So my imaginings have led me to the following:
Pete is played by Chris Hemsworth
Kamden is played by Daniel Kaluuya
Travis is played by Idris Elba
Harvey is played by Tom Hardy
Of course, these are just my imaginings. I hope you enjoy this chapter! Thanks for all the wonderful comments :)
Aramid by Audiomachine
Sky Dream by HiFinesse
I Love You by Billie Eilish
Flames by Mod Sun ft. Avril Lavigne
Forsaken Ones by Immediate Music
2020
Verdun, France
Reset 1
Rita Vrataski opened her eyes with a start and fell onto her stomach, winded. She felt herself trembling and tried to understand why. After calming down with some deep breathing, she pushed herself up to her feet and went to find her team. She'd been doing push ups and fell asleep from exhaustion, which she'd accepted as something she would always have. She was always going to fight being tired. As she walked, she wondered just what the hell she was doing there. She finally located her team and watched them joking with each other as they headed out for PT. She was part of the B-Squad and had been for a while now, and she did her best to fit in but realized that being the only female with a group of guys was a lousy experience sometimes, but she held her own.
"Come on," Travis Hendricks was saying as he nudged her, noticing her mood. "Lighten up, Rita. We'll be through tomorrow in no time."
"Uh huh," she replied. They were at a small base in Verdun, getting ready for the fight tomorrow. They'd flown from Heathrow Airport Base yesterday evening, and she was doing her best to being accustomed to having squished living quarters until they were back to base. She had been promoted to Corporal in the last year because they were running out of leaders and because she had a relatively high kill count from what little action she had seen, and it hadn't been much. She knew it was usually a slower process to climb ranks, that these were extenuating circumstances that changed the rules a little, but that didn't matter to her. Travis had been promoted too, and she let him boss the team around more since he had more fun with it. She imagined he'd get put on a different team soon enough so she'd be in charge of this section alone. If she was honest, she saw Travis getting promoted to Sergeant in no time. She knew the others were on the cusp of promotions themselves as well. Their squad was deemed one of the toughest so far.
"Baby you're a song you make me wanna roll my window down and cruuuuiiiise," Peter-goes-by-Pete Hastings drawled in his Australian accent.
"Oh, God," Rita groaned. Then she felt strange inside, and she looked at Pete belting out the lyrics and felt as though she'd seen this before. She gave herself a shake. Pete sang songs all the bloody time. She'd seen him do this before.
She looked at Harvey Greene and Kamden Brooks walking ahead of them and wondered what they were talking about. Their squad was down a man. Freddy Mason had shocked them all by deciding he couldn't do this fight anymore. Rita didn't envy the person who had found his body. She hadn't known him that well; he'd kept to himself.
"Think we're gonna win tomorrow?" Pete asked, stopping his terrible singing for a moment and looking around at her and Travis. His blue eyes were looking almost worried as he scratched at his head. His brown hair was shaved close on the sides and a bit longer on the top. He also sported a scruffy beard that was in between too long and too short. He had a bit of a tan on his arms and neck, a bright white line showing every so often where his neck and shirt met where the sun hadn't burned him. Harvey and Kamden didn't notice as they carried on in front of them.
"We better," Travis answered. Rita felt a slight connection with Travis in the time she'd been there. He just had an easy nature about him, and he respected that she could kick his ass if he tried anything. She wasn't looking for that, but neither was he. There was only one person for her in this world.
She felt her wedding band against her skin under her shirt. She was still married. She didn't intend on falling in love with someone else, not when she still loved her husband.
Luke.
"Yo! Quit lollygagging!" Harvey shouted at them, his hazel grey eyes holding a teasing look about them and his dark brown hair glistening in the sun. There was a bit of dirt on his face, which stuck out on his lighter complexion. He was also tanned. Rita liked that most of her team had British accents like hers aside from Pete, who was Australian. It made her feel more at home. She'd grown up getting teased about it until one day, like her father had promised, it became fascinating to boys. By then, the only boy she'd cared about had the same accent as hers anyway.
