Veronica's eyes shot open and she leaped out of bed. She quickly ascertained that the sun was brighter than normal, and she had the immediate sense that something was wrong. She felt like she had—information, instinctual senses in her head, instincts stronger than even she had on a regular basis. As she hurried to put on her clothes, she knew that whatever was happening, something was wrong. She somehow knew that things would only get worse, and that gave her a sick feeling in her stomach.

          "Malone!" she called, as she ran out of her room, knowing that he would be the first person to greet her this morning.

          Challenger was working on experiments in his lab. He had set them up the previous night, and woke up very earlier this morning to analyze the results.

          "And the calcium chloride," he told himself, as he scribbled his findings in a journal, "also had no reaction with the specimen."

          Challenger caught a glance over all his notes from this morning. He noted that, so far, all of the eleven hypotheses that he had made this morning before looking at the samples had turned out to be correct. The occurrence of such a happening had a very low probability, and Challenger suspected that something was off-kilter. He focused on the bizarre factor he associated with the plateau as he tried to unravel this little mystery. Suddenly, he was able to break down some kind of wall in his mind. His eyes widened. He dropped his pencil and his journal and ran upstairs to Veronica and Malone.

          "Challenger," Malone said spotting him immediately, "you need to see this! I made these sketches, and Veronica's describing them in perfect detail, yet…"

          "…she's never even seen them before," Challenger finished.

          "How did you know that?" Veronica asked.

          "Something strange is afoot here," Challenger replied.

          "There is," Veronica agreed, "I got the sense of it this morning."

          "Even I feel like I've been hit with a deadly case of déjà vu," Malone added.

          "The question is," Challenger stated, "what do we do about these strong feelings of déjà vu?"

          The three sat and thought quietly. Throughout the treehouse there was a tense mood, as all of them got the sense that something was, or was going to be, terribly wrong.

          "Now go," the Piper instructed, "go and bring me three dead."

          Roxton and Marguerite walked robotically out of the cave. Once they reached the daylight just outside of the cave they stopped, and exchanged a cynical look.

          "The treehouse?" Marguerite asked seductively, implying that the treehouse is where they would go and find three explorers to return to the Piper… dead.

          Roxton nodded with a smile stretched across his face, and the two began walking down the jungle path toward the treehouse.

          "We can't just sit here," Veronica said in frustration, "we have to leave."

          "Got a bad feeling?" Malone asked. Veronica nodded. "Me too," he sighed and shook his head.

          "We all have a bad feeling," Challenger surmised, implying that he too didn't feel sitting around in the treehouse was the best course of action, "but where do we go?"

          Veronica put her head down on the table, trying to think. This whole situation seemed so familiar, but she needed to break down the walls inside her head to figure out what was coming next. She was successful, and bolted her head up.

          "We need to find Roxton and Marguerite," Veronica stated firmly, "where are they?"

          "They went to go have a picnic," Malone replied, "they didn't say where."

          "No," Challenger confirmed, "they didn't. But I agree with Veronica, we should all be together. We might as well start searching."

          The three explorers promptly gathered their supplies and headed out. After several minutes of walking along one of the jungles many paths, Malone stopped. Soon after, Veronica and Challenger halted as well, and turned back.

          "What is it Malone?" asked Veronica, worried because this too, seemed familiar.

          "I don't know," he said slowly, delicately rubbing his right ear, "my ear hurts. Feels like it got ripped off or something."

          "Roxton," Veronica said, "Roxton is… going to shoot you."

          "What?" Challenger demanded, "how can you say that? That's mad!"

          "No," Malone corrected, "I don't know that it is. I couldn't put my finger on it before, but after she said that, I realize that I think that's something that has happened to me before."

          Veronica shook her head and her face crinkled in frustration. "None of this makes any sense," she thought aloud, "what is going on here?"

          "If I had to offer a guess," Challenger began, "I would theorize that we are somehow caught in some sort of a causality loop."

          "In English?" asked Malone.

          "It means that something, we don't know what," Challenger explained, "caused time to repeat itself over and over. Whenever we reach a certain point, time resets itself to the beginning of this day. Given our bouts of déjà vu, we have probably already played out the events of today and however many days this thing lasts, several times."

          "How many?" Veronica wondered.

          "It is difficult to determine," Challenger said, "theoretically we could have been living and re-living this period of time for years."

          "Years!" Malone exclaimed, astounded by the thought.

          "Yes," Challenger reiterated, "but that's not what troubles me. Every time we begin the time loop again, we lose our memory of what happened in previous loops. While we seem to have fragments, our déjà vu, carry over, we cannot take information that we learn in this loop over and onto the next."

          "In other words," Veronica summarized, "we had better figure out what's going on and stop it now, before we have to start from scratch."

          Marguerite came down the elevator and greeted Roxton at the front of the treehouse. "There's nobody up there," she informed him.

          "I see." Roxton said.

          "What should we do now?" Marguerite asked.

          Roxton didn't even give it much thought, "Let's circle back. I don't know what will find exactly, but any man we see," he said, cocking the rifle he clenched firmly, "dies."

          Veronica, Malone, and Challenger had decided to continue searching for their picnicking comrades. They were all worried because they all shared the gut instinct that told them Marguerite and Roxton would only add to their problems once they found them.

