By: Emily Ren

“Stop going there! You’re spending all of our savings!” I pleaded.

He stared at me, glaring straight through my eyes and bored deep into my soul. I winced. Now I only had to hope that he wouldn’t respond in kind.

“Have I ever lost the money?” He questioned. He hadn’t. But if he kept this up, I knew that he would go deeper and deeper into this spiral and never be able to stop. And, at some point, he was going to lose in the fighting ring. No matter how much he trained, someday, someone, somewhere, would be lucky.

They could get just one hit, and it would be all over. For him, and for me. The small fortune that we had accumulated together wouldn’t be enough to pay to fix the damage, and even if it miraculously did, I don’t know how I could live with it.

But no matter how many times I can relive this day, it still always happens this way. I force myself to watch and not give myself away as he strides out the door. Confident, as I once was.

I follow him through the shadows and over the rooftops as he makes his way to the stone dome in the middle of the city. I know that he’ll die today, and I can’t help it. It’s just one more day that I have failed my mission. But I must make it through the entire day before it restarts, and time will only start again once I die or once I save him. Every day I spend here, though normal time has frozen, doesn’t freeze me. Every day becomes one day less that I have left to live.

He enters the arena, and I watch him place the sack of his money on the counter- money that will have no value to him, or to me, if he doesn’t get through the day.

I can see his face transform at the sight of the cameras, at the people so eager to meet him as I had once been. Who would not? He was the champion of the arena, their perfect effigy. He never lost a match. And he soaked that all in. Power has a powerful addictive property; once you start feeling a trace of it, you can never get enough. I used to be like that, too, but I got lucky. I was saved, and now it is my job to save him as this day starts again.

His competitor today seems scrawny, and he grins to the shining lights on the far side of the arena. I see what nobody else does; the knives in the opponent’s pocket gleaming slightly at the edge. He has brought knives to a fist fight.

And I know what happens next; I’ve seen it about four hundred times now- for me, it happens every day. They exchange punches, and just once the other man seems almost beaten, he takes out his knives from his pocket and stabs the one person I was supposed to protect. One person, that’s it. Then I can leave, pass on to my next life. But somehow, I can’t.

I watch as the person I was supposed to protect slowly bleeds to death on the ground.

Then, everything stops. Time rewinds, and we’re back to the morning.

“Just… Please don’t go today. Please.” But there’s nothing I can do for him now.

He glares at me.

“Have I ever lost the money?”