Groundhog Day

Someone shook Alec awake and she opened her eyes to see a pale goth back away from her. Glancing around allowed her to put together that she was at a gathering of some sort in an unfamiliar basement. Around the dark-haired woman were a bunch of random strangers, all seemingly as groggy as herself and just as confused. “Where the hell am I?! Who are you people?!” A man cried out, leaping up from where he’d been previously slumped against the couch. Alec winced at his pitchy voice and heaved herself out of the chair she’d been sleeping in.

“Maybe we can figure out what happened if we all tell each other our names and what we last remember.” An elderly woman spoke up and several people nodded. A teenager was the first to speak up, her voice shaky and skin pale. “I’m uh, Tessa. I was walking home from school and then...nothing.” A man in a sharp business suit frowned at the teen -Tessa’s- vague recount and pushed off of where he’d been leaning against the wall. “You didn’t see anyone, didn’t notice any cars that seemed out of place or footsteps?” The man sniffed and Tessa flinched at his tone, shrugging weakly.

“I-I don’t know. I don’t remember.” She stuttered and Alec cut in, trying to get the random man to back off. “Hey, take it easy. Bullying a girl isn’t going to do anything but cause problems.” She met the man’s scowl with a level expression and held it until he scoffed, crossing his arms as he looked away. “My name is Alec. I was in my house, watching TV before I woke up here.” The dark-haired woman stated and it led to other five people introducing themselves and relaying what they were doing before waking up.

The only thing that they all seemed to have in common was the fact that they ended in the same place. They were taken at different times, in different areas and they were doing different things before being abducted. Not to mention the variety of gender, race and financial class among the group. There was Tyreese, a big black male who stayed quiet outside of his brief time in the spotlight. Raymond, the aggressive man in the suit. Tessa, a brunette teenager who was only sixteen years old. Debbie, who was the one who originally suggested talking things out. Lou, a man in his mid-thirties who looked like he lived at the gym. Jasper, a twenty year old goth who went by they/them pronouns.

And Alec, a tired barista who worked too many hours in order to make ends meet.

“Let’s all look around for some clues as to why we’re all here. Maybe it’ll give us some way to escape.” Jasper stated and Alec agreed, splitting off from the others in order to explore their new surroundings. As she snooped around, she couldn’t help but feel like the other shoe would drop at any moment, the feeling of dread in her gut growing and growing until it couldn’t be ignored any more. That’s why when she saw a door that seemed out of place, she decided to check it out to see if she could leave.

Alec calmly opened the obstruction and began to make her way up the small staircase, making sure to avoid signalling the others until she discovered a landing. To her right was the front door and she immediately began to fiddle with the many locks securing the door. She had only gotten through three of the five locks when she heard a faint clatter coming from the second set of stairs. When Alec turned to investigate she realized that the stairway was pitch black and she couldn’t see any further than a couple of steps up.

The pit in her stomach grew when she heard footsteps coming towards her, as they got closer, her hands began shaking. It made it difficult to unlatch the last two locks, there was no way she would make it in time. She saw a flash of white from the staircase and abandoned her current mission to scramble back down the stairs and to the rest of the group. As Alec made it to safety, she closed the door leading to the stairs and backed away, never taking her eyes off of the wood.

Jasper, who had noticed Alec’s return, frowned at how spooked the older woman looked. “Are you okay, what happened?” The dark-haired female managed to pry her eyes off of the closed basement door in order to give the other person her full attention. “I think there’s something else in the house with us.” Alec whispered to them, trying to avoid a mass panic, and Jasper's eyes widened. The woman nodded and went to say something else when she noticed movement through the sliding glass door that led to the backyard.

Keeping Jasper behind her, Alec began to inch towards the back door. It seemed like no one else had noticed whatever was shifting around outside, but it could be another person who just so happened to be dropped outside. She didn’t truly believe that, but it allowed her the strength to move closer to the door to try and identify the approaching silhouette. As it got closer all the blood drained from Alec’s face as she realized that it was a man.

And he was holding a chainsaw.

The dark-haired female turned to Jasper, the look on their face telling Alec that they saw the same thing, and began to warn the four others in the room. Her words were drowned out by the man revving the machine to life before running at the glass separating us. Upon seeing him rapidly prowl forward, Alec panicked and began to backpedal, forcing Jasper to move away as well. The glass shattered all over the plush rug as the stranger pushed his way through, raising the chainsaw before ripping it across the open air. With Jasper behind her, Alec couldn’t dodge in time and was caught in the rotating teeth, a gash tearing through her skin from her left shoulder to her right hip.

