The words echo through my head with the beating of a drum in my ears. My old teachers had drilled them into my head, I had drilled them into my own students head, I had believed, but I had not lived them. My oath was to the code, and the code said for the great good no matter the cost. I had been told to never let the cost grow to great, to never let someone get so close that I would question a choice. But I had, and I had taken another oath.

The wedding band feels tight on my finger even though I know it shouldn't. My suit, molded to my body and as familiar as breathing, is heavy. It's as if I'm on another planet and the gravity is thrice the normal. I can't even try to take a step. Why did I do it, why did I let myself get close. Slowly I steal a glance behind me. She is still there, she is still asleep against a concrete wall, and she is still beautiful. Inspite of the moment the twinge of a smile touches my lips, how could I not have gotten closer, how could have I not loved her.

I turned back around. It didn't matter what I could or couldn't have done, all that mattered was that I had an impossible choice to make. Before me is 10,000 men, all of whom want her dead. Behind me is her. Easiness is not the factor, I could mow down all of those men perhaps a minute and a half, but they didn't deserve that. They were just soldiers, good people who were trying to do what they thought was right and just, or rather, what they were told.

In a past life my wife had done some horrible, horrible things but she had changed. A fight with a superhero, a headshot from some powerful ray, she couldn't remember anything. When she landed in the ocean and did not come back up they thought she had drown, and in a way she had. Her old self was still in the ocean when she crawled ashore on some Mexican beach. Naturally a strange 20 something lady with residual powers and amnesia attracted the leagues attention, but no one ever connected the dots. At least until today.

Some kind of new scan had showed the rays damage, and only one woman had ever been struck by it and remained unaccounted for. The governments of the world soon ordered her captured but she escaped from the leagues initial ambush, I had called in all of my favors to keep them at bay since. But the military I had no such sway over and they had run her down, her strongest powers lost with her mind she didn't stand a chance. Somehow she had managed to get a message to me, I still wasn't sure how, and I had found her asleep here. Before I could wake her though the sounds of tanks and helicopters had surrounded the parking garage we were hidden in.

I don't know how long I stood there, listening, waiting, thinking. But eventually a General shouted through a bull horn, "Thansverse, we don't want anyone to get hurt but we have to take your wife into custody, she has to face trial. Dranco, if you can hear me and you truly are not evil like you say, you will come out peacefully.".

Dranco, Dranco. The scale in my mind had been so finally balanced that the single grain of sand that was a name was enough to tilt it. Behind me I could hear her stir, she would try to stop me, she would give herself up, because she was a hero. It's a shame that I am not anymore. "Her name is Misses Quil", were the last words 10,000 men ever heard.

Seven Nothing Days Part 2

I spent most of that day like I did the night before, mouth deep in every bottle in the house. I was passed out when the call came, the phone waking me despite it never having done so previously when my mother, sister, and soon to be ex brother in law had all called. Yet another sick damn twist in some master game. It was around three a clock in the afternoon, I was still too drunk too talk straight, the cop probably thought I was an alcoholic when I slurred a "yeah, this is him", at my name. When he said my wife was in a bad wreck on State 129 I'm ashamed to say my first drunken thought was relief. "I hope the bitch is dead", I yelled before slamming the phone down before falling back asleep mumbling about no alimony and not worrying about child support.

It was well past six when the near incessant pounding on my door woke me up. My mother and sister had came to get me, to see if I was even still breathing. They made me get dressed in at least some clean sweatpants and a t-shirt before stuffing me into the car. Apparently her eldest brother had been in a car wreck of his own two states away and she had flown out of work trying to meet her other siblings at the hospital. A semi's brake lines weren't working and when she blindly tried to merge lanes, it was painless I was later told. It wasn't until they got some coffee in me that I sobered up enough to realize what all this was. It wouldn't have mattered what I did the day before, today she had an important meeting, today she would have been in her office and gotten the call about her brother at the same time, today she would have drove onto highway 129 at the exact same time and that exact same truck would have been in the exact same place. I think my crazy laughter until we got to the hospital was part of the reason my mother and sister never treated me the same way ever again.

Nancy's parents had died three years ago, cancer and a heart attack barely a month apart. Her other brother and sister were too busy trying to get there remaining siblings medical needs squared away. It fell to me to ID the body. When the nurse pulled back the blanket and I looked down at the lifeless face that was my wife, that was the mother of my future child, that was up until the day before the most important person in my life, I should have broken, like a paper swan in the rain I should have melted then and there. No one would have blamed me, in fact it was expected in spite of the circumstances. But I was quiet, I'd already had six days to say good bye. "Yep, that's Nancy" is all I said before turning and calmly walking away.

