We have all probably watched movies where someone is stuck in some time loop and can’t get out.
Well, the situation I’ve got myself into made that concept seem like heaven. I would happily take immortality living the same day over this.
It all started with a camping trip. Me, my 2 best friends (Keith and Jack), my wife (Serene) and her sister (Rain) readied ourselves to go on a long weekend camping trip. The Thursday, 19th of January 2023. It was to last until the Tuesday the 24th when we’d make our way back home. Wednesday night we all slept at my place, a beautiful double story house that I now long for and miss incredibly. We thought it would be easier for us to stay over at one place and Jack’s van together.
Thursday morning, we got up at 4 am and packed the car. We filled the car with all our camping essentials and emergency gear and headed out. It was my tur. To drive first. The road to the campsite was straight forward and it was a 6-hour drive.
About two towns ahead we were making good time and ahead of schedule, it was already an hour and half of driving, and it was time to switch drivers. We all thought it would be a good idea to stop somewhere, stretch, buy supplies and since we were about an hour ahead of schedule, we would get some breakfast.
We arrived at a gas station. This was quite a large station with a shopping complex, fast food joints and a bed and breakfast. This was not so uncommon for something of this size to be in a small town in the middle of nowhere on the way to the woods, I suppose. We never really gave it a second thought; we passed it all the time on our way to our favorite camping destination.
We arrived at this gas station at approximately 5:50 am on Thursday morning and parked our car in the empty lot. It was still early; No one really gets up this early anymore. There were 2 other cars: a dirty, white jeep with Mudd all over and a black Sedan that looked brand new.
We got out of the van and went in through the bed and breakfast and found a restaurant on the other side.
It seemed like a vintage style 50s restaurant perfectly preserved. We were excited to give it a try.
We were greeted by an elderly waitress probably in her 70s who took all our orders and headed to the kitchen where there was only one cook, a rather young gentleman.
Me and my two friends needed to find a restroom, so we took a walk. The place was large, larger than I expected. You know those rooms that look small on the outside but are crazy big on the inside and it just defies the laws of physics? That’s what it looked like. All a mere illusion of course. Just like time, a mere illusion.
After our exploration, we made it back. The restaurant seemed slightly different to me, not too different to what it was previously but there was a change. A change so subtle that it is merely impossible to pick up, I have an eye for details, and I could see a slight change in the colour and age of the furniture. It was such a small detail, my friends argued that I was being paranoid. My mind would obviously not rest while sitting and trying to figure out what I was sensing that had changed. My friends, trust your gut feeling.
Clearly, as my friends are saying, my eyes were just playing tricks on me. My friends didn’t mention anything, but their facial expression changed to annoyed. Perhaps they just don’t notice small details. They know I have OCD and most times they don’t understand. They simply just space out.
It was 45 minutes, and the waitress didn’t return. I suppose they make everything from scratch. Our waitress never did return, at the time I guessed that she had a shift change.
Our order was brought to us by someone else. We thanked them and continued. We eventually did discuss the strange things I noticed like how big the place is and how the diner seemed to change. My wife and her sister, who stayed behind, said that they swore the waitress walked right through a wall. Damn, and they say I am seeing things!
There are many reasons for these kinds of experiences, many logical ones. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.
We decided to discuss our plans for the trip. I love fishing, I needed to try and beat my record and catch something bigger than I did last year. I got myself a nice new fishing set and I was excited to see if it will last. Or will it break like the last second-hand piece of crap I bought 2 years ago?
After we finished at the diner, we decided to go into the shopping centre to get a few things for the rest of the trip. All 5 of us wandered into the centre, looking around at the rather traditional layout and started finding the items we were looking for. The place was remarkably stocked.
The mind numbing, crushing reality we learn is that there isn’t always someone to explain to you what you’re experiencing and why. You don’t always get to fill in the gaps and this is why I have to leave it to you to decide what it is I’m experiencing. I am still wrapping my head around all of what I am about to describe, and it still feels unreal to me.
