text: Time is a fragile concept. One should know that it is easily broken, given enough external pressure. The perception of time that humans have is one that is inherently flawed, given that time loops are inevitable. The Faes love to trick us into thinking that they don’t exist, only to give us a true taste of the magnitude the closed loops they can produce. The Fae that has trapped me in one, for example, loops the same second over and over, while keeping me moving forwards. As much as I’d like to say that it’s annoying, I can’t. Ever since I got into my time loop, I have skyrocketed in my creativity and productivity, given the removed sense of urgency. The Fae originally put me in this loop to teach me a lesson and force me to understand why my time on Earth is important, but, in turn, has made me realize that I much prefer the disconnected reality that I have been imprisoned in. Like a hostage growing attached to the room they are trapped in. That simile only really works in context if you don’t think about it, since I’m not trapped physically, only temporally. The Faes seem to be everywhere in this world, we just normally can’t perceive them. They really like to mess with us, probably because we are the most arrogant and least timely intelligent creatures, which I can’t argue with. The only issue in their plans to teach us a lesson is that most everyone that I know and probably that you know would probably benefit from the lack of fearing the clock ticking down. They only target the particularly problematic humans, the ones who weigh the rest of society down. I mean hey, I can’t really complain. I got this free ticket to a never ending vacation with basically free reign over my own actions, no strings attached. Well, besides the occasional times where the Fae imprisoning me, which I believe is named Psi, drops in for the scheduled lecture. I say scheduled, but time doesn’t really matter in this context. Another good part about this is that I can choose if I want to go to sleep or not. It’s not like a switch or anything, but I have a lot more control over it than I could really say for my normal self. For example, I can stay up for days on end, or at least days of time in the context of the normal day night cycle. It’s constantly 7:12 P.M., so there’s not really much cue to when it would normally be night or day. Despite that, I have still been able to keep track of the days, for the most part. Even though all of my devices that I would normally use for timekeeping are perpetually at 7:12, that doesn’t mean my brain doesn’t work anymore. Sure, the timekeeping I do is probably more akin to just saying that this is the next day and moving on, but from random inferences and when I’ve craved food, I can somewhat questionably say that it’s been about a month and a half, or maybe a bit more? There’s not too much reliability to my claim of the time. Oh, would you look at that. Psi is here. Perfect timing, or what I think is perfect timing. I can’t really be certain. I sure do wonder what she came all the way here for. “I swear, it’s like this whole imprisonment thing is going completely over your head!” What a shocker. She’s lecturing me. I guess it couldn’t hurt to try to defend myself for once. “Well, to be fair, you took a human that was already confirmed to have no friends, family, no real interests, and the textbook definition of a NEET. Hell, I even like reading manga. How much more do I have to say to let you know that this is just heaven for me?” Well, it seems that did the trick. She’s utterly speechless now. I don’t think she knew I could even talk, from the amount of not talking I have been doing. To be fair, I have just been silently taking her punishment for the past however long, and haven’t really questioned it. Hearing people getting abducted by Faes was always something that I halfheartedly hoped would happen to me, for the reasons stated above. “W-Wow... I’m surprised I didn’t realize sooner, you really are pathetic. I don’t know if I should be letting you go out of pity, or the opposite at this point. What have you even been doing here all this time? I’ve barely seen you do anything besides just sit at that desk all day! You haven’t even talked to me once! You are the only person I’ve ever met that has just taken the punishment so upfront and nonchalantly, what gives?!” Wow, I never knew that Faes have a semblance of remorse. She asks, and she shall receive. “How about you use your eyes and look dumbass. I’ve been reading my huge backlog of books that I wanted to read, but got sidetracked before reading. I also started writing a bit, but that’s more of a side project that doesn’t concern you.” She seems a bit dumbfounded, unfitting of a Fae. I thought Faes could understand and communicate with humans perfectly. I guess I was wrong. I continue, “The reason why I never decided to talk to you in the first place was partially because I was