1473 Too Much

Stephen was surprised when he saw the woman and young man come to the same bar as he was. What the hell?’ he thought, completely flabbergasted at how he had been found.

As he plans to kill himself, he realizes that the two do not recognize him at all. They were looking around, but they did not know who they were looking for.

He hid his smile as he realized that they did not know exactly who he was. And to further improve his situation, the young man showed up with what was clearly a Zurin Treasure in his belt.

‘Te already lost one. What is he doing showing off another one? Trying to lure me?’ Stephen thought. He drank his rum as he contemplated what it was that he wanted to do.

He took a large swig and downed the entire jug as he realized that he wanted to steal the horn from the young man’s waist.

The stood from this chair, wobbling a little as though he was drunk, and walked close enough by the young man that he could reach for the horn.

The horn came off, and the young man didn’t even realize it. ‘Idiot!” Stephen thought and walked into the crowd before clicking his pen and disappearing back into the alleyway where he had created the circle. He smiled at what an amazing job he had done and placed the horn into his coat before walking out from behind the dumpster.

Instantly, he stopped and looked at the man who stood before him. He had no idea how he had arrived or where he had arrived from.

“Hello, Stephen,” the man greeted him with a gentle smile.

Stephen looked at the man with narrowed eyes. “Do I know you?” he asked.

“No, but you have seen me before, haven’t you?” he asked. ‘And I just know who you are because I know who you are.”

Stephen frowned. He realized that he did recognize this man. He was one of the people that was part of the group of the other 3 that had come to the bar.

“I don’t know what you want, I’m leaving”

“Sure,” he said. “As soon as you hand over all the treasures you have. All 4 of them.”

“Yeah! Like hell,” Stephen said.

Without even thinking, he took his pen out and quickly drew a circle behind his back. With that, he could always return to this moment should something happen.

The man waited patiently.

Stephen looked at him weirdly. “Are you retarded?” he asked, pulling out his gun. “How about I give you all the bullets I have?”

“Go ahead,” the other man said.

Stephen didn’t hesitate to pull out his gun and riddle the man with bullets, or so he thought, but the man remained completely unharmed.

“What… what is going on?” Stephen asked.

“You can try to run, you can try to hide. You can even try and kill yourself. Nothing will get you out of this,” the man said.

Stephen didn’t know what to do. He turned around to run away, but the man was already standing behind him. Stephen shot the man out of instinct again, but the shot was useless. He wouldn’t die from this.

He took what few bullets he had left and turned the gun on himself, shooting himself in the head. Stephen returned to the moment when he had just finished drawing the circle. His breathing was ragged, his face expressionless. He said nothing this time and slowly pulled out his gun, shooting without hesitation. Nothing happened to the man before him.

Seeing that, Stephen killed himself again, returning to the same moment again,

He tried to run this time, running until the end of the alleyway when he saw the man standing at the entrance.

Stephen turned around and ran the other way, but the man walked out of the other entrance too. Both entrances were not somewhere he could run to.

He took the gun out and killed himself. Again.

He tried to run again. And he killed himsell’ again.

He tried to scale the wall. He killed himself again.

He tried to climb up the hotel and was forced to kill himself.

He tried to grapple the man to make his run, but the man wouldn’t budge a single inch. He tried and tried, and in the end, he killed himself to try again.

He tried to run again. He tried to kill the man again. He tried to call for help. He tried to climb the hotel. He tried to beg

Nothing he did worked. Every single thing led to the man in front of him asking for the treasures he had. Stephen kept repeating the same 2 minutes over and over again. He wasn’t sure how many times he had gone back to the same 2 minutes, but it had to have been a long, long time.

His expression changed cach instance. From angry, to scared, to frustrated, to sad, to apologetic, to manic, to completely devastated.

Stephen went through hundreds of different iterations of the same event, but to the man before him, it would appear as though only the last one had happened.

In the end, Stephen killed himself one last time and arrived back at the same moment once again.

This time, he couldn’t handle it. It was too much. He had died too many times with no way out of the situation at all.

He slumped to the ground on his knees, as he completely gave up on all things.

“Who… who are you?” he asked.

“I’m Ning” the man answered. “And I’m here to take your treasures. If you don’t mind, could you hand it over to me?”

The man did nothing.

Ning reached down and took the four treasures the man had in his coat. The ring, the box, the horn, and finally, the pen.

Once he got all four, he turned around and walked away, leaving the man with his destroyed mind behind.

As Ning walked out of the alleyway, he heard a gunshot and knew for certain that the pen was now free for another owner to bond it.

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