          "How's your ear feeling, Malone?" Veronica asked.

          "It's not getting any better," Malone responded, "in fact, I'd swear the pain's getting worse."

          Veronica looked at Malone's ear, "Oh my god," she stammered out slowly, "it's… it's actually bleeding."

          "What," Challenger exclaimed, and moved over to Malone to examine the phenomenon himself, "that… that's not possible."

          "Well, professor," Veronica said, "isn't it rumored that if your mind believes you're injured, you will actually will be."

          "It's a theory that has been proposed," Challenger admitted, "but there's nothing to back up those preposterous claims."

          "I guess now we ought to bandage it," Veronica said.

          Challenger nodded in agreement, "Yes. Veronica why don't you go ahead and do that; in the meantime, I don't like the idea of sitting here waiting to be attacked, I'll go scout ahead a ways."

          It was a good thought, and Veronica knew it, "Be careful," she shouted, as Challenger stepped into the surrounding jungle.

          Roxton and Marguerite traversed ground fast. They weren't running, but they seemed to glide through the jungle at a rapid pace, and strangely the influence of the Piper's music prevented them from feeling any fatigue. They came to an abrupt halt, though, when Roxton heard something moving through an area of dense jungle a few feet off from the clearing they were in now. Roxton moved in closer and Marguerite followed.

          "The old man," Roxton concluded after a few silent moments, "why don't you head over there and whistle a little ditty."

           Marguerite did just that, and apparently it worked because not soon after she began, Challenger emerged from the heavy jungle brush. Roxton shadowed him, remaining undetected until Challenger was in the middle of the clearing.

          "Stay right where you are," Roxton commanded, reinforcing his orders by pointing his rifle right at Challenger's head, "and turn around slowly."

          Challenger did so and gasped, "Roxton," he asked, clumsily stumbling to the ground in his shock and dismay, "what in god's name are you doing?"

          "Paying the Piper," Roxton said with a deceitful chagrin, then he looked at Marguerite, "the others must be nearby. Find them."

          Marguerite disappeared into the thick flora in which Challenger had just emerged, petting her weapon as if it were a little puppy dog.

          "There," Veronica said, "Better?"

          "Not pain wise," Malone said honestly, "but at least the blood won't stain my elegant shirt."

          Veronica, for the first time in hours laughed, but her mood wouldn't last for long. She quickly drew a straight face.

          "Something's wrong," she said.

          "What is it?" Malone asked, very concerned.

          "I'm not sure," Veronica said, "stay here, I'm going to go find Challenger."

          Roxton threw his head back and laughed wickedly—pulling the trigger of his pistol ever so slowly, reveling in the moment.

          Veronica came swinging from a vine out of the trees and into the clearing.

          "Oh no you don't!" she shouted.

          Letting go of the vine, Veronica swooped down and was able to knock Roxton's hand to the side, just as the gun discharged. The bullet narrowly missed Challenger's head. Challenger remained on the ground, breathing heavy, trying to regain his composure, but his old muscles wouldn't let him move.

          "You lose!" Veronica shouted at Roxton.

          Roxton's eyes widened, a scowl forming on his face. How dare this woman interrupt him. The old man could not get far, and Roxton would put this wily little thing in her place first.

          "We'll see about that," Roxton responded bitterly to Veronica.

          Seconds later, they heard a gun shot. Then Marguerite emerged from the jungle and into the clearing, cocky in demeanor and blowing the smoke away from the tip of her rifle.

          "Malone," Veronica realized that Marguerite, who was mysteriously missing from the scene before, had just shot him, "No!"

          This distraction was enough for Roxton to move. He quickly raised his pistol and fired at Veronica, aiming for her heart.

          Veronica reacted quickly—working strictly off of instinct now, but she did not react quickly enough. She managed to dodge the fatal hit, but still took the bullet in her calf. She limped to run from Roxton who walked toward her cocking his pistol again. Marguerite kneeled down and began to take aim with her rifle. Veronica quickly pulled out one of her knives and threw it at Marguerite. Her accuracy was perfect, and the knife smacked into the wooden handle of the rifle, knocking it from Marguerite's hand.

          Roxton was next. He fired a shot at Veronica's head, but she was able to duck and avoid it. She quickly rose, pulled out another knife and threw at Roxton, but as she threw it, the pain from her wound caught up to her, and she faltered just as she released the knife. Roxton had cleverly arranged himself between Veronica and Challenger. The knife came at him quickly, but was a little off target, and easy for Roxton to side step and avoid. The knife kept going with a deadly velocity, and hit Challenger instead, right near the heart.

          Veronica gasped, wincing in pain. Tears began to form in her eyes. She failed; Challenger and Malone were dead. She was too wounded to run anywhere, and she was fresh out of knives—while Roxton and Marguerite, had plenty of bullets.

          Then, all of the sudden, as if in a fairy tail, everything changed; the sky became dark as the moon eclipsed the sun, and all of her friends vanished in the blink of an eye. Veronica was alone. She rose to her feet, her wound still there, but no longer hurting. She heard the faint sound of a flute playing. She strained her ears to figure out where it was coming from, but it seemed to come from everywhere. Then, as if not in control of her body, Veronica stared up at the eclipsed sun. Seconds later, everything went black, all became silent, and finally her thoughts simply shut off.

To Be Continued…