"You're the ones walking too fast," Travis called back. He rolled his eyes as he got flipped the finger by Kamden, whose white teeth flashed in a grin also, a contrast to his dark complexion. His hair was closely shaved, and his dark brown eyes held a level of mischievousness in them that showed he was still a kid at heart sometimes. Rita felt more and more unsettled the more they walked and talked. Something wasn't right here. It was all just way too familiar.
"You okay?" Travis asked, frowning at her. He could be intimidating if unknown to people at his height of 6'2, which reminded her of her father. His dark brown eyes looked into hers, the sides of them crinkled with concern. His curly, black hair was also shaved close. His well trimmed beard had some grey in it, which gave away that he was also in his 40s. Like Kamden, he had a darker complexion.
"Yea," she replied. "I'm just fine."
People ask you how you are and you say fine but you're not fine, and they'll never know that...
The words from the motivational video someone had played in the teacher's lounge back home a few years ago rang in her ears. Every time she told someone she was fine, that's what she heard. With a pang, she thought about her old job and life back home. She had no idea why she was even over here putting her life at risk.
Well, she did know. She was trying to find her son. And she wanted to prevent the world from being taken over by Mimics.
"I haven't heard anything," Travis said, reading her mind. He was the only one in the squad she'd told about Brendan. He had put his ear to the ground to see if he could learn anything, but nothing was turning up so far.
"Thank you for trying," Rita replied, following him into the formation of other soldiers. Then they started to jog.
She tried not to worry about her now 17-year-old son out there alone or dead. She'd never survive if she did that.
...
"Look at me," Luke whispered, holding her face in his hands tightly. "Nothing else matters to me but you, got it?"
"Don't go," she begged.
But he left anyway. He got shot through the heart seconds later right in front of her, his eyes never leaving hers as he fell slowly to the ground...
Rita jerked awake, breathing hard and sweating. She lifted a shaking hand to wipe the sweat from her brow before pressing both hands into her eyes and trying to breathe. She dreamed about Luke a lot, and sometimes he died in them. Sometimes they were intimate together. Sometimes he was across a crowded room and she couldn't get to him. Sometimes he yelled at her. Sometimes he said nothing at all.
She had no idea what any of these dreams meant.
It had been a long time since she'd walked away from their relationship, since Simon had given her the ultimatum. She settled back down on her bunk, trying to calm her racing mind. She thought about what his reaction must have been when he got home to find her gone. Then she thought about what he'd said and felt her heart harden once more.
"What did she do now?"
"She's a f***ing bitch."
"Ouch."
"She's been acting like that for a while now. It's all good. It'll be over soon."
"Over?"
"Yea. I'm just waiting for the right time to deal with her."
"What are you gonna do to her?"
"When I'm done with her, well...words can't even describe it."
"Well then..."
"I'd love to put a bullet into her, you know? It might straighten her out. God, she pisses me off so much."
She had that video memorized to the point she didn't need to listen to it anymore. She'd taken it to a friend to have it analyzed after a while, and they'd told her it was real. As much as she tried to believe Luke would never talk about her like that, those words cut her to the core. Not only that, but she was pretty sure he'd lied about his precinct not knowing about her since Simon claimed he talked shit about her to them all the time. At first, she'd struggled to believe it, but when she kept thinking about how he wouldn't let her move there, it had made more and more sense. Leaving him without a word almost seemed like a light punishment in regards to it.
And then there was Simon. Rita knew he'd do good on his word and kill her and Luke if she went back. She also had Brendan to worry about, so it wasn't worth the risk. She'd done her best to move on with life, but every day she thought about Luke, missed him, and wondered where he was and what he was doing. The last time she'd seen him, she'd snuck into one of his fights in Jersey to see him being embraced by a woman afterwards. He'd moved on...hadn't cared about her leaving at all apparently, and that was the final laceration to the heart for her. She'd gone to tell him about Brendan, but after seeing that, she decided it wasn't worth the risk of getting killed by Simon if Luke didn't even care. Lately, though, she kept thinking that she could reach out to him somehow, covertly, but she didn't know how to come back from this or if she even should. It would hurt him so much to learn about Brendan and then to hear he was missing, she just knew it. And again, she was still scared of Simon, who was out there somewhere that she didn't even know.