For a long time I thought that day stretched into seven was just for me. I thought that god had decided to let me say goodbye on my own terms and in my own sweet time. I knew what I would have done if he hadn't, the pain of losing a wife and child so suddenly, the hurt and what ifs of a perfect future suddenly thrown to hell. If I hadn't gone for one of my pistols or the rope in the garage the alcohol or pure carelessness and depression would have surely ruined me. But why did they have to be taken, why did a being that could make me relive days take them from me.

I got the first inkling of it all being part of something bigger when the draft letter came. We were at war, true war, for the first time in decades and I was a low-level underwriter for a relatively minor insurance company. A widower, just under thirty, no kids or dependents, no major physical ailments. If I wasn't the first man on the list I should have been the second. I signed up for officer school because it seemed like the thing to do, high test scores, college educated, ex boy scout and collegiate seasonal athletics club president. What more could they want in the next Patton. I scored expert marksman with a pistol but barely qualified with any rifle or machine gun handed to me, I guess that's probably why I got tossed into the police force.

For two years I was a stateside MP, some people might say it was the three 'possible saboteurs (a pair of curious teenagers and a mentaly ill vagrant) I captured in my time at Fort Bragg that got me bumped to Captain, others that I was an ass kissing yes man. Really it was because I was too old and uncaring to be anything less in the US army, or anything more for that matter. I got sent to some little South Asian country as a company leader. Our main job was "protecting" VIPs a hundred miles behind the line.

The General was young for a two star, possibly one of the youngest in US military history. He was fresh off a victory in the Pacific, a victory that had won an entire theatre three months early and with 10,000 fewer casualties then expected. In fact beyond where he had been we were either at a standstill or slowly losing ground to the enemy. There were rumors that if he broke the standoff in this jungle he would get a third star and command of all troops in lower Asia. But he wasn't a pompous asshole either, he talked to me like an equal that whole week that we guarded him and his entourage as they toured camp after camp in a snaking trail towards the front. He even thanked me and my men for the dedicated work. Everyone saw an ace to win the war, I saw a future President.

During that week Nancy and the day I had come to calling the 'nothing week' were as far to the back of my mind as they could be. There was work to do, no time to think about what put me here or why. But, as I watch my men thrust the pistol of the would be assassin skyward, as my ears rings from a shot that tears through only canvas, as I see the grenade lacking a pin fall from the shell shocked soldiers sleeve, it all makes sense. You would think I would have rushed and jumped into action instead of just standing there staring. I know though, I know that this is merely a moment, a moment that I was destined to have. Hell, maybe if I don't jump I'll relive today too, or maybe even my whole life since that day I kicked Nancy out. I'm the only one that sees it, and even if anyone else does the only other person who could do anything is one of my men. John, he's got a wife and kids. Terry, his mom's in the hospital and he's currently fighting to keep a pistol pointed skywards. Miguel, if he doesn't get the General back it won't matter what anyone does, besides, his sister would kill me anyway. I could go for the door, if I had Nancy and a baby at home I would, fuck the General. But with no one, there's no point. Hell I wouldn't even be here if they were alive, ditto if I was dead to a 9mm or a bottle to a grief stricken brain. Maybe I could throw it, no, there's too many people in the way. I smile slightly, when I had shipped off my mother had said she didn't want to be handed a metal. Sorry mom, at least you'll get to meet the president with this one.

All this to save some men, no not to just save some men. I was right about the General, so is everyone else, he's going place and the world will go with him and him only. A little bit of spite for the universe wells up deep in side, a part of me thinks to just draw my pistol and do it myself as a giant middle finger to the greater plan. It's fleeting though, I had long ago come to terms with it, I had suffered too much, destiny had beaten me down just as it had over the nothing week. I look towards the General as I leap, everything moving in slow motion. I see the disbelief in his eyes, the confusion, the hint of burgeoning fear of what's to come next. they remind me of myself, one morning, a lifetime and seven days ago.

Seven Nothing Days Pt 1 (second below)

You know the weird thing about a time loop, it doesn't take long. Yeah I know it literally only takes a day in the grand scheme of things but if the majority are anything like mine, well you would have to be a complete idiot to not figure shit out by day five. I mean for god sakes I'm pretty sure someone somewhere has probably literally walked past a glowing neon sign on their first day, things that cause time loops, they are just too big to miss.