The best I can do to attempt to describe what we were about to experience is a quantum trap. Not very descriptive, is it?
We were wandering around the shopping centre, really for only a couple of minutes. There was a suspicious lack of windows in this enclosed complex; The only view you have of the outside is on the opposite side of the whole complex, the place we entered.
Anyway, what happened was, I checked my phone and saw something I was not expecting, the time read 6:55 pm. “What the hell is wrong with my phone” I said to Serene, as I showed her the time on the screen.
As Serene was about to take her phone out of her pocket, she realised she had left it in the car. I checked with the others, showing them what was appearing on my screen, they didn’t have their phones either. I’m really the only one in my friends’ group who uses a phone regularly and texts etc.
It’s always so frustrating trying to get hold of someone, with a phone that works but they never respond or answer. Even now I was annoyed by this.
Keith said he would go get his in the car so we could see the time. We wanted to do all this fast so that we could avoid the traffic and get where we wanted to before lunch time. Keith and rain went together.
While they went, we continued to look around the store. It really is amazing how stocked this place is, how fresh the produce looks and how noticeably empty the complex was enough to make it feel ridiculously post-apocalyptic. Everything just lying there for only us few to indulge.
They even had some brands that I thought believed to have been taken off market years ago! I was considering stocking up. Such a nostalgic moment, thinking I would never see my favorite drink and candy bars again. Wow!
There was only one cashier, understandable since it isn’t a mall or anything, just a complex with traveller’s coming In and out. Based on what I saw today, it wasn’t all that busy. I am also quite aware that it is off season. No one else really goes to do any camping in March. It’s cold. The cashier hadn’t much expression, again this is normal. When last have you met a friendly cashier who loved their job?
It’s understandable, I mean rude customers, nasty boss, crazy hours. When I worked behind the till, before I had been promoted. I can’t say I ever had great days.
My train of thought continued while I noticed it had been a good minute since they left for the car. I think we walked quite far, actually. It made sense for them to take a while.
I spoke passionately to Serene and Jack about how amazing it was to see all these old snacks again. It made me feel at home. They agreed, seeing things from their childhood. Keep in mind none of our childhoods were exactly yesterday.
“It is all so perfectly presser- footsteps storm by I was interrupted when I saw Keith running past me, from behind, for his fucking life, toward the direction he was heading earlier. “What the fuck!”, I said.
“Didn’t he go to the door already to fetch the phone?” I asked my wife.
She shrugged.
It’s Just Keith fucking around as always. He’s so excited and hyperactive. He always does thin… Dramatic speeding footsteps
There he goes again! That’s weird, how was he doing that?
When he did it the third time, I yelled at him to stop fucking around and grabbed him by the back of his shirt.
“We don’t have time to waste, Keith. What are you doing?”, I said addressing him.
He turned around, he was erratic. The facial expression I couldn’t place. He was pale, he looked more than just scared lifeless.
“Dude I am not doing this, I Keep trying to go out the door and… uh”, stuttered Keith.
“What are you talking about”, I responded, trying to make sense of the absolute nonsense.
“Come quick!”, he breathlessly indicated for us to follow him.
My eyes first noticed Right there at the entrance was my Rain, my sister-in-law.
Just staring.
I looked at what she was staring it. It was dark outside.
I checked my phone, and it was impossibly past 12 am. This made no sense either. I can’t say anything about my phone not working now. Why is it dark? Am I having another episode?
No, everyone can see this. Most are more panicked than I was.
My wife let out a gasp, her frown line stretching across her forehead as it most often does. Rain is still frozen stiff.
Whenever rain was terrified, she would freeze up like a statue. Error 404. We couldn’t get any information out of her.
“Follow me”, Keith said pulling me hysterically toward the door.
Jack and I went along as we stepped through the door. We instantly appeared at the back of the store.
“What the name of brain damage is this?”, said Jack before I could even open my mouth.
Freaked out I couldn’t believe my eyes. I must be dehydrated; my glucose must be high again. I thought to myself.
