I punched the remaining bars, removing them from the window of the asylum cell. Once they were all gone, I eyed the opening.

  The gap was maybe 3 feet tall.

  “I don’t think you’ll fit through there,” Panda remarked.

  “I’m not that fat. But this’ll require a run-up,” I decided and backed away to give myself enough space.

  “You know, if you die before the Great Game starts, then none of your items and skills will help you,” Panda said.

  Suddenly pounding came from the reinforced door behind me.

  Then the intercom came to life and announced, [WE ARE COMING IN! STEP AWAY FROM THE DOOR!]

  “You’ll never catch me alive!” I yelled and sprinted for the window.

  The heavy door slowly slid open behind me as I dove head-first out into freedom.

  Shouting followed me from the cell as I emerged out into the street next to the asylum. I caught myself in a roll as I landed, then sprang up and continued running while laughing like a maniac.

  “I wonder if they’ll chase after you,” Panda muttered.

  I followed the same route that I’d gone the first time I’d escaped from the asylum, but this time the world wasn’t in the grips of the Great Game. Or well, not entirely.

  Around me on the street were abandoned cars, motorbikes, and scooters. I remembered what Annabella Exposición had told me over a week ago when I met her in the Pool Rooms.

  “Her name isn’t Exposición, it’s Encarnación,” Panda said.

  “Stop interrupting my inner monologue.”

  She’d said that technology had stopped working and that the power had gone out of most places, except for public facilities like the Asylum, the Police Headquarters, etc.

  “Don’t forget the public transport,” Panda added.

  “Oh right, those too. Do you know how long we’ve got before the Great Game starts? I’d like to capture a Humanbus and turn it into a Safe-Zone-on-wheels. I should still have the Safe Zone Sphere. I hope…”

  “We’re at least a day early, but it’s hard to say for sure. It was a Thursday when the Great Game started in the last dimension, but that might not be the same start date as here.”

  I looked around at the puddles of blood nearby.

  “It’s really weird it’s raining blood here on Wednesdays…”

  Panda bapped me on the head. “Focus. The park should be nearby, which means that Annabella should be there too.”

  As I ran towards the park, shouting came from the entrance of the asylum. I looked back over my shoulder and saw six orderlies. One of them was holding a big-ass syringe.

  “I’m surprised they actually care about bringing you back in,” Panda muttered.

  “That’s because I’m special,” I said as I ran past the bowling alley called ‘Time to Spare’.

  A face looked out of the doorway as I barreled past. I wondered if it was the same people who I’d gotten killed last time by bringing the beetle agents inside with me.

  Before long I’d completely outpaced the orderlies and was coming up on the park.

  “I think your Athleticism attribute might be active as well…” Panda muttered. “You’re running really fast.”

  “I thought this was my normal running speed,” I replied.

  “You’re faster than a racing bike…”

  “Maybe it just seems slower because my Schmonic Boots aren’t working.”

  I skidded to a halt as I reached the park. Its grass and hedges were untrimmed, though they seemed too overgrown for that to simply be the result of no maintenance in the few days since the apocalypse began.

  Weeds and flowers grew out of control, but there were a few carefully-pruned sections of the lawns where plants like radishes, turnips, carrots, spinach, and other fast-growing crops were planted.

  A group of about twenty people were tending to the crops and taking care of tents and other equipment that they seemed to have looted from somewhere nearby.

  One of them spotted me and called out in alarm.

  Within seconds, pitchforks, axes, steak knives, hedge clippers, and other improvised weapons were aimed at me by a mob of scared-looking people. I recognized two of them, Annabella and the office guy who’d turned into a Skinstealer in the Pool Rooms.

  “His name was Sam,” Panda told me.

  “Get out of here!” yelled a woman holding an icepick in front of herself.

  “I come in peace!” I shouted back, lifting my hands above my head.

  “Why are you dressed like that?” asked a younger woman who was holding a machete.

  “Err…”

  “I’ve seen his face before! He’s one of those serial killers!” exclaimed one of the men.

  “Ah shit…” Panda muttered.

  “I think you’re right!” said another.

  “It’s okay, I’m just a cosplayer!” I lied.

  All the chatter immediately stopped as the angry mob stared at my outfit.

  One of the men nodded appreciatively. “‘Donquixote Doflamingo’, right?”

