2:17

  Written by: Quincy Blakely

  January 23rd, 2026

  6:13:42 p.m.

  CHAPTER 1.5: Repetition

  I get home around dusk, when the sun is halfway through saying goodbye, smearing the sky with tired oranges and bruised purples. The street is quiet in that in-between way, like it’s holding its breath. I unlock the front door and step inside, letting it click shut behind me.

  The house is dark. Too dark.

  And silent, too—no TV murmuring from the living room, no clatter from the kitchen, no distant footsteps. It’s strange, especially for a Friday.

  By now, Mom is usually home, moving around, doing something small and familiar. For a moment, I pause, listening, but nothing answers back. I shrug it off. She’s probably just asleep, worn down by another long shift. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  I drop my bag by the door and head for the kitchen. The fridge light flicks on, bright and sterile, illuminating leftovers I don’t feel like touching.

  I grab a protein shake instead—quick, easy, filling enough to quiet the dull ache in my stomach. I drink it slowly, leaning against the counter, the house still wrapped in that heavy, almost unnatural quiet.

  When I’m done, I head upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. My room feels like a refuge the moment I step inside. I kick off my shoes and collapse onto my bed without bothering to change, the mattress catching me like it’s been waiting all day. The tension drains out of my shoulders the second I sink in.

  No work tonight.

  No obligations.

  Just time.

  I roll onto my side and pull the covers around me, cocooning myself in familiar warmth. The fabric smells like detergent and something faintly comforting, something that tells my body it’s safe to rest. I reach for the remote on my nightstand and flick on the TV. The screen lights up the room in soft blues and whites, pushing the darkness back into the corners.

  I scroll for a moment, though I already know what I’m going to choose. I start the first episode of the same anime I’ve watched more times than I can count. I know every scene, every line, every beat—but that’s the point.

  There’s comfort in knowing exactly what’s going to happen, in letting something predictable wash over me.

  I settle deeper into the bed as the opening music plays, my mind finally slowing, the day loosening its grip. For now, I let myself relax, letting the familiar voices fill the quiet house, pretending—just for a little while—that everything is exactly as it should be.

  January 23rd, 2026

  8:34:49 p.m.

  BRRRRING.

  BRRRRING.

  The sound cuts through the room like a saw. I flinch, fumbling for my phone before the ringing drills any deeper into my skull. I pause the anime, the screen freezing mid-frame, and glance at the caller ID.

  I don’t recognize the number. That alone is strange, even more than the fact that someone is actually calling me. I answer anyway.

  “Hello?” My voice comes out flat, almost bored, like I’m already expecting nothing important.

  “Hey, dude—it’s me. Chris.” His voice crackles through the speaker, casual in that half-annoyed, half-amused way he always talks. “No one else was gonna tell you, ‘cause I guess they forgot or something, but, uh… I think the boss is gonna dock your pay.”

  I blink. Once. Then again. “Dock my pay?” I repeat. “For what?”

  There’s a pause on the other end. A short one. The kind that means I’ve already said something stupid.

  “Because you didn’t show up today.”

  The words don’t land right. They just kind of… slide off.

  “We had work?” I ask.

  Silence. Then a sharp breath through the phone.

  “No shit, dude. Of course we had work.” He laughs, but it’s thin, forced. “What, you don’t know your own schedule now?”

  My stomach tightens.

  But today is Friday.

  No work on Friday.

  “I mean,” Chris continues, “I get school’s rough and all, but it can’t be that rough. You come in, like, four times a week anyway.”

  I stare at the dark reflection of myself in my phone screen, my face faintly lit by the TV’s glow.

  Friday.

  No work.

  No shift.

  That’s what I remember.

  “I—” I start, then stop. My mouth feels dry. “I thought today was my day off.”

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  Chris exhales, long and slow. “Man… I don’t know what to tell you. You were on the schedule. You just didn’t show.”

  “Yeah,” I mutter. “Okay. Thanks for telling me.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” He hesitates. “You good, dude?”

  “I’m fine,” I say automatically.

  We hang up.

  The call ends, but the feeling doesn’t. I lower the phone and glance back at the TV, then at the clock in the corner of the screen.

  8:34 p.m.

  JANUARY 22ND, 2026

  “That’s Thursday...”

  January 22nd, 2026

  1:35:25 a.m.

  I sit in the darkness of my own room, no LED lights, just letting the darkness comfort me. Normally, the time when I’m awake late at night feels like something magical, like there’s no one else alive in the world at all. I should enjoy this as I usually do.

  But I don’t.

