I didn't hit the floor, I fell right through it. I didn't know that was possible but it must be possible because it happened to me. But the other side of the floor wasn't the crust or mantle or core, it was more sky-- a sky bluer than the blue sky I started with. For a split-second, I didn't think about the rapidly approaching second-ground (greener than the grey concrete of the first-ground). I fell slower in this newer-bluer sky and the second-ground approached slower. Everything felt right, like the pieces fit together, and for a brief few minutes I believed the second-ground would be solid-- finally, this is how it's meant to be. I let go of the grip in my hands and felt the tension escape my entire body. A subtle pressure escaped my head. And then, I hit the ground. Again, and again, and again.

I've always loved tropes. They make stories and people so easy to understand. The worst part of a trope is seeing it for the first time because then I don't know it's a trope; other people come away with an immediate understanding and vague prediction of what the story and characters are going to be like before I've even grounded myself in the premise. That's why I like Wikis. I can read an entire plot synopsis and track the exact trope down to the social consensus naming convention. That's why I know, without a doubt, that I'm trapped in a Groundhog Day Loop.

Except instead of starting my day from the beginning, I'm starting my day in the second-sky-- but the original movie "Groundhog Day" doesn't explore the metaphysics of "escaping the loop". Phil gives up on discovering the rules of the loop because the author intended to tell a story about becoming a kinder person by developing Phil as a character. But for me, there's nobody around to be kind to, and aside from dissociating from my body, there's no character to develop. There's just the wind blowing past my body, the sound of a microphone in a tornado, and the split second of pain after my face meets the ground before the cycle starts all over again.

Before I test how to live, I need to test how to die. I need to know the rules of "respawning".

1st Rule: My body resets to the time of my "checkpoint". The body reset was the most obvious to conclude, given that I have shattered every bone in my body and still managed to respawn fully in-tact, but just in case, I also tested superficial injuries by biting down on my arm hard enough to bleed. The pain goes away entirely when I respawn and any trace of the injury disappears with it.

2nd Rule: My checkpoint is at the same place at the same time. I spent (without a watch, what I assume is) a few hours falling to my death. I spawn above the same cloud in the same shape, the sun at the horizon either rising or setting. Not enough time to tell, but I've been falling long enough that something should have changed. Nothing has.

3rd Rule: I respawn with all of my memories and I remember every death (which has been generally very unpleasant). It took many respawns before my anxiety about hitting the ground subsided enough to think clearly (I've gotten pretty good at positioning myself head first such that I die without feeling much of anything, and I'm very pleased, because I had few moments where I lived long enough to feel everything).

4th Rule: I respawn with whatever I have on my person (?). The limits of this rule, I'm not quite sure yet. On my 8th respawn, I lost my scarf. I didn't mean to, but after I hit the ground, I was permanently scarfless. I was too scared to test anything else, because I can't afford to lose more resources. Additionally, I can't test whether I can bring anything new with me right now. Although, I do wonder what "on my person" is really refering to because right now "on my person" is a fairly empty signifier. When I passed through the cloud, I exited covered in water but when I hit the ground, the water didn't carry over.

Now to answer the 5th Rule question: will my checkpoint be in the sky forever?

There's a man falling from the sky. That's... interesting? I'm curious what he'll look like when he hits the ground. I've never seen anything like that in all my lives. I'm excited to see what's left of him!

...

Nevermind, I'm disappointed. He's alive. His limbs are bent backwards though. That's interesting. I wonder what that feels like.

"Hello, Tavi."

Oh. What? "How?" I leak out. My heart feels tight. I don't like this feeling. I really don't like this feeling.

"Curious? I'll tell you. The coin in your left pocket. Flip it. I'll call out heads or tails. If I'm right 10 times in a row, you'll heal me. If I'm wrong even once, I'll tell you how I know your name. And then, you can kill me."

I thought for a second and smiled, "I like those odds!" I took the coin from my pocket. He knew I had a coin? He placed his palm over his eyes, with the hand that isn't bent backwards.

"Heads. Tails. Tails. Heads. Tails. Heads. Heads. Heads. Tails. Heads," and under his breath, "Oh thank god, finally," as if I couldn't hear him. Perfect guesses, 10 times in a row.

"I guess I don't get to know, huh?" I said. I can feel disappointment burn like a hole in my chest. I feel empty. I didn't get to do anything I want. This isn't very fun.

"No, because that's my leverage," he said. His face makes me feel weird. I don't like his face. I can't tell what he's feeling. He doesn't even look like he's in pain but his hand is bent backwards and he's bruised and bleeding all over his body. I don't even know how he survived the fall.

"Hrrmph," I grunted, "Okay fine I'll heal you." I like casting spells anyways. That's why I always choose mages. I don't like how heavy swords and shields are, and Warriors always carry those stupid heavy metal plates on their body. I like being slim! Muscles just get in the way of everything. But I don't want to heal anymore. I'm never picking a Missionary or a Priest or anyone from the Church ever again.

I took out her arma and flipped the page to somewhere random. I felt the mana flow from my chest to my fingertips to the book. It feels so warm and familiar, like I can feel every vein and artery along the way. Light streamed and enveloped his body and his bones snapped into place with a crunch. I guess that part of healing is kinda fun.

