His mind was crumbling. His hands shook violently. He gasped for air as he raced up the flight of stairs to the lab.
Again.
He wrenched open the door just in time to hear the bullet.
Again.
He stepped into the room just in time to see her fall.
Again.
His eyes widened. He simply stared as she fell to the ground, blood pooling at where she lay. The others were screaming.
A broken pocketwatch lay beside her. He knew that it had stopped just minutes before, even though she had just wound it up. He knew that there was an hourglass on the desk to his right, and that no sand was falling.
Again.
He raced towards the desk in the back. Hands reached out for him, but he dodged them. He grabbed the headset, placed it on his head, and pressed ENTER on the keyboard beside him.
Again.
They all disappeared. There were flashes of light, strings of numbers and bright colors as his memory was condensed and sent through a black hole.
Again.
He awoke suddenly. He looked around the lab again, spotting a big, overweight man wearing a cap and glasses to his right, sitting at the computer console. To his left, there is a girl reading something; she's wearing a labcoat and a red tie that matches her hair.
The girl who was shot was nowhere in the room. But he knew it would happen again. No matter what he would do, she would die. She would get shot, run over by a train, get hit by a car. No matter what he did, she would die. And he would always return to the lab, put on the headset, and press ENTER, to try to go back and save her.
It numbed him.
The girl to his left looked up at him and inquired, "Okabe?"
He hung his head and stared at the ground, heart threatening to break and mind already broken. His vision clouded as he gazed at a clock on the wall. In a few hour's time, she would die.
It would happen again, and he would be powerless to stop it.
Again.