She fell back, but Jasper caught her, the two of them falling to the ground together as the killer stepped over them, menacingly stalking towards a screaming Raymond. Jasper clutched at Alec’s wound, trying desperately to try and stop the gushing blood, but it was no use. The injury was fatal. Alec heard gurgled cries as her vision began to darken, Raymond was cut down but Tyreese jumped in and began to try and wrestle the deadly machine from the mysterious murderer. Her vision failed her before she could see who won and she was left in darkness.

It was only a couple seconds before Alec was startled awake by Jasper shaking her before backing away. She was back in the basement with the same five people. Confused, Alec pulled her shirt up to prod at her right hip as the others bickered, the skin was smooth and unmarred. It seemed that no one else remembered what she did, the five present having the same conversation as before, down to where Alec was meant to step in and redirect the topic off of Tessa.

“Anyone else getting a sense of déjà vu?” Alec piped up and all arguing ceased, the group all leveling her with varying degrees of confusion and contempt. “No, not at all. Are you feeling alright?” Debbie asked with a pitying tone, one of her wrinkled hands reaching out to rest against Alec’s forehead, as if feeling for a fever. The dark-haired barista gently took the elderly woman’s hand and brought it away from her face. “It’s nothing. Nevermind.” The pieces were starting to come together and she wasn’t liking the picture it painted.

After getting through introductions a second time and splitting up, Alec grabbed Jasper’s hand and made a beeline for the front door. The goth began asking what she was doing but she just shook her head. “I don’t have time to explain, you’re just going to have to trust me.” Alec let go once they reached the front door, ignoring the weird noises coming from further in the house in favor of undoing the locks as fast as she could. “Holy shit!” Jasper called out from behind Alec as she flicked the last lock out of the way. There was a muted thump, but before she could turn around to investigate she felt something sharp and cold slide into the juncture of her neck and shoulder.

She choked on the metallic taste of her blood as crimson poured from her slack mouth. The knife was pulled from her wound and seemed like the blade dragged across every nerve ending along the way. After a brief wobble, Alec’s knees gave out and she slumped to the floor like a puppet whose strings had just been cut. She caught sight of Jasper’s lifeless body, blood oozing out of the knife wound in the middle of their chest. Her vision was blurry and uncoordinated so she didn’t get a good look at her killer, only that he was bulky and wearing a white mask. She watched, unable to do anything as he made his way down to the basement where the others were.

The last thing Alec heard was the shatter of glass before succumbing to the blood loss.

This time when Alec was shaken awake by Jasper and opened her eyes to a similar scene that her fears were confirmed. The woman was trapped in some sort of time loop that only she remembered, cursed to die until she could find a way to escape. Realizing that the front door wasn’t an option, and they only had about twenty minutes until the man with the chainsaw arrived, Alec spent that time convincing Jasper that they were stuck in a time loop so that they could maybe help come up with some ideas to assist in getting out of the house.

“Maybe we could wait for things to get chaotic and use that to our advantage. Once the chainsaw wielding maniac gets far enough inside, we could just slip by him and out the back door.” Jasper suggested and Alec couldn’t fault them for wanting to leave the rest behind, but it was every man for himself and it seemed like the loop focused around Alec since she was the only one who recalled every loop. “Okay, let’s do it.” It was a good plan and would probably work...hopefully.

Right on cue, the chainsaw killer smashed through the glass, immediately running Tessa through since she’d moved closer to the door before Alec or Jasper could warn her. Right afterward the door leading to the stairs splintered open, revealing the masked killer who was holding a huge butcher knife, which was the most likely culprit for her previous death. Jasper grabbed onto her wrist and began to tug her towards the unblocked sliding doors and away from the two rampaging murderers. The pair sprinted past the fallen glass shards, through the metal frame and out underneath the balcony.

Right as they hit open air, a viscous slime dribbled onto Alec’s shirt from above. Time seemed to move like molasses as she looked up, spotting the gaping maw of some sort of iridescent slug-like creature. No sooner had she seen it, the monster dropped from where it had been slumped against the railing, swallowing the two of them whole. Jasper began screaming as it’s stomach began to fill with some kind of brackish liquid and Alec scratched at the flexing flesh surrounding them in an attempt to get the creature to let them go.

But the endless noise and clawing didn’t seem to do anything, because the slug just stayed as it was. It wasn’t long before their prison was filled to the brim with the disgusting substance, the two unable to hold their breath forever. Alec startled when her fingers and toes began tingling, the light sensation quickly escalating into a burning pain. When she opened her mouth to cry out, the mystery liquid flooded into her lungs and she jerked. Her eyes wildly darted around the dark space as the agony traveled up her limbs, the feeling being followed by an odd numbness.

