Shiro awoke in her bed, her lips were salty, the taste of tears. She threw up at the memory of what had just happened. 

 

“How did I..?” She realised that the last place she was at was Kurono’s place, why had she passed out there? But more importantly how did she get back to her place? Kurono had prepared her and Ena separate beds so it couldn’t have been them.

 

She got up out of her bed. “Pyjamas?” Unless Ena or Kurono had undressed and then re-dressed her for some strange reason, then there was no explanation for the change of clothing. She changed into her black and white school uniform, as she was getting breakfast she realised that on the kitchen table was the first paper that had been released about the girl in the lake. As she was walking to school She saw Ena walking with Robert. Didn’t he die? 

 

She approached the two, deciding to repeat what she had said last time. 

 

“Aren’t you usually alone?”

 

“Huh?, umm, yeah. Sorry you startled me a bit.”

 

Shiro quietly laughed to herself at Ena’s repeated reaction.

 

“I fell and twisted my ankle while walking. Robert offered to help me to School.”

 

“Again..?”

 

“W-what d-do you mean again?” 

 

Robert walked up to Shiro again “Shiro, right?”

 

The way they were talking to her, their reactions, every bit of every movement aside from Ena being confused at Shiro’s reaction was almost identical to when Robert first asked to hang out with them.

 

“Do you mind if I hang around with you guys today?”

 

She decided to give him the same response as last time. She started thinking to herself, if all the interactions they were having were the same then…

 

“I need to get to the school.” Shiro ran down the streets ahead of Robert and Ena.

 

“W-where’s she-?”

 

Shiro had expected to run into a school filled with confused panic at Emilia’s disappearance but instead there was Ren’s body laying on the concrete pathway outside the school fence, kneeling over the body was a girl about 5’6ft, with dark blue eyes, smooth skin and short blonde hair. It was Emilia. Shouldn’t she be dead? Shiro had developed the theory that she had gone back in time to before the suicides but Emilia being alive didn’t make sense, unless… History had been altered and there was a much sinister plot going on.

 

Shiro slowly approached Emilia, as she closed in it became evident she was crying. Ren’s body was covered in a dark red liquid. It was evident to Shiro that if one thing was for certain, there was a murderer in town.

 

“What happened here…?” Shiro crouched down next to the crying girl.

 

“I don’t know! I just found his body laying here!” Emilia looked as if she was about to pass out from the crying.

 

“Did anyone else…?”

 

“NO!” the girl kept sobbing over the lifeless body.

 

No one had seen the body? Shiro had seen people heading this direction to school before her, so how was it that Emilia was the only one who found it? There was a sinking feeling in Shiro, like she was forgetting something or someone.

 

“Shiro- What the?” Kurono came up from behind Shiro, his eyes widened as he saw the scene in front of him.

 

“My head hurts!” Emilia screamed before passing out.

 

“Kurono… Do you remember the basement..?”

 

“Shiro, what are you talking about, are you just going to ignore the body in front of us? And Emilia’s passed out!”

 

Shiro saw Robert and Ena approaching the school “Ena, take Emilia to the infirmary…”

 

“W-what, h-huh!? B-blood!? Is h-he dead!?” Ena’s face had a horrified expression on it.

 

“I don’t have time to explain. Come on Kurono we need to get to the basement.”

 

As Shiro ran with Kurono to the basement she looked behind and saw Ena and Robert pick both people up.

 

“Shiro, what is going on!?” 

 

“No time to explain, but be careful when we enter, we may get killed…”

 

“That’s a promising response.” He said sarcastically  “But I’ll trust it because it’s you.”

 

As they approached the basement Shiro saw the familiar key to the basement on the outside. “Why is it…? If she’s- what…?” 

 

“Shiro!! Kurono!! We have an issue here!” Robert came running up behind them. Shiro had to ignore the key basement for now as something much worse had come up.

 

Ena was sitting in a chair next to the infirmary beds, her head down, clear liquid dripping from her sleeves. The closests bed had Ren’s body lying lifelessly on it, the next bed had Emilia lying on it but something was wrong.

 

“S-she’s not b-breathing.” Ena completely buried her face in her arms.

 

Shiro had a closer look at the body, listening for a heartbeat but there was nothing.

 

“She passed out after crying over his body… Kurono, check Ren’s injury.” 

 

Kurono looked closer at the stab wound in Ren’s chest, the blood had appeared at first to just be slightly darker than usual but upon further inspection it was obvious a black liquid was mixed in with it.

 

“Poison!?” Kurono backed away from the body.

 

“Here, there’s a knife cut on Emilia’s left hand…”

 

“So you mean to say that when she touched the wound, it infected her with poison?”

 

“Yeah… Isn’t someone else usually here..?”

 

Robert looked at her curiously “No. What are you talking about Shiro? We need to get back onto this!”

 

“Onto what…? They’re gone… We don’t have a chance of saving them…”

 

“Sh-Shiro! I… Y-you’re right, we can’t s-save them.” Ena’s eyes darkened after she stood up out of her chair.

 

`Slice`

 

 “SHIRO!” Kurono screamed at the top of his lungs as Shiro felt an intense stabbing pain in her intestine.

 

“Huh? A knife…?” Her consciousness had faded before she managed to look behind her and see the culprit, she heard Robert and Ena’s voices yelling after Kurono’s as she passed on.

 

{Tick, tick, tick, tick}

 

Again she awoke in her bed, the same pyjamas as last time, the paper was still on the table.

There was no doubt in her mind, this was some form of sick time loop, but the murders were all to conveniently timed and how had it started? There had to be a culprit behind this all.