Shit!

Ice spread through her veins when she aimed the blaster at them. It was one thing to point it at a faceless enemy. Another at someone she took the time to talk to, to understand — a reserved, but brilliant mind lost to the cruelty of the universe.

Her finger hovered over the trigger and the weight of a thousand lives remained in her hands.

Neo squirmed and the crimson sprites danced in Thuni's dead, sunken gaze. Nova choked on the confusion the monster left within her. "Wait!" Nova took one step forward when he stole Neo, where he huffed for breath as the larger man strangled him.

Shadows danced into grey, nebulous clouds.

Its oppressive presence shattered lightbulbs and cascaded a wave of darkness.

Neo dug his boots into the floor, but Thuni dragged him with ease.

"Thuni, don't!" Nova called, and energized the capacitor. "I don't want to hurt you."

It never left. It was all around us.

Thuni squeezed Neo's throat, and a muffled gasp for air escaped him.

Almost out of her reach as the snaking atmosphere intensified, hidden in a field of timebound butterflies.

Neo said he was dead!

"Thuni, please," she rasped. "This isn't you." Ice tangled in her throat. "Whatever is happening, you know it's going to end again. We don't have to do it like this!" Tears blurred the world, and the butterflies turned into ashen black mist and swirled. "I won't let this happen again! Let him go! Let him breathe!"

Stars, let him exist.

Crimson sprites shivered in agitation as Thuni strangled Neo, and gathered underneath the sparking lights. A heartbeat slammed in her ears as her head screamed with the piercing migraine. Formless tendrils waved through the nebula, twisting and curling into a massive presence of darkness the ravager controlling Thuni never noticed.

Nova froze, unable to pull the trigger when Neo planted his feet with the same intense expression from before, and forced Thuni to stop.

I have to shoot!

Neo quaked with deepening breaths as his pupils fell into nebulous mist, and the immense monster expanded into a supermassive black hole.

Shoot, for fucks sake! It's controlling his corpse! It doesn't matter! Shoot! If I don't—

Neo flicked his gaze to the droid terminal, and Thuni tightened his monstrous grip and drew closer to the awaiting monster. Grey clouds chewed on the fading sprites.

"What about Ulin?" Nova tried, to shoot for familiarity and sense, something wearing her friend's face.

Speaking with her friend's voice.

Her bones rumbled with the station when tendrils dug into metal and tore the air asunder as the voice from before screamed above the dissonance. Thuni stopped in his tracks while Neo followed along, expression empty, nothing more than a ragdoll. His eyes narrowed to shine in the rainbow outside the bay.

Nova snapped her head to the supermassive presence.

Its maw opened to show long teeth to pierce and impale. A breath of nebulous death escaped the event horizon to spread the grey mist with an oppressive sigh.

Everything moved away in silence, and tore the starlit seams.

Time slowed down and stretched the distance between her and him. One chance. One chance to change the loop, to end it, to save him. No matter what her choices led to.

The monster sighed again in what sounded like breathless pain when the teeth stretched and it curled into a hateful, intentful snarl when the crimson sprites froze among the stars. Another plume of cloudy greys seeped out of the abyss. One more starlit whisper of a thousand loops. Apologies never made it right, and she trembled in terror when it lowered to a softened whisper, and not the cruel roar of the universe.

Purpose. Intent. Drive. Determination. Readiness.

Nova gasped. "Neo!" she screeched and scrambled to race for them, the space echoing with death. "Don't! Stop—!" Hand outstretched, she was so close.

Teeth snapped out of the tendrils, always ready to die. Nails broke apart the atmosphere and slowed her. The grey nebulas washed out of Neo's eyes when he closed them. In a blazing birth of stars shimmering grey rippled through the black hole when it launched a single, needle point for the two.

It pierced through their throats.

Frozen in the last moments, Thuni gurgled and the crimson sprites licked at the blood frothing at his lips, forced to let go of Neo.

Neo fell forward with the same soft sigh echoing through space and time.

Hands outstretched to stop Neo when he collapsed at her feet.

Rivers of crimson slipped around her boots.

So far, but so close.

The heart stopped, and twisted into a raging tempest.

Lightbulbs cracked when Thuni shifted to face the monster, and the crimson sprites surrounded his body. Every breath caught in her lungs when the pressure bit down on her skull.

Nothing stopped it.

Nothing hurt it.

The teeth disappeared back into the maw with a flaring of the nebula at the event horizon.

"But why?" she sobbed with her hands on Neo, lost in the puddle of shattered hope.

Ooze slipped out of the vents, causing the immense pressure to turn to it when the crimson sprites attempted to skitter out of its reach. In a crack of time, a capacitor bolt smashed into Thuni's head, and released the original beast. It sprayed as the black hole showed its teeth once more. Nova refused to scramble away from the clash of the black hole's. One attempted to drag itself out of the stronger well of gravity.

She could barely breathe.

It gathered through the cloud and slithered with a squelch back into the vents, spraying ooze from its wriggly escape. Nova held her head when the black hole shimmered. Quick footsteps came up from behind, and she whipped around to see Izerva, sliding in front of her and Neo to face down the black hole, but it ignored them to follow the imperfect amalgamation into the vents. Izerva's tail stiffened when the black hole scattered into stars.

They trembled.

Nova bit down on a sob as she crawled closer to Neo, tugging him onto his back, left in the remains of her failure to reach out to him in time. She ignored Izerva when they knelt at her side, their fur raised in horror. Nova clung onto his blood-soaked shoulders.

But why?

