#dude this dream had acts. sorry structure. consistent plot. an ending that tracks with the beginning. hello?

[glowingghosty]

guy wakes up in a place he recognizes but doesn't know why or how he got there. he's a bit confused but he lives out the next few hours just like he normally would, just a bit dazed. but once he goes to sleep, it immediately restarts back to where he woke up.

he realizes this is a time loop... but something is different about it.

he realizes pretty quickly that this is some sort of dreamscape. it's a time loop, but for some reason, things around him do change, and he can pretty easily change things too just by thinking of them, like a lucid dream. but he always wakes up in media res once it gets to some sort of end point, and no one else around him remembers previous loops.

as he's trying to figure out what the goal is to end the loop, he's suddenly thrown for a loop when he's attacked and killed by someone he's never seen before. he wakes back up, shaken, but at least it was something new and out of his control.

he starts to go about as he had been but is killed again. faster and faster, sooner and sooner after he wakes up, he's killed by increasingly horrifying ways, all because of this other dude. finally, it stops when he manages to get a word in to the other guy before he's killed. turns out this guy is also in the time loop, and our guy was the first thing he saw that was different. thinking he was the test, or had something to do with it, he attacked him. his time was reset, so he knew he was onto something, hence the repeat killings. he was obviously taking this a lot harder than the first guy.

they decided to work together and figure out a way to stop the loop. they could both affect things with their lucidity and they tested what they could do. they could do a lot, though none of it seemed to matter. if one of them died, or got to some sort of "end point," they'd both reset. they slowly stopped really trying to get out and started just enjoying their time. they imagined things they'd always wanted to experience or see, and it would happen. it was fun.

eventually, they started noticing a certain girl was around more than any other person. she didn't seem to also be in a time loop, but she wouldnt completely forget who they were with each reset, either. they decided to befriend her and bring her along because it was nice to have company after all this time. she enjoyed the experiences they were conjuring but didn't find it incredibly impossible like a real life person would at seeing what was essentially magic. typical dream-based character acceptance behavior.

at one point, they're sitting on the pavement of a parking lot watching the sunset they thought up of, just talking casually. guy one notices that the sunset starts moving backward and forward in time, rhythmically, preventing the sun from setting. things would "escape" their control sometimes, but he realized the sun was going up and down at the same rhythm that the girl was rocking back and forth. she simply looked upon it in calm awe, not acknowledging that she may be influencing it. before guy one could say anything, guy two reached past him and shot her in the head.

time did not reset.

things went on, as much as it does in a dreamscape time loop, and they had settled into some kind of pattern of normalcy. most days they didn't even talk about trying to get out of there. they were able to carve some comfort out of their situation.

eventually, guy two runs up to guy one with the girl. he's excited and says he's thought of another thing to try to get them out. he says they just need to get into a truck and drive backwards really fast. confused, guy one asks why he thinks this would work at all. guy two says he has no idea. he just knows it'll work. he has a feeling.

so they go to an open nature area with a long road and conjure up a pickup truck. guy two is driving, with guy one in the passenger seat and the girl in the small backseat. guy two revs up and barrels backwards, whooping and celebrating the stunt, saying they're getting out of here.

guy one sees the trees whip by. they go over a bridge crossing a lake. the sky is bright with sun. he looks at guy two. his eyes are wild, his mouth in a gruesome open smile as he hollers. the girl in the backseat simply looked on in ignorant bliss.

guy one knew then.

he opened his door and jumped out, tucking and rolling. as he did, he thought about the truck barreling backwards off a cliff. when he stopped and got up, he saw just that. time slowed as the truck lost traction with the road and started to soar. guy two's face fell as he saw guy one standing there, looking down at them from the edge, face solemn. a look of shocked realization spread across his face as he descended towards the ground below.

then i woke up with a splitting headache. so. i guess i escaped the time loop???