This time, when I wake up, there's something clutched tightly in my hands.

When I throw off the covers and shiver, the air around me too cold, I see at once what it is.

...A spring onion.

Today, it's dark outside our window...I woke up earlier than I expected. It seems like, usually, I'm waking up when it's already close to noon. Now it must still be early in the morning—even so, I'm the only one in bed. Kiril may be downstairs, still asleep.

I have to move carefully on the old stairs, each one with its own unique creak. The door to Irina's bedroom is closed—she must still be asleep as well.

Down to the first floor, I'm still shivering in my nightgown—clutching the spring onion tight to my chest I forgot to put on anything more than what I fell asleep in. There's a robe hanging by the workroom—I take that instead.

Down here, Kiril's slumped over his worktable, softly snoring.

I can't help but stroke his head just once, seeing him sleep so peacefully. I wonder if he only recently dozed off…The doll is still unfinished on the table.

Now I creep outside through the back way, stepping out and shivering in a snowy backyard.

I shake the green onion in my hand and it glows, before long becoming dazzling. I'm not just shaking because that's how the thing works, it's ridiculous how cold it is today.

The ground isn't frozen yet, however—I stick the spring onion deep into the earth, even though I'm shaking.

He slipped it into my hands for a reason, didn't he?

I wait and then I call, "...Hello?"

At once, I heard, "Elluka? Is that you?"

"It's me. But who is this?"

From the other end, it was a deep and sleepy voice, "That isn't important. Did you just awake?"

"Hold on, I don't even know why I'm supposed to be talking to you! Why were you, were you waiting for me to receive this spring onion?"

"…You might say that. I see nothing's been explained to you."

"The mage I met in the field, was he supposed to explain the situation?"

"The...mage...?"

"The one in the rice field, he gave me this spring onion and said you'd explain everything."

"Oh."

For a while, that was it.

I waited and pressed my ear close to the ground, but the voice did not rise up again. Sighing, I grew impatient and slapped the snowy ground—making my hand hurt, "Hey! I was talking to you!"

He again came, slower and heavier, "I am sorry, I was only thinking of something. Yes, the man in the field, what did he tell you?"

I stuck my hands under my arms and shivered, "Only that he was a mage specializing in time and that, if I wanted to get out of this…this…I should use the spring onion to contact you."

"So, you don't in fact have any idea what's going on?"

"That's what I told you! So what do you know about it? Why am I having such strange dreams about mages and receiving spring onions? Why does everything feel so wrong today?"

Wrong—I can't explain how but from the moment I got out of bed everything felt wrong. Everything has been feeling wrong...for what feels like forever.

His voice was low and calm as before. "...Elluka, the first thing you need to understand is this: this day, and the next two weeks, have been reoccurring on a loop."

"That's impossible," I snap.

"It's the truth."

For a while, I just sit back and stare at the spring onion, before wrinkling my nose. This has been reoccurring on a loop...I can't believe that. It's impossible; that would mean that time wasn't moving forward beyond this point, and that was something not even the most powerful mages in our world could achieve. This voice coming out of the onion was crazy.

"I know that it's something that's hard to believe," the voice continued slowly, "But if you think back, you'll know that it is the only explanation." After a long pause, in which I just looked up at the dark sky, he said, "You know what's going to happen this week. And the next."

Do I really?

I smiled wryly.

And then my smile slowly dropped.

It wasn't just my strange dream, but many strange thoughts I've been having lately.

Like, that I've gotten up and looked at that calendar hundreds of times before in the exact same way.

I remember, or almost remember, watching Ly Li or Milky die. Or...no, I saw their deaths on the news. They were so mangled...Or, Ly Li was. Or was it Milky that was mangled?

No, these were just feelings. I was just imagining scenarios in which Ly Li or Milky died, it can't be that this already happened.

The only unusual thing is that dream.

And, in that dream, I remembered something else.

That before that dream, I was in the temple with Irina.

There's a silence from the sky and from around me. In our neighborhood it isn't very noisy until the afternoon was well on its way, when everyone was hard at work and the streets were full of customers. Right now, everyone is asleep or quietly getting ready inside their houses. It's only me, with this spring onion, who's outside. And it's cold out here.

"How can this be?" I found those words finally falling from my lips. And then I pounded the ground by the spring onion. "You! You better tell me!"

"If I knew why precisely, I would," said the voice. "But it isn't that simple."

"I feel like my head is going in circles." I collapsed to the ground in front of that spring onion, holding my temples and clenching my teeth.

And he began, "Elluka, now that you are beginning to remember that things are repeating, it shouldn't be as hard for you to start remembering the repetitions. The magic that is causing this assures that other people don't remember unless specially prompted as you were."

"How many times-how many repetitions-it's all blurred together for me."

As I said, so, his voice became softer. "I can help you if you like."

"That's what I wanted in the first place," I muttered.

I was surprised that the spring onion was holding out so well and for so long, especially in this cold weather. But the voice on the other side didn't have any intention of stopping, at least so it seemed.

"To begin with, you should know that I and that...mage that you met, as well as—the gods of this world—they all remember each iteration. And now there is you. We are all the few exceptions."

"But why do I and you two remember and not anyone else?"

The voice paused and breathed slowly out. "The strength of our magic may be the reason. And, as well, our...specialty in time. But you, in particular, seem to be a crux of these repetitions."

I trembled; I couldn't help it, it was cold outside. "Me?"

"Every time that this world has reset, it has come after your death. So I and my friend, the time mage...we have decided that somehow you are the key to stopping it."

Now it was really cold out here.

"My death?"

The voice got quieter, slower, and it made me a little irritated. It was as if this man thought I was a child. "...Elluka. It's not always the same, but if you think hard enough, you should understand…at the end of these two weeks, you always end up dying."

I couldn't say anything. I was just slumped in the snow, looking at the glowing spring onion in front of me that was gradually starting to look awful while it spouted things I wanted to believe were lies.

I had memories of things I shouldn't have memories of. Like being in the Temple, with Irina. Or watching Milky and Ly Li die on the news. And the very nearest, blurriest memory was of me...

I squeezed my eyes shut but the voice wouldn't go away.

"-over time I and my friend have noticed repeating patterns to these iterations. They may indicate just who is responsible for what's occurring. We currently have no options. The kind of magic this would require, only a powerful god could achieve it in truth—" suddenly, though, the voice cut off.

I snapped my eyes open. "What is it?"

"Hide the spring onion. It won't do to get other people involved."

"Huh?"

"Elluka!"

Giving a small jump, I pushed the spring onion down under the snow. When I turned, I saw Kiril running towards me with a large coat and a panicked expression on his face. The coat he put around my shoulders, and he began to ramble, "You didn't come down and you weren't in your bed and I got worried what are you doing out here, it's cold, you'll—"

"I'm sorry, Kiril."

I stood up and looked at him. Kiril stopped talking immediately. He took a deep breath. "What's—what's wrong, Elluka?"

Everything was wrong...

I'm going to die in two weeks. And we'll probably have the same conversation all over again about how late you stay up. And that's going to be our most meaningful interaction for the whole two weeks.

Stupid. I can't start crying just because of that.

"I'm—I'm sorry, I'm—" he was starting to stay, but with a wave of my hand I shut him up.

"I want to go inside," I whispered. "It is cold out here."

I managed to keep my tears from falling for the most part.

But I think I just lost the spring onion.