But...
Sighing and with a sore brain from overthinking, she felt herself falling asleep again, and she let it happen. She tried not to feel nervous for tomorrow. She'd fought Mimics before in other areas in the last year. They were huge and ugly, but they only came in groups of five to seven here and there in small waves. They were manageable. She hadn't seen an army of them yet. She hoped that wasn't the case tomorrow.
...
Travis was walking beside her as Kamden skipped like an idiot in front of them. Harvey and Pete were snickering at him and egging him on, which he indulged. They were headed for their transport to go to battle. Rita's nerves were slightly on edge, but she was working to calm them. Everything from last evening to now felt extremely familiar, but she knew there was no way she'd done this before. It was impossible.
"You ready?" Travis asked her.
"I have to be," she replied.
"We got this," Travis said reassuringly. He was bobbing his head to some imaginary song he was listening to in his mind. Rita wished she could be so chill.
Never let your guard down in a fight unless you want to be killed.
She blinked and ground her jaw. Luke's voice was almost a constant in her mind, especially since she'd joined the UDF and gone fighting. Everything he'd taught her swam around up in there and came out when needed. She hadn't forgotten. As hard as she'd tried to forget him, she couldn't.
"You know, we've been working together for a while now," Travis started when they were in the air, "and I barely know much about you other than you used to be a teacher and your son managed to sign up to the UDF at 15."
"I like my privacy," Rita answered, checking her ammo as the transport shook and vibrated with turbulence.
"You got a husband or boyfriend to go with that son of yours?"
"Why are you asking me all these questions now?" she retorted, finally looking at him again.
"I dunno. We might die out there today. I just thought I'd ask."
"If it's anything to you, I am married."
"Where is he? Is he on another team?"
"I have no idea."
"You don't know where your husband is?!" Travis asked, incredulous.
"I left him over 17 years ago," she said. "Last I heard, he was in Jersey doing cage fights."
"Wow. You just got a whole lot more complex," Travis joked.
"You have no idea," Rita muttered, leaning her head back and closing her eyes.
"Fifteen minutes to drop!" their captain shouted. Rita tried to do mindful breathing and become calm, her fingers sliding up and down the chain around her neck. Then she remembered something. Her eyes snapped open.
"Wait," she started, but the aircraft was already rocked by an explosion, and the captain started screaming at them to drop. Rita unhooked herself, and she fell to the ground below. From what she could see through all the spinning, it appeared there were Mimics everywhere. Her heart leaped into her throat. She wasn't ready for this.
"WATCH YOURSELF!" a voice shouted by her ear, and she tripped, falling down the hill in a roll until she hit the bottom.
"Agghh!" she exclaimed as she hit the ground and pitched forward onto her face. She pushed herself up, hands shaking. Mimics were everywhere. Soldiers were screaming and swearing and dropping dead one after another. She turned around slowly, watching.
"This is an ambush," she said. She craned her head to see her team, and she found them. "WOOOOOO YEEAAAA!" Kamden bellowed gleefully, and she turned her head to see him get struck down and killed in an instant. She swallowed the bile that was rising. She forced herself to get up. She forced herself to keep moving.
"Come on, come on, come on!" Pete was yelling. "Is that all you got? Is that all you go-ahhh!" She turned away as he was pounded into the ground. She fired her gun, feeling hopeless.
What the hell was she doing here? She was never going to find Brendan here. He was lost.
"LOOK OUT, LUV!" Travis bellowed, and she jerked out of the way seconds before a Mimic landed where she'd been standing.
It was the one behind that killed her.