  “His clothes are the wrong color!” a woman criticized. “And the cape is supposed to be pink!”

  I turned to Panda. “What the fuck are they talking about?”

  “I think it’s someone from One Piece.”

  “I won’t have to deal with their legal team if they think I’m infringing on their IP, right?” I whispered.

  “Hard to say,” he replied. “Remember the reason why your Schmonic Boots are called that and not S***c Boots?”

  “Shit… It might be worth putting a disclaimer somewhere that this is a legally-distinct outfit not meant to infringe on their copyrighted design.”

  He nodded. “Better safe than sorry.”

  Annabella emerged from the mob.

  “Guys! I think he’s okay!” she said. At her words, everyone seemed to relax.

  They all quickly returned to what they’d been doing before.

  I lowered my hands. “Phew.”

  The woman walked closer and said in a hushed voice. “You’re from the asylum, right?”

  “Maybe…” I replied.

  “It’s okay, I know who you are, [REDACTED].”

  “You can just call me Gambit,” I told her, shuddering at the utterance of my real name.

  “I’m Annabella,” she replied. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you stabbed that fat piece of shit Mayor. I was one of the people out marching in the streets, y’know. It isn’t right how they’ve been treating people in Castleburg.”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “They framed the death of his dog on me,” I quickly added. “The Chief of Police set me up.”

  She nodded. “I thought so. Still, most people think you’re a psycho.”

  “This is quite the change from last time,” Panda noted. Back then she’d called me a monster. Granted, I’d also killed her friend who’d turned into a Skinstealer, which probably had something to do with it.

  “Are you planning on staying here with us?” she asked. “We’ve got a garden going and everything. We’ve even managed to loot a lot of preserved food, so no one is going hungry. We’re planning to stay here until the army comes to rescue us. We’ve got tents and everything, plus, as you just saw, we’re capable of protecting ourselves. There’s been a few gangs coming through here, but most of them went north towards Downtown, so it’s been safe the last couple days.”

  “I’m just passing through,” I told her. “I’m looking for a few of my friends though.”

  “Hmm, if they aren’t around here, then there’s a big group of survivors at Serenity Park Mall you could check. But I wouldn’t recommend going there alone. There are a lot of small gangs camping out the highway and attacking everyone who comes through. Who are you looking for though?”

  “Perhaps her name is ‘Exposición’ after all,” Panda muttered.

  “I’m primarily looking for a girl named Bee,” I told her.

  “What’s she look like?”

  “Err—”

  “Goddamn, Gambit, really?” Panda interrupted. “Before her transformation into a beetle, she had black shoulder-length hair and wore an XL dark-grey hoodie with the print of a neon-yellow smiley on it.”

  I repeated the description.

  “Sounds familiar,” she said, thinking on it for a moment. “Oh, right! She came through here three days ago. She was looking for someone named Milton. She stole one of our machetes and went towards the kindergarten north-west of here.”

  “Thank the Gods,” Panda muttered. “But who the hell is ‘Milton’??”

  “What about a grumpy bald guy in a Hawaii Shirt called Steve?”

  “He’s with a smaller group near the library,” she answered. “They were apparently going to try and beat the gang holed up in that building, since it still has power and running water.”

  “Man, she just knows everybody,” Panda remarked.

  “I’m also looking for a blonde guy called Chris, a sour businesswoman called Samantha who has a blonde perm, a bald psychotic woman called Tina and/or Nina, and lastly, Otto the Otter Mascot.”

  Annabella blinked. “Otto the Otter Mascot? Think he’s gotta be in Madeville, though I haven’t heard anything from there since everything went down six days ago.”

  “What about the others?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t know ‘em.”

  “I see. Well, thanks Annabella.”

  “So, you’re really not going to stay? It’s safer here.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Panda muttered.

  “I’ve gotta find Bee,” I told her.

  I was about to leave, when I realized I could perhaps change her fate thanks to my knowledge from the future.

  I placed my hands on her shoulders and stared into her eyes.

  “Why is your right eye like that?” she blurted out.

  I frowned.

  “Listen. This is very important.”

  She nodded slowly.

  “Whatever you do, don’t go into the public swimming pool! And stay away from the lakes in Serenity Park! Oh, and sometime, probably tomorrow, the bus is gonna come through here. You should hide as soon as you see the message that the Great Game starts. But don’t hide in any of the buildings with power!”

