live it. Again and again and again, she will watch her son die.
Strongtower Luxury Apartments goes up in flames. Sklonda makes it out. Riz does too, mercifully, and Sklonda clutches him against her body. Then, he hears the sounds of someone crying out for help from the second floor and he dives back into the building. Sklonda sighs because she knew it was coming.
The voices on the other end of the call are panicked, shouting about allergies and medicine and healing not working and Riz’s throat closing up. Sklonda only nods and reminds the Bad Kids that Riz has been allergic to mint since the day he was born. She hears one of them suck in a breath and mutter something about ice cream flavors.
Friendly fire. The words play on repeat in her head. What’s so friendly about it? It kills just the same. She curses guns, wishes they had never been invented, and curses the idiot rogues in Riz’s class who don’t know how to wield them. Friendly fire, the school administrator told her. It happens.
Sklonda lies back on Pok’s grave, imagining that he’s lying with her.
“Pok, I don’t know if it’s a punishment or a reward.”
She hums, low and quiet, as she tries to put her thoughts together.
“On one hand, I have to watch him die over and over again. Pok, you have no idea what that does to a person. I’ve seen our little boy suffering in every way possible and I have no idea how many more times I’ll have to watch it happen.”
She sighs.
“But, on the other hand, if Riz really was meant to die, at least I’ll never have to live without him. Every morning, I get to see him again. I get one last day, forever, with our son. He’s immortal now. In a way. I mean, what else could I possibly ask for?”
Sklonda has never frozen up before, not like this. She’s saved lives, over and over again, in her career. But today, when her baby chokes in front of her on a chunk of granola, she freezes, staring wordlessly as his skin pales and his eyes grow wide. What’s the point? she wonders. There’s nothing she can do to change the outcome after all.
“It’s just a duel, mom. It’s for my final grade,” he says. She shakes her head and tells him he can’t go. “Mom, I can’t not go. I promise, I’ll be okay. I haven’t lost a duel yet this semester.” Sklonda sighs and squeezes him in a final hug, wishing him good luck even though she is silently begging him to stay behind because she knows there’s a first time for everything.
The doctor tells her that it was just a matter of time. He didn’t take care of himself while he was alive. Too much caffeine, not enough sleep. He worked too hard, wore himself too thin. His heart was bound to give out one of these days and that day was, of course, Tuesday, October 13th.
“Riz, sweetheart, I want to talk to you about something.”
Riz’s head snaps up from his bowl of cereal that Sklonda poured him this morning, looking out for too-large chunks of granola before topping it off with milk and sliding it towards him.
“What is it? You sound stressed,” Riz says, ever observant.
“You don’t have to worry,” she forces a smile on her face but she knows it looks limp. “There’s nothing for you to worry about; I promise.”
“But you’re worried,” he says, reading her mind. “So I’m worried, mom.”
Sklonda chuckles. “You’re a good kid, you know that, Riz? Gods. That’s why you don’t deserve what’s going to happen to you today.”
Riz freezes. He swallows, eyes darting up and down Sklonda’s body as if he’s scanning her for a potential threat. She supposes what she said did sound a little threatening without context. “Mom?” His voice shakes.
“Sweetie, it’s okay. I just wanted to say something to you, something important. Because I don’t know when all this is going to stop. I don’t know when I’ll lose my chance and I won’t be able to take it if Wednesday comes and I didn’t tell you…” She clasps her mouth shut, fighting back tears that spring, unbidden, to her eyes.
“What is it?”
“If I didn’t tell you how much I loved you,” she says, a tear falling from her eye. She laughs a little, swiping it away. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”
“What’s going on, mom?” Riz springs out of his seat and crosses to Sklonda’s side, squeezing her into a hug. “Are you dying?”
Sklonda chuckles again. “I wish.”
“Mom?”
She sighs, laughter suddenly drying up. “No, sweetheart, I’m not dying. But you are and no matter what I do, I can’t seem to stop it.” Riz’s body goes rigid. He freezes. “I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve this, Riz. You deserve to outlive me. I don’t know what I did wrong, what god I pissed off enough for all of this,” she gestures loosely at the universe that swirls around her, “to happen. I don’t know why but I can’t stop losing you.” She’s crying in earnest now, tears falling in a steady rhythm. She tilts her head up to Riz’s and blinks slowly, taking in his face like it might be her last time.
And, who knows, it just might be.
“Mom, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Riz’s voice is tiny, like he’s a small child again. “What’s going on?”
“I love you so much, sweetie. I love you more than you know. And I don’t want to do it but I need to tell you something else.” She sucks in a quick breath, praying for strength and bravery. On the exhale, she says, “I need to tell you goodbye.”
“Mom?”
“Shh, shh, it’s okay. It’s okay. I just… I can’t imagine what’ll happen if tomorrow comes and I never told you that. I love you so much, kid. And I’m never going to stop loving you. So if one of these loops is the last one, I need you to remember that. I need you to remember that I said this not because I wanted to but because I needed you to hear it. If this is the end…”
Sklonda’s breath catches in her chest.
“If tomorrow comes—”
She can barely speak through her tears.
“Then I’m just glad I had a chance to say goodbye.”