Her body was a statue of ice but her eyes were rivers of flowing tears.
They streamed down her face a desperate silent plea. Don’t come out Adam. Run. Get away from here. The message was as clear as any shouted warning. It was a language spoken in the currency of pure undiluted terror.
Adam saw her tears. He understood their meaning. He had tried so hard to keep her out of this to protect her from the darkness that clung to him like a second skin. But he had failed. He had brought the reapers to her doorstep.
And now they were using her as a shield using her life as a bargaining chip for his own. He finally accepted the crushing weight of his defeat. He couldn’t run. He couldn’t hide. He couldn’t let them kill her because of him.
He looked at her. He met her tear-filled gaze across the short distance that separated them. A small sad smile touched his lips. It was a smile of resignation of apology of a final bittersweet farewell. He stepped out from behind the wall into the open corridor exposing himself completely.
"Don’t worry," he said his voice soft his smile unwavering.
He never got to finish the sentence.
The sharp spitting sound of the silenced pistol echoed in the quiet house. A single bullet crossed the corridor in an instant. It struck him directly in the forehead.
The world dissolved into a flash of white. But in that last fleeting microsecond of his consciousness he saw something else. He saw one of the other masked men raise his pistol and fire at Sophia.
In his final moments he watched her collapse to the ground her eyes still locked on his a final tear tracing a path down her cheek. And as he fell as his own world dissolved into an endless black void his final gaze was fixed on her.
They hit the ground together a symphony of two bodies falling in a silent house.
Complete darkness enveloped him.
The system window appeared a familiar blue light in the empty void.
[Host Adam has been killed. Sending to recent respawn point.]
Adam’s eyes snapped open. He was sitting up in Sophia’s bed. The first light of dawn was filtering through the window casting a soft glow on the room. He didn’t move.
He sat there his hand covering his mouth his body trembling slightly. He stared at Sophia’s sleeping form on the floor beside the bed. The final moments of the last loop played over and over in his mind.
Her terrified eyes. Her silent tears. The sound of the shot. Her body falling to the ground. The image was burned into his memory a fresh and searing wound on his already scarred soul.
I tried so hard, he thought a bitter internal monologue unfolding in the quiet of his mind. I tried so hard not to develop any feelings for anyone. I tried to stay detached to keep everyone at a distance.
He looked at her peaceful sleeping face a stark contrast to the horrifying image seared into his memory. But in the end I still lost. I couldn’t protect you.
A profound sense of defeat a feeling of utter helplessness washed over him. He had faced down assassins corrupt cops and thugs. He had died and been reborn countless times.
He had become a cold calculating survivor. But faced with the loss of the one person who had shown him kindness the one person who had managed to break through his carefully constructed walls he felt completely and utterly broken.
"I don’t want to lose you in this world," he whispered the words a soft prayer in the quiet room.
He stood up from the bed. He moved with a new sense of purpose a grim and terrible resolve hardening in his heart. He walked to the bedroom door and stepped out into the hallway. This time he quietly turned the lock on the outside of the door locking Sophia inside her own room.
But Adam did not know that when Adam said this, Sophia was not sleeping but was awake. Sophia opens her eyes, her cheeks turning red, and she softly says, "What did Adam mean?". She is thinking about Adam and her cheeks are completely red.
As he turned from the door he saw Sophia’s younger sister Anastasia just beginning to emerge from her own room across the hall her face still clouded with sleep. Before she could open her door completely before she could step out into the hallway Adam was there. He placed both of his hands on her door and pushed it shut holding it closed with all his strength.
He heard her confused voice from the other side. "Sophia what are you doing? Let me out. You know I have to help Mom in the shop." She began to pound on the door her small fists making a muffled thudding sound.
Adam ignored her cries. He leaned against the door his eyes closed his mind racing. He had faced down impossible odds before. In every loop so far no matter how desperate the situation he had always found a way out. He had always managed to survive to find a path forward. But this loop felt different.
This loop felt like a checkmate. How was he supposed to fight three professional assassins armed with silenced pistols? His enhanced stats made him strong and fast but they didn’t make him bulletproof.
He couldn’t dodge bullets especially not from trained killers in a confined space. There was no escape. There was no way to win. He felt a wave of true despair a feeling he hadn’t experienced since his very first death.
He pushed himself away from the door and walked to the top of the stairs. He descended slowly. He wasn’t running this time. He was walking with a heavy deliberate gait.
He let out a long slow breath. I have to live through this loop for as long as possible, he thought. I have to find a weakness a flaw in their plan. I have to find a way to save them.
As he reached the bottom of the stairs he walked down the corridor. He noticed something he had missed in his previous panicked runs. A heavy cast-iron frying pan was sitting on a small table near the kitchen entrance.
He looked at it. It was heavy solid. It was a weapon. He picked it up his fingers wrapping around the cool metal handle. It felt good in his hand. It wasn’t much but it was something. And in this impossible loop something was better than nothing.