  Annabella’s face cycled through alarm, confusion, and then disbelief. Before she could voice her thoughts, I quickly added:

  “And try to find a bow to practice with! That’ll be important for when you unlock your Class!”

  I let go of her shoulders, gave her a thumbs-up and an award-winning smile, then I ran away from the park towards the kindergarten.

  The people all watched me go. Before I went out of sight, someone yelled, “Your cosplay sucks!”

  After passing by Normann’s tailor shop, which was barred like last time, I followed the street full of shops down to the end and went left towards the kindergarten.

  The sound of an engine running and tires scraping the road brought me to a complete halt. I instinctively hid behind an abandoned truck.

  Half a minute later, a bus rolled down the road, pushing aside a tiny two-seater smart car as though it weighed nothing. The bus itself was completely normal, with a white color-scheme and the familiar blue and yellow stripes that wrapped around the bottom-half.

  I peeked my head out to look and noticed that it was completely driverless. Inside were six people with knives and bats. It looked like they’d hoarded food and equipment into the backseats.

  As the bus reached a nearby stop, they all surged towards the doors as they opened, and stood guard to prevent anyone from entering.

  “Those morons are about to become Humanbus food,” I muttered.

  “If you didn’t know that, their strategy would be kind of clever,” Panda said.

  I shook my head. “Cowards.”

  “You’re the one hiding…” he pointed out.

  “That’s only because I thought it was a Humanbus.”

  I watched as the bus turned down the road of shops that I’d just come from. When it was out of sight I left my cover and continued towards the kindergarten. I covered the few blocks’ distance to the place and entered through the playground where we had been dumped last time after completing Bungo’s Playroom.

  Before I had time to reminisce, I heard shouting from inside the building. There were large windows covered in old stickers and whatnot, and a door to one of the classrooms nearby. I couldn’t see any of the people shouting from here, so I ran up to the door and entered the building.

  For a second, as I crossed the threshold, I had the irrational fear that I’d be sent back to Bungo’s Playroom, but then nothing happened.

  The shouting was a lot louder now and I moved through the classroom and emerged out into a large hallway. Further down were two groups of survivors that looked to be on the verge of fighting. One group had a bunch of losers in it, and the other looked like gym bros who’d long given up the ability to scratch their backs in exchange for more muscle.

  “Look! It’s Tammy-Lee!” Panda exclaimed, pointing at one of the losers.

  I blinked and looked a bit closer. Sure enough, wearing a pink jogging set was the woman who’d saved me from death with her crowbar. A crowbar she was currently threatening the bulked-up dudes with. Next to her was a morbidly-obese green-haired person and a middle-aged guy in a suit. There was also a very thin mousy woman hiding behind them, and a guy with a fedora who wore a t-shirt with the print of an anime schoolgirl in a compromising position.

  “This is our territory now!” shouted one of the musclebound dudes. He had veins visible along his forehead and neck.

  “One papercut to the face and that guy’s done for,” Panda remarked.

  I walked towards the group with as much swagger as I could manage, but before I could put a stop to the fight, Tammy-Lee clocked one of the guys in the head when he suddenly charged her.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  “Oh shit,” I cursed and ran forward, just as the guy in the suit was picked up and thrown across the hallway. His clothes tore as he collided with a metal locker.

  Tammy-Lee yelled something in Russian and struck another guy, while her friends backed off towards the exit and their friend in the suit, who was unconscious on the floor.

  “I wonder if this also happened last time?” Panda said.

  One of the big guys was about to punch Tammy in the head, when I leapt in with a strike to his face using Brock.

  Squeak!

  Everyone froze and looked at me.

  “Who the fuck are you?” asked one of the gym bros.

  The guy I’d punched looked at my gauntlet and said, “He just hit me with a ballo—”

  Suddenly he flew across the hall, striking the floor and leaving a streak of blood, before bouncing off into the ceiling and leaving another. He landed in a heap next to a utility closet, his head missing.

  “Holy fuck, Gambit!” Panda exclaimed. “You just killed a guy!”

  I looked down at Brock with a grin, then I ran my gaze along the other bulked-out muscleheads.

  “You’re a strange-looking man,” said Tammy-Lee in a thick Russian accent.

  “He just killed Hunter!” yelled a guy with a red crowbar-shaped mark on his forehead.