Like when Nancy said she cheated on me five years ago. Just out of the blue, waking up next to my beautiful, newly pregnant, wife of the past six years to find her sitting at the edge of our bed and looking at me with the most haunting look of guilt I can imagine. I guess she got to thinking about things the night before, the night before when we held each other crying with joy over a black and white photo of a speck until we both (I thought) fell asleep. She said it was right around our 1 year anniversary, some guy who had slipped her his number while she was working at her sisters coffee shop. Apparently I'd grown distant since the wedding, at least that's what it felt like, I guess all that time spent traveling to get enough for a house wasn't worth it after all. She said they only went out three times, slept together twice, the whole thing lasted barely two weeks. It was me coming home to surprise her on our anniversary that ended it she choked out between sobs, she went out again with him after that but she just felt so guilty afterwards she broke it off.

I was numb. Nancy, my wife, my high school sweetheart, the woman I had loved for ten years, had betrayed me. I could hardly breathe much less stop her when she got up and mumbled something about staying on the couch until I decided what to do. For the next hour I just laid there, I didn't cry or swear or talk to god or my mother. I just laid there and thought, and remembered, and thought some more. A part of me wished she hadn't told me, that she had just suffered in silence, her guilt her penance. But it was too late now, the cat was out of the bag as my grandfather loved to say. I knew she would leave if I asked her too, probably get a divorce without even going to court for more than a day, as for the baby I didn't know.

Our life together played back over and over again in my head. Our first 'real' date after innocently hanging out together for two months, prom night our Junior and senior years, driving that hour between our colleges every week. It was all just too much to throw away over some mistake when she was weak and I was gone, especially now that my, no our child was in her stomach. I found the sonogram on her bedside table, I stared at that little black speck for god knows how long but I barely even blinked until I had thought of the words I was going to say.

Forgiveness is hard, especially when the wound is fresh. For two hours we held each other and cried on that couch, talking about nothing but everything. Eventually I had to get ready for work, I would need money and PTO pretty badly when the baby came. So, in silence, she helped me just like she did every day. We didn't say a word after we stood up from the couch, not even when I left, just a kiss. My shift was only four hours but it felt like an eternity that first day, second guessing, wondering, worrying. But when I got home and saw her, standing there in the kitchen, cooking an early dinner, her hair a mess and her eyes still red, well somehow I fell in love all over again.

Nancy and I spent that night like we did our first night together in my college apartment, well, minus the red wine of course all though I did slip some bourbon. We were together again, it was as if the morning had never happened. The last thing I saw was the clock striking 12 before I drifted off to sleep in her arms.

The next day I relived it, exactly. Of course it wasn't word for word, though the confusion probably masked my lack of shock better than I realized. By the time work rolled around I had convinced myself it was the strangest dream in the world, a premonition maybe, a chance to screwup but not for real. When I fell asleep that night I was thinking about going to church on Sunday to thank god for it in fact.

The next day however, that was when I realized something was wrong. That morning I was to scared to do anything different, to jeopardize what I thought was the most critical day of my life. By the time I drove to work however I had thought back to all those movies I had laughed at and decided something had to be done differently, some opportunity had to be taken or passed up, a yes had to be a no or a no a yes. I thought deeply about every moment and action down to each keystroke on my computer and every step I took going to the water cooler and back. I spent the first half of the drive home trying to figure out what it could have been, what I had possibly missed. I spent the next half coming to terms with the yes that had to be a no.

It took me three days to come to terms with it. You would think I would have been distant and cold, that I would have shut Nancy out and let that do the work for me. But I just couldn't bring myself too, not when this was very well goodbye, goodbye to her, goodbye to a happy family together, goodbye to the life I had so painstakingly helped to build. No, I lived each of those three days effectively the same. Sure their were differences, some ideas about alternative solutions, others mere experiments while I had the opportunity. One morning I followed her when she left the bedroom, another I wrapped her in my arms as soon as I woke up. At my job I did things different, nothing as drastic as setting my desk afire or strangling the perpetually annoying Stephanne just in case, but reports didn't get filed, hellos were skipped, conversations started. For some reason I didn't take a different route, I guess all those final destination stories and car crash statistics got the better of me. At home I tried different things, one night I didn't touch the whiskey, another I got a little drunk. In the throws of passion I even tried different things, things that I'd always wanted to but now only did because it would be the last time. The final day I missed work, stayed home and held her until she said she needed to be alone and disappeared to her craft studio until it was time to start dinner.

