Ninety-Three Breaths

  The van door slid open. Again, my legs moved without me telling them to. They always did. I followed him down the side of the house, my feet crunching the same dead leaves, making the same fucking sounds. Crunch. Crack. Crunch-crunch. Into the backyard. Every time.

  "No. Please. Not again," I screamed in agony to no avail. The words never left my lips.

  But my body didn't listen.

  He slid the glass door open. That soft whisper of metal on metal made my stomach drop. I knew what was coming. I'd lived it so many times I could tell you exactly how many breaths I had left before that woman pulled the trigger.

  I had exactly ninety-three panicked, rapid breaths left.

  My eyes moved to the fridge. Those pictures were waiting for me. Crayon stick figures, a sun with a smiley face, "I LOVE YOU DADDY" in purple marker.

  Inside my head, I was screaming: Run, you stupid fuck! Somewhere down that dark hallway, she was waiting. But what came out of my mouth was: "Hey, I don't do kids, and I don't do girls."

  Every. Fucking. Time.

  I was already dead the moment I walked through that door; I just didn't know it yet.

  But I knew it now. Oh God, did I know it now.

  He turned and looked at me. In three seconds, his left eye would twitch. Two seconds after that, the father would walk into the kitchen for the hundredth time. He had no idea he had seven seconds left to live.

  I wanted to scream a warning. I wanted to tell him to run, to grab his family, to get the fuck out. But I couldn't. I was trapped in my own corpse, doomed to watch myself make the same stupid choices that got me here.

  Footsteps in the hall. Five. Four. Three.

  The light switch clicked.

  "You will do as you're told," the monster said to me, right on cue.

  The gun rose. I watched his eyes go wide. This time I saw the coffee stain on the father’s shirt. The wedding ring caught the light as his hand started to rise.

  Pop. Pop. Pop.

  Eighty-one breaths left.

  I heard the scream down the hall, and the door slammed. My mouth opened: "Hey, fuckface, I told you that I don't do kids, and I don't do girls!"

  I knew what was coming. Duck now, you stupid bastard. Duck!

  But I didn't duck until he raised the gun.

  I never ducked until he raised the gun.

  And again, the shots tore over my head.

  Plaster dust in my hair. The smell of cordite mixing with the copper stench of blood.

  "That's okay. You were never leaving this house anyway."

  That growling laugh. I'd heard it so many times.

  His mag dropped. That was my cue to jump up. Again the useless fucking gun went click-click. Every time we got to this part I prayed it would fire. And every time it didn't.

  Did Joey give me an unloaded gun? That piece of shit. He set me up and so did that bitch.

  I tried to run the scenario in my head. What was their plan? Make it look like a botched home invasion? That's just fucking insulting.

  Sixty-eight breaths left.

  I threw the gun and dove through the doorway. My shoulder hit the carpet in the exact same spot. There was a worn patch there where I fell. You couldn't see it in the dark, but I knew it was there.

  "Come out, come out, Mud!"

  Fifty-five breaths.

  The baby was crying. Sweet Jesus, that baby. Sometimes I counted her sobs instead of my breaths. Sometimes I tried to focus on her instead of what was about to happen. She went quiet soon. I didn't know if it was from fear or if her mother covered her mouth. I'd never know.

  I was backing toward the kitchen, and my foot was about to hit the body. I'd stumble. I'd look down. I'd see the knife.

  And I'd pick it up.

  I always picked it up.

  My foot hit the dead man's shoulder. I stumbled, and again.

  I looked down, and there it was. That fucking fancy knife. Every loop, I told myself I wouldn't pick it up. And every loop, my hand reached down anyway.

  The metal was always cold. It was always heavier than it looked.

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  Two shots across the living room. I dove, and my hands hit wet blood. Still warm, it soaked through my pants at the knees as I crawled. The kitchen tile was slippery now. My eyes went to the door. Six steps. Six steps to freedom that I'd never take.

  Instead, I looked at the fridge. Those goddamn pictures pulled my eyes like magnets. The family photo. All five of them at some beach, all smiling. Sand in their hair. The oldest kid was maybe seven.

  Forty breaths.

  My mouth moved: "Fuck this guy."

  And that's when the singing started: "Ring Around the Rosie." Off-key. The sick bastard always started on the wrong note. It made my teeth hurt every time.

  I knew exactly where he was now. He was doing his little circular stalk, thinking he was terrorizing me. The first time, yeah, it worked. But now? Now it was just part of the script.

  Thirty breaths.

  I moved toward the living room. He'd fire four shots. The fourth one would nick my shoulder. Right through the jacket, barely breaking skin but enough to leave a scar.

  One. Two. Three.

  The fourth shot burned across my shoulder. Same spot. Same angle. Same fucking everything.

  I heard the magazine drop. This was it. This was my cue. Three seconds for him to round the corner. Two seconds to drive the knife in. One second to pull it out and stick him again.

  His face was always surprised. Like he couldn't believe someone like me got him. His scream. God, that inhuman shriek. It followed me into the darkness between loops.

  Eighteen breaths.

  I turned, knife still in my hand, still raised from pulling it out of his face. I always turned. Even though I knew she was there. Even though I knew what was coming.

  She stood in the hallway. The mother. Shotgun raised. Her face wasn't angry or scared. It was empty. Determined. A mother protecting what's left of her family.

  Twelve breaths.