  “Everyone, shut up!” I said, pointing my balloon gauntlet at the guys. “I need to know where Milton is!”

  The gym bros looked between each other, each of them shaking their heads.

  I turned to look at Tammy-Lee, but she shook her head too. “I do not know where he is, but a young girl came by looking for him earlier.”

  “This is for Hunter!” someone suddenly yelled and punched me in the back of the head.

  The loud crunch of his finger bones confirmed something that I’d been wondering about.

  “He’s made out of metal!” exclaimed the guy with the now-broken hand.

  I spun around and headbutted him hard enough to slam him to the ground.

  “It’s silver,” I said.

  “He’s dead…” Panda remarked drily.

  I looked down at the rapidly-spreading puddle of blood from his caved-in face.

  “Woops.”

  “Eh, it’s probably fine, canonically,” Panda then said. “If they took over the kindergarten, they were probably turned into monsters when it became a dungeon.”

  I eyed the six muscleheads remaining. “Unless you want to end up like your friends, I suggest you get lost. If not, I’ve got a knuckle sandwich waiting for each of you.”

  It suddenly felt like someone pinched my cheek.

  “Ow.”

  “Wait…” Panda said, looking at me. “Is the Bad Catchphrase thing still in effect!? I thought that was tied to the Great Game! Why is that working now!? That raises so many weird and potentially paradoxical questions!”

  “This is for Brayden!” yelled another of the muscleheads as he charged me.

  I sighed. “It’s like they’re trying to get killed.”

  “It might cause more problems if they survive,” Panda said. “Butterfly effect and all that. Eh, who am I kidding, you’ve already pretty much fucked up the future.”

  Tammy-Lee backed away as I punched each of the muscular dudes into the ground, their bodies not standing a chance against my balloon gauntlet and heightened strength.

  All of them kept shouting the name of the person I’d just killed, as though the whole thing was following a weird script. And each of them had strong I-was-prom-king-in-high-school names, with the next four being called Tyler, Dylan, Chad, and Brad. Just so I’d be able to know his name, the last guy even shouted, “I’m Tanner and this is for Jace!”

  Then I uppercutted him hard enough that his head flew off his body, pulling the spine along with it like some kind of Mortal Combat fatality move.

  I turned to ask Tammy where she’d seen Bee heading towards, but then I realized that she’d left with her friends.

  “Big surprise, you just murdered a bunch of people. Like, with terrifying ease. Even if this was during the Great Game that’d still rattle anyone who saw it.”

  I looked around at the eight dead and bleeding gym rats.

  “You said it was okay since they were gonna die anyway!”

  “Don’t blame me for this!”

  “I thought I was cleaning up a time paradox! You know I can’t handle complex situations like that!”

  Panda paused. “Shit, you’re right. This was my fault.”

  He made a big show of looking around at the muscular corpses that were buried in the floor, lockers, ceiling, or otherwise splattered across the hallway.

  “Eh, you know, I don’t think anything of value was really lost.”

  “They might’ve hurt Tammy-Lee and her friends, so I think I did the right thing.”

  “Ehh, I’m not entirely sure about that. Tammy was definitely the first to strike here…”

  “Shit, I was really hoping I could use that as my excuse.”

  Panda patted me on the head. “When this place turns into the Playrooms again, all the evidence will be gone. Nobody will have to know what you did.”

  I nodded. “I’ve gotta go stop the witnesses before they get too far.”

  “Wait, what? No, don’t do that!”

  I ignored him as I ran back the way I’d come, yelling for Tammy-Lee and her friends to stop running when I spotted them outside in the playground.

  For some reason that just made them run faster.

  It is a time-looper with GameLit elements that is inspired by Action Roguelite games,

  as well as Korean System Apocalypse stories.

  There is close to 100k words for you to read already on RR, and it's my slightly more serious attempt

  at a SysApoc / Timeloop premise. Who knows, it might just scratch an itch that Madman can't reach for you.

  Plus, for my long-time readers, there will be a lot of recurring Absolutes and themes that you might enjoy.

  Adam is no one special.

  He’s just an accountant standing in line at a bakery one early Saturday morning,

  because his craving for Jameson’s croissants finally broke him.

  Unfortunately, fate has other plans for him,

  as the black cubes show up before he can get his pastries.