Reset 2
Rita's eyes snapped open, and she fell onto her stomach with a gasp and a groan. She lay there trembling slightly. What had just happened? She turned her head to see she was in the training room alone. She had a few minutes before she had to join her team for PT, so she'd thought she'd sneak in some down time. Doing this push up centered her, and it also made her think about Luke. He'd been the one to teach it to her after all.
"Stop it," she told herself as her mind went to memories. "Not now." She needed to stop thinking about Luke and focus on why she was feeling nauseous. After gathering herself, she got to her feet. Then she went outside and found her team easily enough.
"Come on," Travis was saying as he nudged her upon seeing her. "Lighten up, Rita. We'll be through tomorrow in no time."
She stared at him. He'd said this to her before. She was sure of it.
"Baby you're a song you make me wanna roll my window down and cruuuuiiiise," Pete drawled.
Rita stared at him too. Her head was spinning. She looked at Harvey and Kamden walking ahead of them; they were lost in conversation.
"Think we're gonna win tomorrow?" Pete asked, stopping his terrible singing for a moment and looking around at her and Travis. Harvey and Kamden didn't notice.
"We better," Travis answered.
Rita felt herself sweating a little. This wasn't right. Something was happening here. She'd done this before. She was sure of it.
"Yo! Quit lollygagging!" Harvey shouted at them.
"You're the ones walking too fast," Travis called back. He rolled his eyes as he got flipped the finger by Kamden, who flashed a grin at him too. Rita stopped walking, feeling more nauseous. She could suddenly see Kamden getting killed. And Pete. And herself.
"You okay?" Travis asked, frowning at her with worry in his eyes.
"Yea," she replied, absently. "I'm just fine."
People ask you how you are and you say fine but you're not fine, and they'll never know that...
The thought was automatic, and Rita knew she thought it a lot, but this time it felt almost preprogrammed.
"I haven't heard anything," Travis said, referring to Brendan.
"Thank you for trying," Rita replied automatically, following him again into the formation of other soldiers. Then they started to jog. With each step, she felt like something was clicking into place. She was reliving a day. She had to be, but...how was it possible? She started to feel crazy. There was no way this was possible. She stuffed down her thoughts and focused on her running. If she went crazy now, she'd never find Brendan, and that was unimaginable. One way or another, she was going to find him.
Even if it killed her.
...
"Rita," Luke whispered, holding her face in his hands tightly. "Don't give up. I love you."
"Don't go," she begged.
But he left anyway. And the darkness swallowed her whole until something with teeth lunged at her face.
Rita jerked awake, breathing hard and sweating. She lifted a shaking hand to wipe the sweat from her brow. Then she switched her light on, not caring if it woke up Travis. Something wasn't right. Something was happening to her. She remembered waking up from a nightmare before, but it wasn't the same one. She frowned, trying to remember and discovering she wasn't entirely sure. Regardless, she felt like she was reliving too many things for it to just be déjà vu or a coincidence. Her fingers went to rub her chain as usual. Would dreams or thoughts change if she was reliving the same day? Or would they be the same? She didn't know. She didn't understand dreaming on a normal day.
"Rita?" Travis groaned, lifting his head up to look at her. "What the hell's going on?"
"Sorry," she said, looking at him. "I just...I needed to ground myself."
"You okay?"
"Bad dream," she answered. He just nodded and buried his head under his pillow again. She ran a hand over her face a few times before feeling safe enough to turn off the light and fall onto her back again.
She couldn't tell Travis what was happening to her. He'd call her crazy, and she was pretty sure she was turning crazy. She turned onto her right side and faced the wall, trying to fall back to sleep.
...
All morning Rita did her best to act normal. Nothing was normal, though, for she was convinced she was in a time loop. Too many people did and said the same things she remembered them doing before.
When they were walking to their transport, Travis was walking beside her as Kamden skipped like an idiot in front of them. Harvey and Pete were snickering at him and egging him on, which he indulged.
"You ready?" Travis asked her.
"I have to be," she replied on cue.
"We got this," Travis said reassuringly. He was bobbing his head to some imaginary song he was listening to in his mind.
Keep your emotions in check around an opponent...don't let them find a way to get to you.