"I'm sorry," their hands trembled and broke their communication. "I'm sorry I didn't make it in time... I... I felt it, and then we got a massive reading. I came to—"

It's not your fault. It had to end one way. The same way it always ends. He died over and over... and this time he... Nova dragged her teeth over her tongue and shook her head. None of her grief mattered as she rubbed his shoulder. It's me. I'm the one who should say sorry. I'm the one who let you follow me, thinking that I could change it here.

Flames boiled her stomach.

Izerva stared at Neo, then at the vent the black hole disappeared in. Their gaze shifted from disbelief and horror, into concern when they looked at her. Nova sat there, useless and waited while Izerva shuffled through their pack. Nova squinted when they tugged out gauze.

"What are you doing?" she whispered. "He's already dead."

I can only hope that... it was instant.

Izerva's nostrils flared. "I understand, but I shall clean and cover the wound anyway. If for no other reason but for his soul to reform in the starless sea..." Their gaze lifted back to the vent. "Without the pain he carried." Nova longed to ask, but a sob escaped her lips when she opened them. Unbloodied hand to cover her mouth and hide her own pain. Izerva frowned at her. "You do not have to watch this. Do you... need time with him? Do you wish to be left alone to process?"

I've watched this play out for what feels like a thousand lifetimes. I knew this was going to happen. I knew, I just never knew how or where... Nova shook her head. I've run out of tears.

Izerva gave a hesitant nod and rested a cloth across the piercing wound through his throat. Left beside him, Nova shrank into her shoulders when Izerva signed, "I shall go tend to Thuni now. Is there anything else you require?"

"Thanks, but..." Nova hugged herself, when not so long ago it was Neo who gave her the warmth she lost in the black hole. "No, I... I want to be alone now."

Unable to find wasted tears, she gripped Neo's limp, cold hand as Izerva headed to Thuni. One more memory, lost in the endless nebula. Words screamed across time and through the center of the black hole.

'...sorry...'

Sorry. Sorry. You didn't say it, but I heard it. I heard it in the distance. You were so close... I could barely hear you. Nova sucked in a shaky breath. I can't win, can I? Everything wants to kill you... It left her nose as she let go of his hand to poke his cheek. I want to take you home. Back to Mira and Jin. Back to Mrs and Mr Teimea... I'm sure all of them miss you, even Jin...

But how would she even tell Jin his older brother died due to her inability?

Blood stained the uniform he found pride in to wear. Nova twisted to his datascroll, clasped on his toolbelt to open up his notes.

Scrambled, incomprehensible squiggles filled the margins.

I am remembering for a reason.

It never does change.

Anger set the embers alight as the monster's roar echoed in her own heart. Its fury. Its painful, writhing grief and guilt. Her hand found the blaster she abandoned on the floor in her scramble to prevent the tragic end. Out of the river of blood, she waddled to the vent, and stared into the abyss.

It refused to stare back.

But why?

Energy hissed into the capacitor.

Why— It seared into the panel in the depths. Did— It fell across her shoulders in ember tears as she gasped out her pain. You refuse to listen to me?

Everything rang when she pulled the trigger on the unseen and the universe left an empty hole in her heart. Embers and sparks slammed and sent a resounding growl through her throat, to vent out the rage in her mind. Crimson starlight turned into fallen meteors as she unloaded the entire capacitor, readying the next to send explosions into the black hole long gone for its target.

For every time she failed to save him.

Including the ones left to come.

Including those she turned her back on to forestall his death.

For every lost moment.

It built in her throat as quick footsteps rushed behind her, and she continued to shoot until there was nothing left but charred metal. Izerva waved their hands at her, signing something she found herself unable to register as she gazed into the supernova. Tears fell down her cheeks as she unleashed the rage he claimed she felt. She slammed the blaster against the wall, and it clattered to the ground.

"Nova!" Izerva held her back. "We need to get you out of here. I will send someone to retrieve Scientist Neo and Engineer Thuni."

"There's no point," her own voice echoed his emptiness as she waddled back to Neo. Forgive me for the times I mess this up...

Sample and datascroll in her hands, she left him behind to slam both on her desk. She picked up the core from where it rolled to the ground. Its alloy warmed her fingertips as she raced against the clock, to find a way.

"FIVE MINUTES UNTIL HYPERWARP."

Shut up about time I never had.

Ignoring the glitch on the terminal and the lost stream of messages, she rested the core beside it before repeating the same process from before. Connection wires in place, time taunted her with an endless countdown.

Another end, one more time.

Give me an answer.

I'll rip it out of you if I have to.

Nova slammed her admin codes into her droid before lifting Neo's anomaly scanner. She fiddled with the numerous settings as she sat down and the data fed into readable lines.

"TEN."

Information connected.

"NINE."

It glitched.

"EIGHT."

I'll do what I have to do.

"SEVEN."

Time stuttered and rippled.

"FIVE."

I need time.

"FOUR."

A hazy glimpse of the truth as her heartbeat followed the countdown. Time slowed and embraced her.

"TWO."

Fractured lines responded between the core and the sample, dancing in opposites.

Not enough. Not nearly enough.

"One?" a familiar voice whispered.

One little glimpse at the source beside her.

Stars stretched when he held the butterfly necklace between his fingers, where it swung with the ticking pendulum. It left her with nothing but a whispered, ghostly memory. Weariness filled the greys when he brought the starry chain of his necklace to his nose, a curious, sad smile on his lips.

It shattered into fluttering glass.

And like all the times before, he was gone with the frozen loop.