  Something is wrong. Terribly wrong. First that weird acid trip dream or whatever that felt so real it was terrifying, and now I’m messing up my days? It could just be me, but that other guy thought so too, but nobody else knows. Is today really Thursday? It hurts too much to think so hard about things like this. I would sleep, but then I’d just skip to the next day, and days are always worse than nights, even at times like this.

  2:16:57 a.m.

  I sit with my earbuds in, the music numbing my thoughts.

  2:16:58 a.m.

  The music cuts out on its own. Not fading—just gone.

  My earbuds hiss once, a quiet static pop, and then nothing.

  I frown and pull one out, holding it between my fingers. The room feels… thinner. Like the air has been stretched too far and might tear if I breathe too hard.

  2:16:59 a.m.

  The digital clock on my phone freezes.

  The numbers don’t blink. They don’t change.

  For a split second, I convince myself it’s just lag. Cheap hardware. Another thing breaking because I don’t take care of it.

  Then the silence deepens.

  Not quiet—absence.

  2:17:00 a.m.

  It starts with sound.

  A shrill, piercing tone erupts inside my skull, sudden and total, like my ears have been replaced with exposed wires screaming under too much current. It isn’t coming from the room. It isn’t coming from anywhere. It’s inside me.

  I’ve been here.

  Then, the room exhales.

  That’s the only way I can describe it. The walls flex inward slightly, like lungs deflating, and a pressure wave rolls through my body. My ears pop hard enough to sting. And then, I feel it, blood, gushing out of my ears.

  I collapse onto the bed in fear, and a white glow overtakes the room.

  The TV screen turns pure white. Not static—blank.

  Then words start appearing on it.

  Not subtitles.

  Not anything I recognize.

  Letters slide into place and then peel themselves back off, dripping downward like wet paint before evaporating mid-air. I can’t read them, but the longer I look, the more I feel like I should be able to.

  A low hum builds beneath everything, vibrating through the bedframe, through my teeth. It isn’t loud, but it’s everywhere, filling every gap sound shouldn’t fit into.

  I try to stand.

  My feet lift off the floor.

  Not floating—disconnecting. Gravity loosens its grip in uneven pulses, like someone flicking a switch on and off. The room tilts forty degrees to the left, then snaps upright again. My stomach lurches, nausea slamming into me all at once.

  The door to my room bends inward, folding at the center like cardboard. It doesn’t break. It just… gives up. The hallway beyond stretches too far, elongating into a narrow tunnel that shouldn’t fit inside the house.

  I hear voices.

  Not coming from anywhere specific—more like they’re being played backward through my skull. Familiar tones without words. Laughing without joy. Someone saying my name, but the syllables are out of order.

  My reflection in the dark TV screen moves a split second too late.

  When it finally catches up, it doesn’t mirror me exactly. Its head tilts a little farther than mine. Its eyes stay locked on me even after I look away.

  The ceiling fractures—not cracking, but dividing into clean geometric panels that slide apart, revealing something like a sky behind it. Not night. Not day. Just a flat, endless gray that pulses faintly, like a heartbeat.

  The hum spikes into a sharp, metallic whine.

  My vision tunnels. Colors drain out of the room until everything looks unfinished, like a half-loaded image. Objects lose depth, flattening into layers that drift apart from each other—the bed from the mattress, the mattress from the sheets, the sheets from me.

  I feel light. Wrongly light.

  Then time stutters.

  The same second plays twice.

  Then skips.

  Then rewinds just enough for me to notice it happening.

  The world compresses, folding inward from every direction, not violently but deliberately, like it’s being packed away. The gray sky snaps shut. The walls collapse into lines. The lines shrink into points.

  And just before everything disappears—

  My head feels as if it’s exploded.

  —

  I jolt awake, sucking in air so fast it burns. My heart is pounding hard enough to shake my ribs. The room is normal. The walls are solid. The ceiling is where it should be.

  Morning light bleeds through the blinds.

  I grab my phone.

  January 22nd, 2026.

  5:32 a.m.

  I stare at the screen, waiting for it to change. It doesn’t.

  But the feeling doesn’t go away.

  That quiet certainty settles in again, heavier this time.

  January 22nd, 2026. A Thursday. A day I have already lived through.

  At 2:17 a.m., reality doesn’t just break—it warps beyond anything I can understand.

  And then the day begins again.

  I remember it.

  Maybe a few others do, too.

  But for now, this is all I know:

  “I am a boy named Aaron, and I am being forced to live the same day over and over again—January 22nd.”