The Loop

Chapter Seven

"Mulder... how... what... what's going on?" Scully asked, staring up at Mulder, hoping for answers. Mulder still held onto her shoulders, staring down at her intently.

"I don't know." Mulder finally replied. Scully shook her head.

"I don't understand. If we were in a car crash, then why aren't we in the hospital? Why can't we remember anything? How did we get here?" she continued with a worried tone. Mulder began to gently rub her forearms, drawing her attention back to him.

"Hey, whatever's going on, we're going to figure it out. We just need to calm down and try to remember everything we can. Is there anything else you can remember? Anything at all?" Scully furrowed her eyebrows as she stared at his chest, thinking as hard as she could.

"Um, I sort of remember something. A man, I think. He... he did something." Scully tried. She then began to shake her head, looking back up at Mulder. "That's all."

At hearing what she said, Mulder began to remember the man as well. His grip on Scully's shoulders tightened as odd memories of a man committing suicide flooded his mind.

"Follow me." he stated simply, then let go of her as he began to run in the other direction.

"Mulder!" Scully yelled out after him, then began to run as well once she realized that he wasn't going to stop.

She caught up to him as she reached the front of the bleachers. Mulder was staring up towards the top, looking frantically around for something.

"Mulder," Scully started, leaning over a bit as she caught her breath. "What's going on?"

"Look!" Mulder suddenly yelled, pointing up at the top of the bleachers, then began to sprint up the steps.

"What?" Scully asked quietly as she looked where Mulder was pointing, then saw what he had been talking about. At the top of the bleachers on the other side of the railing stood a man who looked as if he were about to jump. A sudden realization hit her, saying that he was the man who she had remembered and that what he had done was committed suicide. With no time to think anymore about it, Scully began to sprint up the steps after Mulder, hoping to get there before it was too late.

As Scully arrived at the top, she realized that it was indeed already too late. The man had already jumped. She stood next to Mulder, staring down at the man's lifeless body, when Mulder began to speak.

"I know what's going on."

"What? What's going on?" Scully asked, confused and slightly horrified. Mulder just stared at her, contemplating.

"We're stuck in a sort of loop." he finally said.

"What?"

"You know, a loop, like a time loop. We keep going through this day over and over like we're on repeat."

"Mulder, you mean to tell me that we've been through this before? That this has all happened multiple times already?" Scully asked, skeptical as always. Mulder nodded.

"Uh-huh."

"This isn't Groundhog Day, Mulder. The conception of being able to relive a day, or moment, or even a second is just science fiction. It simply can't happen." Mulder raised his eyebrows.

"Then how do you explain the feeling of deja vu?"

"Well, I've been to horse races before."

"Okay, then how do you explain how you remember a man," he gestured to the man lying dead on the ground. "doing something horrible."

"Mulder, that was just a feeling. I've been on many cases before, all of which left me with a feeling of dread towards the death of another human being." Scully reasoned. Mulder's jaw clenched. Scully could tell that he was getting frustrated with her lack of acceptance towards his explanation.

"How do you explain your memories of being in a car crash? And why we're not in the hospital? And how we got here?" he asked. Scully was silent. She was trying to take it all in. Every angle she approached from only led to one conclusion, one she just couldn't believe: that they were stuck in a time loop. Scully let out a deep sigh.

"Okay, Mulder, let's say that we are stuck in a time loop. What do we do now? How do we break the loop?" Mulder stared at her, a bit disbelieving, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

"Well, we would have to figure out why it's happening and stop it. Sort of like solving a puzzle."

"Okay, but, why did we even end up here at the racing track?" Scully asked, crossing her arms. Mulder looked down at the man's body.

"I'm guessing because of him."

"But why?"

"Well, they said that his suicide was brought on by more nefarious reasons, right? Well, I'm guessing that we have to figure out why he killed himself. He didn't just get up today and decide to jump to his death because he felt like it, there was a reason behind it. We just need to figure that out, and then I think we'll break the loop. I think that since we now know what's going on, we'll be able to remember everything, even once the loop restarts."

"Okay." Scully replied with a small, skeptical nod. It was silent for a few seconds until Scully let out a huff of breath and then asked another question, in a tone that was a bit more quiet and soft than the others. "Why us?" Mulder went quiet for a moment and stared down at the ground, thinking her question over.

"I don't know. If I had to guess, I would say it's because we were assigned to the case, which must've given us some sort of connection to it, plus our accident happened close to the race track. When we got into our accident, we must've been put into comas. Now, if we are in comas and we ended up here, we must've been sent here to help him move on, since he died an unjust death, so once we've done that, we'll get to come out of our comas and wake up, having solved the case and helped the man move on." Mulder explained, looking back to Scully. Scully pursed her lips and stared at him with her eyes narrowed. She didn't exactly want to believe any of this, but what choice did she really have? She'll just have to go along with it until she figures out what's really going on.

"Okay Mulder, I'll go along with what you're saying, just until we find out what's really going on." Scully replied, feeling a bit irritated because of the situation. Mulder pursed his lips. This obviously wasn't the answer that he was looking for. The two of them turned to look back down at the man's lifeless body. As they stared, suddenly, everything went black.