Her name was Alice.
She was not even in the same town as the four of us. The place where she lived was around four hours away by train. She called Allen late in the afternoon. They had a chat and confirmed that Alice was indeed one of us. She then made the plan to skip school in the morning and took the trip to our town to meet with us.
Allen picked her up at the train station, while Lara, Theo, and I sat at the cafe and waited. The cafe had meanwhile become our one and only hangout spot. It was a hassle to keep in touch because Lara and Allen had to buy phones every day. In the end, we developed a certain communication strategy. We would each come by the cafe at whatever time suitable for us and leave messages with the cafe staff.
The code words were "Afterlife Dream".
By utilizing this method, we were able to keep everyone informed of the newest updates. If there was something urgent, well naturally we had to buy phones and get in contact with everyone again.
Alice was a blond girl with long hair that was tied into two braids. She wore thick glasses. The girl was very nervous when she finally arrived at the cafe to meet with Lara, Theo, and me.
"This is Lara, Theo, and finally Daniel," Allen introduced us one by one to Alice.
"This is Alice, the girl who contacted me yesterday."
"Nice to meet you," I said with a smile.
Lara, Theo, and Alice each mumbled shy hi's to each other. As per the usual custom, we started telling Alice the story of our lives. After opening up once, Allen was no longer to tell his story. I guessed that he was slowly getting over the trauma of the school shooting. Seeing everyone still alive and kicking must give him a great sense of comfort.
"I still can't believe it," Alice said. "I thought I was the only one."
She looked at us one by one and burst into tears.
Lara put an arm around her. "It's fine. There, there."
It was rare to see Lara being so gentle to anyone. She looked more beautiful when she was not glaring. If only she could stop glaring at people...
Just as I thought that, Lara lifted her head and glared at me.
...
Why the sudden change? It was too extreme.
And then I added two and two together. Maybe she was being tough because we were boys and Alice was a girl.
After Alice was done crying for some time, she wiped her tears dry and started to tell about herself.
pαndα noνɐ1,сoМ "Our class was having a trip to the archaeological museum, and we took the school bus to go there.
On the way there, we came across a truck that was rolling on the street in a zigzag manner. Maybe the driver was drunk. I don't know. The point is that both the school bus and the truck were of similar size, and we had cars on both lanes.
The truck ended up heading toward the school bus at full speed, and our bus driver was unable to prevent the collision."
Alice squeezed her hands anxiously. Her eyes were unfocused as she recalled the most horrible moment of her death.
"That was what I remembered. But then for some reason... the day of the accident repeated itself."
Allen sucked in a deep breath.
So there were five of us. Two claimed that they died, while the other three including myself did not. Lara, Theo, and I exchanged curious looks.
"What is it?" Allen asked. "Is something wrong?"
I raked my fingers through my hair. There was no point keeping a hidden thought from them because we were in it together.
"It's just that originally we thought that the time loop would be resolved if we could help you out," I told Allen. "Because you claimed that you were dead while the three of us are alive."
Even if more people that were trapped within the time loop showed up, we did not expect them to share the same fate as Allen. We expected Alice to be alive just like the rest of us.
"Um..." Alice raised her hand like a good student. "I don't want to be rude but could it be that you guys died as well?"
"No," all three of us said in unison.
"We would have known if we died," I reasoned. "How could we not know?"
Alice gaped at us for a while before she stammered out, "It's just that... you guys were all previously trapped in quite dangerous situations, right?"
"Like what?" Lara asked with a frown.
"The fire?" Alice suggested.
Then she turned at me and said, "For Daniel, the pneumonia?"
"It doesn't make sense," Lara argued. "Clearly the fire didn't kill us. Else, why would you guys remember and why didn't we?"
That was also a good point.
We all sat in silence for a while, ruminating on both standpoints. Were we alive or dead? Could some be alive while some were dead?
Also, what was the connection with the Afterlife Dream...
"Umm..." Theo mumbled softly.
We all turned out heads in his direction. "What is it, Theo?"
"Maybe... What if we did die, though?"
It was an uncomfortable thought, but then again Theo had a point.
"Okay, so what if we all died? How can we get out of this time loop?"
"Guys, I just wanna say one thing," Allen spoke up. "We are all related to each other because we play the same game. Does the game name not give you a hint of what is happening?"
"It is 'Afterlife Dream'."
I rubbed at my chin.
"What you want to say is that..."
"That this is a dream?" Lara ended my sentence with a question. She shot Allen a look of disbelief.
"So I was right!" Theo shouted anxiously. "We are in a dreamscape! If we kill ourselves, we will end the time loop!"
"Wait. Whoa, you guys thought about killing yourselves?"
Allen was shocked.
"Death is a horrible business. I don't think I am up to it."
Alice pulled a grimace when she heard Allen's words. "Ahem," she cleared her throat. "Actually, I did."
We all stared at her in disbelief. "What, you killed yourself?"
Alice subtly nodded. "I was desperate of getting out of this loop. Only tried once. Did not work anyway."
"Okay, I don't know anymore," Theo said in frustration. "I don't have any other ideas."
So there we were, five people who found each other in the time loop but clueless about how to get out.
"Let's wait for more people," I suggested. "Let's keep posting on the forum and also in the newspaper."
"Ok," the others agreed with me unanimously.
"I have another idea," Lara said. "What about we try playing Afterlife Dream again?"
"Sure but uhh... I don't think any of us remembered our login information."
"You still have your email right? Just have them post your login information back to your emails."
"Speaking about emails, I cannot remember my emails either."
"..."
Lara scratched her head. "Darn it, I also cannot remember. Ah, forget it already."
We each went back to where we were. Allen, Lara, and Alice continued maintaining communication using phones. Lara, Theo, and I agreed to meet up at the cafe after school every day to discuss what to do next.
Unfortunately, we didn't really know what to do. Every day and night we racked our brains to find out a clue to get out of this situation, but we could not.
One day, Lara brought the local newspaper with her, the morning edition.
"It is getting clearer to me that we are inside a dreamscape," she stated. "Look at this newspaper."
The newspaper was odd.
I opened it and squinted at the blurry words. I could not read a thing. It was as if it was written in a foreign language. I could not see the pictures either. It reminded me of my math lessons. Although I took the same lesson at least twenty times already, I was still unable to follow.
"What's this?"
"You can't read it, can you? It's because we are unable to imagine what's inside the newspaper. The current world that we are living in is nothing but a compiled imagination of those who are stuck within the time loop."
So that's why?
"Does this mean that you admit that you might have been dead in the orphanage fire and are now living an 'Afterlife Dream'?"
Lara huffed in displeasure.
"I don't want to believe it," she softly whispered. "Unfortunately I don't have any other plausible explanation. The fire destroyed the whole orphanage. Theo went back inside and I followed him into the fire. How lucky must we be to escape? Besides..."
Lara looked deep into my eyes.
"Daniel, were you not the one who spoke from a miraculous recovery? You not only recovered from pneumonia. It was as if you are reborn with a new, healthy body."
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