Every Time I Lose You, a Piece of Me Dies
Prologue
Thirty-nine times.
Quentin Coldwater had died thirty-nine times. Not exactly the revelation he had been expecting when he slipped Dean Fogg truth serum. Sure, his overly paranoid brain had concocted multiple conspiracy theories – bizarre and shocking information he might be able to extract from the old professor – but never in a million years would he have suspected a time-loop.
A time-loop created by his mentor Eliza, or he should say Jane Chatwin, of all people!
The knowledge that he had failed over three dozen times was enough to make him sick. But that he and his friends continually died, horrendously, was worse…thankfully, he had no memories of the previous time-lines. If he did, perhaps he would have finally snapped. Broken completely and utterly. His already ineffective mind buckling under the absurdity. The probability spell they had tried, watching themselves die and feeling each stab and slash, had been terrible enough, but…thirty nine times?!
Was that actually self-pity he heard in Dean Fogg's voice, when the man claimed he could remember each timeline? Was it frustration? It was hard to feel sorry for the man's remarkable ability to recognize timelines when he wasn't the one dying in them continually. How could he be so indifferent about their deaths, even if there was a reset button in Jane? How could he be so callous?
Jane was dead now. No resets this time. No more do-overs. No more lives stored up. If they died this time, that was it. Game Over.
Quentin couldn't stop himself from imagining his different deaths. Morbidly pondering his mortality. He thought about asking Fogg if his death changed along with the variables, if he was murdered the same way each time. What was the worst death he had endured? How long did it take? How much did it hurt? How much of him did the Beast take before he stopped being?
There was a detachment in his imaginings. If a thing happened, but you couldn't remember it, did it really happen at all? What was the past if not a creation of those living to remember it? Surely it made those previous thirty nine time-lines nothing more than a bad dream that had faded into oblivion upon waking?
But then Quentin thought of Alice. Of the probability spell. Margo sobbing over Eliot's broken body, begging him to wake up. Their bodies pressed against each other in hiding under the table. His heart beating against his rib-cage. He could almost smell the terror leaking from her pores, like he once had scented the fox in her. He could hear the adrenaline coursing in her veins, the frantic pounding of her heart in his ears as if it were his own.
And he had watched her die. The life choked out of her. He had witnessed the spasms of her pretty body as she failed to suck air into her lungs. He had watched the light blink out in her eyes.
A nightmare Dean Fogg was now telling him had been reality.
The inability to remember inconvenienced him, confused him, even frightened him. But mostly Quentin was relieved. He was relieved he couldn't remember all the times he had died, watched his friends died. He was glad he couldn't recall losing Alice.
Yet, he wondered, with that much loss, that much pain and suffering, what if it had changed him? What if each time the clock reset, he was losing little pieces of his soul?