afraid of talking back to you, and partially because I just accepted this to be my new life.” Her face conveyed that of wonder, confusion, and concern, all at the same time. It was like her face was a game show wheel being spun around, slowing into a more manageable expression. She finally spoke up, “So, correct me if I’m wrong, but you just said that you wanted this to happen? Humans understand that this is happening to them? We thought that the methods we use are untraceable unless a temporal anomaly radar gets implemented into the arsenal of science.” “Fair point. There’s absolutely no scientific or public proof beyond that of a conspiracy. I don’t really believe in any of those wacky theories, but I was always just thinking that I would like to be taken away from my current life, and taken to a world with no one else. That’s the third reason I never talked to you, because I wanted this time loop to be me and me alone.” The Fae looked like she was going to say something, but pulled a distraught look out before stopping herself. I can’t blame her, she just learned how pathetic and lowly I really am, so she probably will end up releasing me from this loop soon enough. That’s kind of the reason that I never wanted to speak up to Psi, because then she would know that this is the best my life has been. She would learn of my awful life, and conclude that the best course of punishment would be putting me back into my normal, awful life. I guess I should ask her something too. “So, what’s your next move? If my intuition is correct, you’ll put me back in normal time, and consider it the ultimate punishment.” Psi looked around the room, changing expressions constantly. “Well? Am I right? Can I collect my prize at the door? Or would that be too nice of a gesture?” Psi finally broke the seal of her lips. “I don’t know what to say, OK?! I am meant to serve as one of the Faes, the protectors of society among all races and species. I want to keep your society free of the types of people that don’t contribute. That said, I’ve never been disheartened of my goal by one of my prisoners. If I’m being honest, I kind of want to do some irrational things. Hold a moment, I need to talk to my supervisors.” Before I could even get a response out, Psi rushed away, looking like she was on the brink of tears. Was that my fault? I could ponder it, but I feel like there would be no point. After Psi comes back in a bit, I’ll probably be forced back into that awful society that she “protects” or whatever. A few perceived days go by, and Psi is nowhere to be seen, sort of unusual. Normally she is back every other day, but she hasn’t showed up for at least two meetings now. I kind of am starting to feel guilt now. I hope she didn’t get fired or killed or whatever Faes do with bad Faes, all because she wanted to do whatever those “irrational things” were. Eh, pondering is fun and all, but overall kinda boring. I guess I’ll just keep reading to pass the time, and maybe take one of my weekly naps. In the middle of my nap, Psi came to me and woke me up. I almost thought it was a dream or something, because of the absurdity of a Fae waking me up. She looked a bit serious waking me up, so I got up pretty quickly. After I got up, she immediately started speaking. “Well, I took it up with the higher Faes, and they decided that I have clearance to do what I believe would help society the most.” Weird way of starting a conversation, but I guess that’s fine, with the way we ended the last meeting. “So? I thought your way of punishing me was gonna be just putting me back, is it not?” “It certainly is on the table, but I feel like you’ve drawn the short end of the stick all of your life, so I feel like a decision for you is in order.” “OK, I guess? You really aren’t explaining yourself too well, but I guess I can follow.” “You don’t need to understand much. Just choose your outcome. That’s all there is to this situation.” She explained. “You can either choose to go back to the normal time flow, or be my prisoner forever.. If you go back to the normal time flow, you will never see me again, and your life will be reverted to the way it was before you ever came into this time loop.” “So the bad option, got it.” “But, if you would choose to be my prisoner, you would never be able to leave again, even if you decide to think otherwise later on.” Sounds like a pretty cushy deal to me. I don’t need any layer of uncertainty getting in the way when deciding the outcome of my life. “Yeah OK I choose to be your prisoner, because anything is better than going back to my old life. Even listening to the whining of a little brat for the rest of my life.” “I’ll ignore that last bit, and ask you once again: Do you choose to live here forever, without any chance of going back?” “Without a doubt, because there’s at least one thing that I can see here that I can’t get anywhere else.” “And that would be?” “A friend.