The bottom half of Selena was left standing, where her neck used to be, spurts a fountain of blood and bits of meat that stayed stuck on her spine.

  Selena, I was too late… I couldn’t do it, I should just kill myself and return to the previous checkpoint-

  Floating up above them, the pig crunches as remnants of brain and skull fall out of it’s mouth when it chews openly. Beelzebub begins to cackle, scooping up bits and pieces from the pig’s mouth and putting the meat into it’s own. The creatures of this world- none are like this!

  “Sorry sir, I just noticed Clemence’s transformation felt a bit slow~” The fiend explains, pointing towards Clemence.

  She seems to be taking it worse than Arata, she claws at her eyes, trying to unsee what she witnessed, blood begins to pour from the open wounds, “My Selena, my sweet little girl! This world took from you life and from me, you! Mother forgive me!”

  Arata hears her voice, deciding to slit his throat, noting that he couldn’t win against her and would rather take the easy way out. As she shouts, an obnoxious squeak fills Arata’s brain, a patter of footsteps makes it’s way around the corner as Arata’s hands shake holding his sword.

  Creatures gather around, excited at the premise of Arata killing himself, beckoning him closer to death. Rabbits! I can’t think with those shits around, I just wanna die when I see them… I can’t kill myself, Ravenna would be sad.

  Clemence’s form contorts even further. From her shoulders emerge wooden beams towering above her head, above her rests a guillotine. The blade falls down as her metamorphosis almost reaches its climax.

  From around the corners of houses, hundreds of rabbits crawl out, all of them dressed like the peasantry to watch Clemence’s decapitation, their ears poke up as they squeak in a chant, mothers cover the eyes of their babies as the men laugh.

  Her head is freed through the dropping metal blade, now deattached, it begins to float, combining with wood at the top of the guillotine’s frame. Her human body falls limp as new wooden limbs extend, combining with the nerves which have been ripped from her corpse.

  From the guillotine post’s new wooden arm, shackles of flesh constricted her arms, yet thousands of tiny pulsating hands making that up only served to make her binds further enable her to hurt more people.

  Meanwhile, the rest of the cast arrives to the scene, the soldiers of Beelzebub have permeated the city walls far enough for civilians to retreat past Arata and any able bodied men to charge back at the demons.

  All of the following, demons, civilians and soldiers all would be made victims of Clemence's madness, her shackles reach out it's hands throughout the park, whoever is grabbed are hung, decapitated by guillotine or are crucified and burned.

  She towers above Arata, reaching out for the corpse of Selena, Arata tries to move but his body can’t stop shaking. He’s panicking, breaking down as Clemence releases a golden dagger right in Arata’s ribs. Arata bends as pain shoots throughout his body, he tries to look up yet masses of hands morph into a pillory to hold him down, his head falls to the ground, departed from the rest of his gory form.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Rabbits all let out rapturous cheer at the sight of Arata’s execution as his eyes close.

  As Arata’s eyes open he’s back in the theater, I couldn’t save them… no one could, this is not a world worth saving, there is nothing that could save it within my control. I couldn’t save anyone that time.

  “Hey Arata! Don’t try to kill yourself! Are you a dumbass?!” Ravenna screams at the top of her lungs, she has an expression like she almost had a panic attack.

  Ravenna goes onto explain, “I guess I should’ve been more clear about how the scripts work, anything killed by you is written out of existence, the scripts are the only remnants of those lost existences. While yes you MAY respawn, what happens if you turn yourself into a script huh?! I had to quickly use the theater’s influence to stop you from doing something stupid.”

  Damn she’s right, so was that her influence preventing me from stabbing myself or the theater’s strange properties… Arata still feels his body shaking, the imagery of death still fresh in his brain he begins to shake. Ravenna takes note of his mental state.

  “To see death, it shakes humans like you up huh? To have something ripped away so suddenly… the humiliation of losing someone you meant to protect, the regret that you couldn’t do more, the feeling that normalcy can no longer be recovered.” Ravenna continues, before clearing her throat.

  Ravenna closes in on her point, “When you saw it consume Clemence, that’s what that lawyer wanted to see consume you right? You're aware people have to die, you want to disassociate yourself right?”

  Arata lowers his head in sorrow, tears streak down his eyes. Meanwhile, the stage shifts. That’s easy for an angel to say, so detached, living forever… I can’t just go on with my life, not after a sight like that burned into the back of my brain- cold! And Wet!

  Arata feels slobber graze his face, looking up to see a dog, a border collie with heterochromia, he wagged his tail at the sight of Arata, bouncing around the theater floor. His feet skid against the floor in excitement when he pounces into Arata’s arms.

  Poro was a good dog, he died though, I didn’t think much of his unnatural heterochromia… it was a serious eye infection and he was put down. It’s a regular part of life, maybe I was a stupid kid or maybe I was not, it's unfair to 9 year old me to expect that of all things. But why is he here?

  “Poro?! Hey bud, knock it down a notch!” Arata lets out, giggling a little at the sight of his childhood dog. I guess that was my first lesson at the pain of knowing you could change a bad outcome. Just like this time loop, I know what I have to do right but it's just not within my ability.

  I am trapped. I have too much to lose if I run away, yet I can't save this town if I stay. If I run I can gain strength, learn more about Demiurge's foundry and gather information about this world.

  Ravenna comments, “Those false thoughts of freedom, why you save this world. I’ll tell you one thing Arata, it’s all your choice. You are free to kill yourself hundreds upon thousands of times in order to sway a hopeless outcome, you are free to run away from every single problem. You could live as a coward, as long as you have the courage to acknowledge that you fail by the metric you use to judge others. You are hesitating right now, believing an outcome is doomed before you attempt it. You wonder if it worth saving this world.

  “But isn’t inhibition human, Arata? Haven’t you’ve already hesitated to make hard choices in your life? What college you wanted to go to, how to spend your life, how to thank Ren. In the courtroom you clearly found distaste in how the trial was rigged in the direction power had swung, that no one acted for what was right instead. Yet would the version of you who ran away be any different? Shouldn’t you at least give the option you want another shot?”

  “Arata, assuming you will continue to regress back in the future, which regrets are willing to let stay inside the world. Which do you want to stay with you even when the clock turns back.”

  Arata calms down, “I got a little too ahead of myself, I’m heading back to the last checkpoint… it’s not like they’re dead forever.” I need to stick with Clemence next route. What else? Beelzebub avoids direct confrontation, even if that demon is supposedly stronger… I need to figure out why.