Although you could clearly see out the front door, it was as if it didn’t exist or whatever special looping quantum fuckery was responsible would make us reappear at the back of the store. By the back door.
I turned back to the door behind me, “did you ever try going out of this door?”, I asked.
“No actually”, Keith responded. He was looking pale.
As I opened it and stepped through, I noticed myself appearing at the bed and breakfast. Right at the entrance… inside.
Hypocritically, the whole lot of us continued this exhausting exercise for a while as most people who are shocked into mindlessness do until we figured out that according to this building, the outside world didn’t exist. We couldn’t go out. We would just be tunnelled right back to one of the other entrances as if we had just walked in. Walk out one door, come into the other.
I wasn’t one to panic, I could never freeze up or go crazy, so I tried to rationalise and find solutions, I tried to find answers. How fucked up is it when answers don’t make themselves available? We kept trying, the more we tried the older we seemed to get yet no avail.
As you may have noticed, time obviously worked very different in this place, minutes could be hours, hours, days and days, months.… as time went on, it seemed to accelerate as well. I couldn’t really calculate it with all the chaos that I can’t quite understand even now.
We tried to speak to people inside of the store, but they didn’t seem to see or hear us. The elderly lady at the diner never came back, I assume she died of old age or perhaps she really did phase through a wall. Nothing can possibly amaze me now.
No one at the bed and breakfast even looked at us. It was as if we were ghosts or intentionally shunned.
You’d see guests come and go but never stay. Sometimes it will really appear as if they just vanish. For some reason we were the ones we were stuck.
I watched as my beautiful wife turned 30, then 40 and eventually 50. I watched as my skin started to wrinkle and my limbs started to grow tired. I can only calculate that it had been 30 or 40 years by now.
Rain, who was a beautiful girl in her early 20s started to mature and slowly turning grey. Jack’s mind slowly collapsed, unable to do anything for himself he was tethered to rain who had to take care of him and help him around. He was still in their somewhere. He took the aging the worst. Then again, he was the oldest of us.
Keith eventually had a heart attack and died, probably all the stress. He died around 50. There was nothing I could do, no matter how hard I tried. I screamed so much to be heard that my voice was gone for.. well.. weeks, I suppose.
Life continued in accelerated speed, and I continued to search for a way out even when everyone else stopped and finally surrendered to the realization that we are going to die from this anomaly and it wasn’t going to be long.
I’m practical, I try to solve problems, I was raised never to surrender.
How could I just give in?
I don’t even know what this is yet, I need to get back to my life. I can’t die so soon.
It never dawned on me to even try the internet. My phone had been dead a long time ago but in between all the searching I found a computer in one of the rooms of the guesthouse. I suppose whatever they are doing, they require internet. I already had a reddit account, I created Facebook, twitter and I even sent a message on a few forums about aliens. I knew I could reach out to someone to help me research, to explain the anomaly, to find out how to get out. Hopefully someone would be open minded.
I continued to age some more, teeth falling out, forgetting a lot of things and growing wiser. When someone figures it out It will probably be too late but at the very least. Now someone knows my story.
Finally at the age of around 70, with my elderly wife, her gracious elderly little sister and my friend who barely recognizes me now… and my deceased best friend whom I still mourn.. we decided to spend the rest of our days right here in the bed and breakfast.
We agreed that we would talk, laugh, make memories and when the time comes, die together. I am afraid. We were robbed of our lives and we will be forgotten by everyone that knew us.
My biggest regret is that I didn’t live. Not before we came into this place nor while I could have spent time with them after there was no hope left. I didn’t hold my wife enough, we never danced together, I didn’t laugh enough, I never had any children, I never made a single memory worth retelling and I wish that I told me wife and my friends that I loved them more often. I wish I said it before Keith died.
I had spent all my time trying to find my way out. Trying to escape my situation. Now, I have very little time left and I realise the one thing that mattered will soon be gone.
If you find this in time, help us. If you don’t, remember us and choose to make the memories you can while you have the time. And for the love of god do not go to the gated estate gas station complex somewhere on the road between Galesburg and Davenport.