Rita blinked at Luke's voice in her head. She didn't recall having this thought last time, if there was a last time, but she didn't know if her thoughts would change, like her dreams, if she lived the same day over again. It was so confusing. She didn't say anything more as she strapped herself in. Their aircraft got struck by a rocket. She was pretty sure.
"You know, we've been working together for a while now," Travis started when they were in the air, "and I barely know much about you other than you used to be a teacher and your son managed to sign up to the UDF at 15."
"I don't want to talk about this," she said.
"You got a husband or boyfriend to go with that son of yours?" he pressed, not giving up.
"Travis, stop," she ordered, and he frowned.
"You're extra cranky today."
"Something's off," she admitted. "Something doesn't feel right."
"Ah, it's just pre-battle jitters," he dismissed. "It'll be alright."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "It's not gonna be alright. Our ship is going to explode."
"What?!" Travis yelped. "How do you know?!"
"Fifteen minutes to drop!" their captain shouted.
"Drop, now," she told him.
"No way," he said. "We're not there yet."
"Just do it!"
The others were looking at her now with a mixture of concern and amusement. Rita didn't wait. She reached to release herself, and she dropped fast and hard. Above her, the ship got struck with a rocket. She fell to the ground, and she managed to land on her feet in one piece. She started to run for cover as her team slowly landed around her.
"Rita!" Travis yelled, running to her. "How did you know?!"
"Get down!" she shouted, grabbing his shoulder and forcing him down as a Mimic burst over them. They both shot it down quickly.
"PETE! HARVEY! KAMDEN!" Travis roared at the others.
"WOOOOOO YEEAAAA!" Kamden bellowed gleefully, ignoring him.
"KAMDEN!" Rita screamed, knowing what was coming next, both she and Travis saw him get struck down and killed in an instant.
"Oh f***," Travis gasped.
"This is an ambush," Rita told him, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him. "They knew we were coming."
"But how?"
"I think the same way I know I've done this before."
"What?!"
"Come on, come on, come on!" Pete was yelling. "Is that all you got? Is that all you go-ahhh!" Travis watched him die, and then he turned his head and threw up. Rita shot down the Mimic coming at them at the same time.
"What the bloody hell?!" Harvey yelled as he caught up to them. "Why are there so many of them?!"
"They were waiting for us," Rita answered, something catching her eye. "LOOK OUT!" She shoved Harvey out of the way, and then it went dark.
Reset 3
Rita fell onto her stomach with a thud, and she knew exactly what was going on now. Suspicion confirmed. It was bizarre and crazy and unbelievable, but it was happening.
She was reliving the same day.
She got to her feet and hurried outside. Who could she even talk to about this? Would anyone believe her? They were dealing with an alien race. Surely someone would realize that they would have capabilities beyond a human's?
Her team was walking to do PT, and she caught up to them.
"Come on," Travis was saying as he nudged her, seeing her face. "Lighten up, Rita. We'll be through tomorrow in no time."
"I need to tell you something," she said breathlessly, deciding that if she could trust anyone with this, it would be him. He was trustworthy and potentially good friend material. He had logic but was open minded. He wouldn't think she was crazy.
"What's up?" he asked as they let the others go ahead a bit. Pete started singing his Florida Georgia Line song badly on cue.
"What I'm about to tell you sounds crazy, but it's happening," Rita said. "It's real. I need you to believe that."
"You're freaking me out a little," Travis said, chuckling nervously. "What's going on?"
"Somehow, and I don't know how, but somehow, I'm reliving the same day over again."
There was a pause for a moment, and the he burst out laughing. Rita wanted to punch him. She put her hands on her hips, and he slowly calmed down after a moment.
"That's a good one," he said. "You had me going there."
"I'm serious, Travis," she snapped. "I'm reliving this day. Tomorrow, we are ambushed. Tomorrow, our transport gets shot down. Tomorrow, Kamden and Pete die."
"W-What?" Travis asked, looking a little bit nauseous now.