  She was wearing that same pink robe. Her husband's blood was splattered across her bare feet. Her finger was already on the trigger.

  Eight breaths.

  I wanted to tell her I was sorry. I wanted to tell her I tried to stop it. I wanted to tell her she was doing the right thing.

  Four breaths.

  But all I did was stand there, the bloody knife still raised from the killing stroke. A monster with a bloody blade, standing over the second body in her home.

  Two breaths.

  The barrel was so big from this angle. Like staring into a train tunnel.

  One.

  The click was the loudest sound in the world.

  Then darkness.

  A few precious moments of nothing, then--

  The van door slid open. Again.

  My legs moved without me telling them to. They always did.

  Crunch. Crack. Crunch-crunch.

  Ninety-three breaths until I died again.

  The thought hit me hard. This wasn't a nightmare. This was Hell. An eternity of reliving my own death, forever doomed to make the same mistakes and suffer the same fate.

  I wanted to scream, to beg, to plead for it to stop. I knew it was useless. The cycle was relentless, unyielding. No matter how much I fought, I always ended up back in this damn van, walking toward my own demise.

  For a brief moment, there was silence. Everything went still, like the world was holding its breath. For half a second, I thought maybe it was finally over.

  The loop repeated, but this time it froze at eighteen breaths. I found myself frozen, staring into that monster's eyes right after I'd pulled the knife from his face the second time. Unable to move, I heard a new voice slowly circling me.

  "Ah, this is my favorite part right here."

  "You have no business here, you feathered freak," a second voice raged from somewhere behind me.

  "Azazel, you were foolish to think that you could hide the blade and this soul outside the gates of Hell. And I'd smite you right now, you insolent slug, if it wasn't so amusing to watch Astaroth die to this human."

  The voice circled me like a slow-moving storm.

  "Look at his eyes, Azazel. Do you think he realizes his mistake here? Do you think he knows what's coming?"

  "Remiel, I'm gonna tear those wings off and feed them to you, you arrogant fuck," Azazel screamed.

  I heard the fight happening just out of my view as I stood there, frozen, holding the knife, staring into those ugly yellow eyes. I knew she was behind me with that shotgun at my head. But something was different. The blade pulsed in my hand. Warmer than it had been a second ago. I felt something strange—like a thread forming between the metal and my palm, pulling something from me into the weapon. The ornate patterns along the blade flickered once, then settled. Whatever force that once held me there vanished. I could move my arms again.

  I stared down at my own hands in disbelief.

  As I turned, expecting the shotgun, I barely caught her image before she dissolved into darkness. The monster vanished with her. The room, the house, everything disappeared, and I was left standing there with that blade.

  As suddenly as it had started, the fighting stopped. I saw two looming figures step forward out of the shadows.

  "You fool, your very presence here has disrupted the loop," Azazel gasped.

  I couldn't make out either figure, only their dark vague silhouettes.

  "Listen to me, boy. Take that blade and drive it into your tormentor. Kill this demon and then give it to me. That weapon has no place in the hands of a mortal."

  "Kill your tormentor," Azazel said with mocked indignation. "Can you believe this fuck?"

  "These winged bastards left you down here for over a hundred years to be tortured by demons like me. And you heard it from his own mouth. For his own amusement. Just so he could watch you kill my lord."

  "Stick that blade in his gut, Mud, and I'll make sure the pain stops. The loop will be over. You can rejoin the ranks. I might even let you keep the blade, just so you can kill more of these winged freaks."

  The weight of what they said clung to my ears.

  A hundred years.

  I had been down here for a hundred years.

  Reliving this moment for a hundred fucking years.

  The rage filled me, but I did my best not to let it show.

  "Why should I do your dirty work?" I said.

  I raised the blade as if to offer it.

  "One of you can come up and take this blade and stab the other. I want nothing to do with it."

  "I didn't ask for any of this. I don't know who this Astaroth asshole was. Only that he was trying to kill me, so I stuck him first."

  As both of them crept forward, I noticed the caution in their steps. That was when I realized they were afraid of me.

  No.

  Not me.

  They were afraid of the blade.

  At the last moment, before either of them could step close enough for me to make out who or what they were, I slashed Remiel across the chest and buried the blade in Azazel's heart. I released the blade, leaving it in that asshole's chest as I stepped back.

  The blade reappeared in my hand.

  "You fool!" Azazel screamed as he slumped to the ground.

  A bright, searing light ripped across the slash I had torn into Remiel. Light poured from his eyes and mouth in a terrifying, silent scream. Fire burst around Azazel, and I threw my hands up to shield my face from the heat. The flames tore through his body, searing and charring him into dust.

  I stood in the dark, holding the faintly glowing blade in my hand.

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  ? Overpowers: Magical Girl Crossover [Grimlight Psychological/Genre based Power System] ?

  by Moawar

  He, Life, had a simple job.

  His responsibility as an Overpower was to make sure that fiction stories and the characters in them follow their dictated path. He always did his job well enough, not more or less than was needed.

  His latest assignment, however, would, in retrospect, prove to be his most challenging one of all.

  He would find himself in a unfamiliar world. There he'll have to quickly adapt to guide Nozomi.

  The strongest magical girl with the potential to accidentally destroy those she seeks to protect in her fight against evil.

  What to Expect:

  -If you like the psychological aspects of Madoka Magica and the mixing of different genres a crossover story brings then this story is for you