I could have kept it going, kept living the same day over and over again, trying new things each and every one with no consequences to face. But after four days of realizing my inevitable future I had enough. On the seventh repeat it took me about an hour to come to terms with what I had to do. I called first my mom and then her brother, they both were as shocked as I was to hear me say Nancy cheated but both understood why I was asking her to leave. God they didn't even know about the baby yet. I took a slug of bourbon before I went out there, brushing my teeth beforehand so she couldn't tell. I barely managed to tell her I think she needed to leave. She cried against my should for a while but eventually, she agreed just as I knew she would. We spent two hours discussing what would happen, moving her stuff out, which car she could have, how a divorce might go. The last was what broke me, what finally made the tears flow from beneath my prepared, hardened face. We didn't hardly discuss the baby, once in a while she left the room to throw up from a combination of morning sickness and stress, and each time my heart and mind screamed to not do it, to tell her I was wrong when she came back. But I'd had six days to come to terms with it, looking back I had needed each and every one of them.

Finally her younger brother came and took her and a few things, tomorrow they would come by and get the car while I was at work. I wondered if maybe I should have someone watch or change locks, to make sure she didn't take anything that wasn't hers. When I realized what I was thinking I took my second slug of bourbon of the day, and my third. I called into work right after that even though I was already an hour late. All I said was Nancy left and they said I could take all the time I needed. From there I drank, first my favorite bourbon and then the remnants of a whiskey bottle from our wedding. Once in a while my thoughts drifted to my dads hunting rifle, or one of the two pistols I kept in locked drawers around the house, or the knife block I had gotten from Nancy's cousin last Christmas, or the length of heavy rope in the garage. Somehow I was still conscious at midnight, I guess I had to watch the clock read twelve o one. I half passed half blacked out around one, the first morning of my new life.

Second part is below

j"Triboli, Triboli", the voice practically screeched from just outside my quaint camp. Damien, I wonder what drunken stupidity he and his friends had done now. Sighing I set down the flask I had previously been oh so carefully swirling above a small, but carefully made therefore raging hot, fire. God I missed Jouleen, she could have got the potion done half an hour ago. Fire mages truly were a healers best friends, and her case a little more than that I remembered more than somewhat bitterly. I again chided myself for that mess, I'd sworn to never get that -, my thoughts were interrupted by yet another shout of 'Triboli', whoever the fuck that was.

"Damien you impotent excuse for a twit", I swore whilst throwing open the flap of my alchemist tent. The young man in question was standing, or rather half leaning against, a pile of wood just past the deer trail that had now become well worn in by idiots like him. As I stormed closer I could smell the spirits reeking off of the thinly made adventurer, his eyes also showed the clear glassy signs of alcohols minor (at least for now) poisoning of the brain. I stopped a mere foot from his face, I half expected him to recoil knowing the blind rage upon my face, but a mixture of bravado and inebriation kept the tan youth from doing more than donning a dopey frown. "It's Trisoli, Trisoli, with an 'S'. An 'S' like in ssssnake".

Damien simply looked at me, the same mask of stupidity still plastered on his face. "Ohh", he finally slurred with a bout of high proof breathe, "Well Omar needs you Triboli, he says Danicia's hurt.". I inhaled sharply, debating whether I should berate him before or after casting a spell that would give him the worst hangover of his life. I instead dismissed the idea though, even if Omar had been keeping up with Damien today for him to not be able to treat someone meant it was at least moderately serious. That was the main perk of the drunken old fool I thought as I turned and began walking back towards my tent.

"Well are you going to stand there, or get my fucking basket from underneath that willow", I ordered without looking back. Behind me the sound of wood hitting the ground and stumbling footfalls brought me brief joy as I imagined him falling face first into the mud. That joy barely survived to my tent however, when the sound of my precious and precisely made tonics clinking violently together sailed through the air. "And be careful with it you damned idiot", I said before reentering the comfortable embrace of my workshop, cursing under my breathe the entire time.

The flames of the castle danced in my eyes, jumping and skipping, running from building to building all the whilst frolicking over the stone walls. It reminded me of children, joyful children in a field, a field of green grass and pure white flowers. I inhaled deeply only to be met with the thick odor of wood and flesh burning. It wasn't as refreshing as the air up in the low hill prairies, right before the mountains, but I would take it over the normal stench of any town. Before me thousands of years of history was being erased, but all I could think of was a single hour not more than a month ago.

It was after the battle that marked the freeing of Duon-Kel, the last of the Black Emperors conquests in the 2 year war. We'd drank and roused until 11 at night when I finally stumbled from the pub and towards my room. Three different women had tried to throw themselves upon me, no charge as thanks, but each only gave me a pang of loneliness. I laid in the bed for an hour, thinking of what that pang reminded me of. I left before dawn, my pack across my back, they hadn't ever to bother even giving their hero a horse to call his own or even enough gold to buy one.