It was as if the liquid was eating at her body like an acid.

It seemed to take forever to die this time, each moment of fiery agony seemingly endless. Alec couldn’t even seem to drown correctly, the stomach acid just eating away at her insides with each attempt at breathing. When she finally found unconsciousness, she welcomed the escape with open arms. If she could avoid dying like that again, she would do anything necessary.

The cycle of dying and waking up continued for quite a few cycles, with Alec getting as far as she could with the knowledge from her last loop before being inevitably killed when something new got involved. She tried telling everyone of the situation -with varying results- and also tested several different exits from windows to walls. She’d even made it as far as the driveway once before being cut down by some psycho with a katana. So when she opened her eyes again to see Jasper hovering over her, she’d already lost track of how many cycles she’d gone through.

Alec took the time to convince Jasper of their situation -the goth never failed to be helpful- and when the time came, the two of them snuck past the masked knife wielding killer and up the stairs. She completely disregarded the front door since the locks would either take too long or there would be some murderous person on the other side of the door. Instead, the two hid near the balcony doors, waiting until the slug creature descended to go out. On the balcony, they could hear the chaos going on below and Alec winced at the thought of what horrible fate could be befalling the others. With Jasper’s help, she made it onto the rooftop before pulling the goth up with them.

As they stood on the dark shingles, contemplating what to do next, both were surprised by Tyreese stumbling out of the darkness. He had some blood on his shirt but he looked okay other than that. He spotted us on the roof and cautiously made his way over, holding his arms up and prompting us closer to the edge. “Jump.” He stated and Jasper blanched. “There’s no way. He’s kidding, right?” Alec could tell by the look on his face that the man was dead serious. So she let Jasper go first, gently lowering the goth as Tyreese caught a hold of their waist from below.

Once they were on solid ground, Alec scooted off of the edge and dropped into the man, he steadied her and she gave him a quick nod of gratitude. The three survivors raced across the backyard until they reached the old fence trapping them inside the property. Tyreese gave Alec a boost over, the woman teetering at the top of the seven foot privacy fence as she glanced around. She concluded that the area was clear and motioned for Jasper to come up next when they all heard the bushes nearby rustling suspiciously.

A dark shape leapt out of the foliage and Tyreese got the brunt of the attack, the large male going down under a pile of coarse fur. Jasper let out a shriek, probably giving away our positions to any nearby killers and Alec grabbed their wrist, using her grip to haul the goth up on top of the fence with me before we both dropped down on the other side. We didn’t wait to run, the sounds of wet tearing and pleas for help lingering even after the sounds faded. Whatever it was had looked like some kind of mutated dog.

The two of us immediately went to stay at one of Jasper’s friends' houses, Alec crashed on the couch while the goth took the only spare bedroom available. It took awhile but she eventually stopped looking over her shoulder as life continued on. One day turning into two, two to three, so on and so forth. Eventually a whole month had passed as normal and Alec let her guard drop, deciding to take Jasper out to celebrate a month of being free.

The barista bought the tickets and Jasper was kind enough to indulge in concessions for the two of them. The strangers turned friends were giddy, roughhousing all the way to their movie room. Alec sat towards the middle and placed the buttered popcorn between the two of them as the screen lit up, showing the previews. “Hey! That one looks good, wanna-” The rest of what Jasper was going to say was cut off when a huge knife plunged into the back of their skull, the point coming out of their forehead. When her friend’s body slumped into the seat, he let go of the blade and left it there, as if Jasper's head were some kind of fucked up sheath, before turning to Alec.

“Fuck! No! Nonononono!” She leapt up from her seat and turned to face the same masked killer from that house. “I won! I escaped!” She cried desperately, but he just ignored her, his hand snapping out to wrap around the dark-haired girl’s throat and lifting her into the air. Alec’s legs kicked out as she choked, her body trying to escape the death grip around her neck. There was a sharp crack that echoed throughout the dark room before her body went limp without her say so, the sound of the movie that had been playing in the background, fading.

Then Alec felt herself being gently shaken, the hand cold and hesitant. She blinked a few times, trying to focus her vision and noticed a pale goth backing away from her. Glancing around allowed her to put together that she was at a gathering of some sort in an unfamiliar basement. Around the dark-haired woman were a bunch of random strangers, all seemingly as groggy as herself and just as confused.

“Where the hell am I?! Who are you people?!”