"The Mimics know we're coming, and they're ambushing us," Rita went on.
"We need to tell someone," Travis started.
"I don't know if I can," she cut him off, holding up a hand. "They might lock me up in a psych ward, and you laughed at me just now."
"Right..."
"I have this weird thought that if I let too much time go by, I lose the power."
"How would you know?"
"I'm guessing. I have no idea," she answered. "I don't know how to explain it...it just...it feels like that makes sense. I don't know of any experts in Mimic behavior to confirm it, though."
"Dr. Carter," Travis said suddenly. "He would know. I heard mutterings about him studying the Mimics."
"Where is he?"
"Back at Heathrow..."
Rita felt slight despair. How would she get in touch with him? Then she realized if she just got to a computer...
"Yo! Quit lollygagging!" Harvey shouted at them, noticing they weren't behind him. Even Pete and Kamden looked puzzled to see Rita and Travis so far behind. They stood watching and waiting.
"Okay," Travis said to her, ignoring them. "I believe you."
"You do?"
"I mean, it sounds out of this world, but these Mimics are from out of this world, so who's to say something like this is impossible? How do you think you got the ability to do it?"
"I don't know," Rita said. "I've never died before. Maybe I would always have been able to do it."
"What all do you remember?" Travis asked. "From the first time you went to tomorrow's battle?"
Rita thought hard. Then she realized something.
"A Mimic was there," she said, "but it was bigger and blue. I've never seen one of those before."
"You killed it?"
"Yes, and its blood went all over me," Rita said, trailing off.
"I wonder," Travis started.
"Hey!" Harvey said, in front of them now and startling them. "What the hell, guys? We're gonna be late for PT! You know that never ends well."
"Sorry," Travis said, starting to walk towards the others. Rita followed. She was thinking hard. If she could get a hold of Dr. Carter, maybe he could shed some light on all of this.
...
They were on the transport. Rita had no luck getting to a computer, so she had to go to battle. Travis was asking her constantly what was coming next. She told him about the explosion, and he agreed to drop with her before it happened.
When they both hit the ground, he stared at her.
"I definitely believe you now," he said as their aircraft came crashing down while they ran for it.
"I thought you said you did!" she exclaimed.
"This really did it for me."
Rita yelped as a blast sent her flying. She rolled, covering her head. Travis grabbed her hand to yank her back up, and they kept running, both firing their guns at the Mimics as they went.
"KAMDEN!" he bellowed, and Rita saw Kamden get killed. She knew Travis was wishing she'd been wrong about it. When Pete died next, he looked sick.
"I have no idea what to do," Rita said to him. "There has to be a purpose for having this ability, but for what?"
"You really need to talk to Dr. Carter," he said, firing at a Mimic racing towards them. Rita felt a little bit scared suddenly. What if she died this time and didn't come back? What if it wore off after so many times? The idea of permanent death made her feel choked inside. There was too much left she wanted to do, and she wanted to see her son one last time.
And Luke.
The realization hit her hard, but it was true. She was angry at him but missed him like hell and needed to see him one last time regardless of the outcome.
She turned as the Mimic burst out of the ground to her left, but it was too late to react.
Reset 4
Rita hit the floor hard, and she gasped. Shaking, she got up and ran towards the exit. She knew what she needed to do. She avoided everyone as she crept around to find a vacant computer. She eventually found one and logged in. She had no idea how to find contact information for Dr. Carter, but she had to start somewhere.
"Can I help you?" a voice asked. She jerked to see Master Sergeant Farell standing there with his arms behind his back and watching her.
"Um, sorry," she said. "I need to find someone..."
"You're supposed to be doing PT, Corporal," he cut her off. "Not surfing the internet." Rita bristled inside, but she held back her response...barely.
"I just need five minutes," she tried.
"Drop and give me 30. Then get out there and join your team doing PT," Farell ordered. Rita growled but obeyed. She had to figure out how to get in contact with Dr. Carter, and that involved distracting Farell. She was gonna need help.
And she knew just who to ask.