For a week I rode on whatever trading wagon I could find, payment coming from a showing of the kings sigil. Finally I made it to the foothills of the Zartacks, finally I breathed air that wasn't tainted with blood, sweat, filth, finally I felt at home. For two days I walked though the countryside, eating only when my pistol fell a bird, drinking only when I stumbled upon a cold mountain stream. At dawn on the third day I reached the cabin. It was barely 5 meters by 4, the smoke that curled out of the top hinted at a fire that wasn't being fed enough, but too me it was the most beautiful sight I'd ever laid eyes upon.

Slowly I let my pack fall to the ground beside the smokehouse, the thump of its impact ringing in my ears. My back had hardly straightened from relief before a cry that put even the most delicate songbird to shame rang through the hills. It was her, she was still here, and as she slammed into me I knew that she still loved me. We ate breakfast and lunch with her parents in the quaint cabin, catching up, reminiscing. But once lunch had settled we set out for a walk alone, a walk that only lasted until we found a meadow amongst a grove of pines.

As we laid together I talked of the future, only for once it didn't involve where we could camp 10,000 men or how to hold a town. When we got back I would take her dads axe and cut more wood for the fire so that it burned proper, then with the rifle I had left I would try for a deer for steaks tonight and jerky in the coming winter, once winter was over her father could plant twice the ground with me here, raise enough to sell, maybe even enough for two bands of gold and a donation of gratitude to the church. "What about the war", she asked, "what about your duties, doesn't the Black Emperor still live".

For a second I paused, she was right the Black Emperor and his slave kingdom still reigned over the East but... "My duty is done", I finally said, "we've reclaimed what was ours". I carefully rested my hand against her chin, "it would cost too many lives to do more, it would cost me too much.". I had left her twice before for the war, I was surprised each time that she took me back. I wouldn't let it take me away a third time, that would be too much pain for either of us.

For a blissful hour we had laid in that field, just the two of us yet I felt less lonely then I ever had amongst thousands. "Hoy camp", the shout startled me and my hand flew for my gun where it had fallen with my belt. My blood ran cold, I had let my guard down, I had finally let my knife edge dull, now someone was upon us. "Damn, get your clothes on hero". I half expected to see her father when I turned around, but no, it was someone far far worse than an embarrassed parent.

"We need you back on the front hero", Sir Barthlows messenger said once we had collected ourselves, "now is not the time for a sabbatical, we must push on".

"Why, we've retaken our lands, lets sue for peace. The Black Emperor has offered it before I know as I was privy to it. Now that we have all that we lost there's no sense in further bloodshed."

"Nonsense", he yelled, "we must vanquish the great evil of the land. Is that not your prophecy, not our grand army's prophecy. There's still slaves in black lands, we must not rest until they too are freed."

"Its a noble mission but we've done enough, freedom for others is not worth thousands more widows and orphans", I pulled her closer to me protectively, "Tell the lord this is no sabbatical, I've retired to marry and work the land. He and the king may continue their war but it will be without my gun and blade".

"Freedom is never too high a price", he was screaming now, almost red in the face, "too leave your post and duty for some whore, I've never seen such..."

The cocking of my revolver silenced him, its barrel already level with his head. "I've never seen a freed slave you now, workers who suffered as they do under any new ruler but never a beaten slave. And if you dare to call her anything but a lady again I will send you to hell. Now leave, and tell Barthlow and the king both they're hero is done fighting and I advise them to do the same." Wordlessly and with hands balled into white fists around their horses reigns, they turned and left.

"It shan't go well", she said, "the king won't take no easily and...". My kiss silenced her as we fell back down to the grass.

​

They murdered her and her family when I went to the village for supplies a week later. Of course they didn't dirty their own hands, that wouldn't have accomplished anything. No they hired a gang of rovers, survivors of the Black Emperors army posing as guerillas. They thought I would go back to them, they thought I would make their enemy burn with the help of those that followed the old ways. But I was the deadliest and smartest, and I didn't let anyone do my dirty work. When I killed the gangs leader he told me they had been hired, I would've thought it a lie to save his own skin if not for the kings mark, a kings mark just like the one I had.

I lead the followers of the old ways just like they thought I would, only now I told of every injustice I had silenced in my own mind. Every lie and excuse for our actions I had once made I now used to make everyone see what I did, that the prophecy's true target was the war mongering king himself. Now as they drag Sir Barthlow from the fire I smile, the king I had let burn to death but he, he would suffer for what I had lost. I kneel beside him and let the fire reflect in my eyes, "the prophecy has been fulfilled, just as you wanted".