"That was awful," he said, and for the first time, I saw him grimace in pain.

Re:Zero had a mechanic like this, and in the first arc, Subaru tried to figure out the rules and eventually gave up. That's because there were no rules. Personally, I always took issue with that; the respawn points would shift wherever was most convenient for the author to drive thematic tension and so there were no rules for Subaru to discover (the most painful example was when Subaru settled down and lived an entire married lifetime with Rem, only for him to die and be sent back before any of that happened; there was no clever rule explaining why his checkpoint never moved, it was merely set by an invisible, metaphysical force that he had no epistemic method to discover, and that metaphysical force is never diagetically acknowledged) and so he just gives up on trying. But for all he knows, there really could be some rule governing checkpoints. And if there is a rule? He could abuse it.

The first time I met Tavi, I said something that pissed her off for some reason, and she killed me for it. The next time I respawned, my checkpoint was set immediately when we met. No matter what I said, she seemed to get pissed off enough to kill me. I cycled through dialogue trees until I figured out the right combination of words that wouldn't end in a severed artery (unlike movies and TV, bleeding out takes a surprisingly long time and she didn't seem interested in reducing my pain). Around the 30th or so respawn, and my 3th branch (I wanted to keep better track of my respawns but I don't have a pencil and paper here, and even if I did, my writing hand was snapped in half, so I stopped counting and measured in "major dialogue branches" instead) I landed on the coinflip. I lucked out that she was good for her word and that I didn't have to explore the other branches I had in mind. However, before finishing the sequence, I had one more test I wanted to try. I snatched the coin in mid-flip, and she cut me down as soon as I grabbed it firmly in the palm of my hand (magic can take many forms here, apparently, including a nearly imperceptible blade of air). Testing yielded an interesting and concerning result; I did not respawn with the coin.

I'm alive now, but the whole ordeal raises a few new questions.

1. What are the elements of the 4th Rule? I was wrong about "on my person". There seems to be something more than that. My shoe did not come back and the coin did not come back with me. I do not like the implication that I can only lose resources and never gain them (memory aside) because I'm guaranteed to lose something eventually. That means, God (I'm using God as a term for "the force that governs the implementation of the rules" because something is tracking information between timelines, and whether that information is encoded through 0s and 1s, some invisible particles that can "hop" between timelines, or a literal deity pulling the strings, I simply don't have the tools to explore the metaphysics of this world, for now, so God it is.) determines what gets sent back and forth, but how? (The idea of permanently losing an organ is terrifying and I prefer not to think about that possibility. I'll file that one somewhere far, behind historical backlinks and hope it never becomes an article I'm forced to maintain).

And yet, what counts as "an item I have that I could lose"? I lost the shoe at the first checkpoint, but that was a possession during the zeroeth checkpoint (the lesser-blue sky before the second-ground). If I obtain a new item in the second checkpoint, set a third checkpoint, and lose it after that; will it respawn in the third checkpoint? And what's the condition for "losing an item"? If I'm not touching it? Because if that's the case, I need to make sure I have everything on me from the beginning of the checkpoint to the end of my life... That's worrisome and I don't know how to test it without risking something important. And what happens if I lose something between checkpoints and people notice? I just have a shirt on in one moment, and don't have it in the next moment. Just poof. Gone?

3. What are the elements of the 5th Rule?: The checkpoint can change. The first time I saw the bluer sky, I got a new checkpoint. The first time I saw Tavi, I got a new checkpoint. What thread connects these two checkpoints? The answer I don't want to think about is that there is a God, He's telling a story, and the checkpoint adjusts based on what's narratively compelling-- just like in Re:Zero. There's no epistemic framework in which Subaru could have knowledge of an author who intended to torture him for the entertainment of millions of people, and short of God talking to me Himself, there's no way I could have knowledge of that either. In that case my life would be determined anyways and no choice would matter.

So, what else is possible? Checkpoints could be preceded by "unique" deaths. My first unique death was hitting the ground, and my second unique death was getting killed by Tavi. That said, I died in "unique" ways each time. I hit the ground on my head, legs, back, and front. Tavi struck arteries in my arms, legs, and neck (her arterial accuracy is truly terrifying). So, what counts as "unique"? Because, if that's the case, maybe I could set my own checkpoints by killing myself. (Hmm. I'm uncomfortable with how comfortable I've become with my own death, but I have a feeling there are no therapists in this world). Alternatively, checkpoints could be determined by intense emotional experiences in general (sky vs. Tavi) or the introduction of new "knowledge" that reshapes my understanding of the world. These are all wilds guesses. I have no way to test any of these. Yet.

I have... no other ideas. I'll need to do more testing. I suppose--

"So, what's your name?" she asked. I hate being interrupted mid-thought. I don't want to forget everything I just thought and once I start talking I'll need to decide what face to make, what body language to convey, and what words to choose to keep me alive. "Hello? Are you there?" Tsk, this sucks. I actually kinda miss falling from the sky.

I kept walking forward down the road to... somewhere. I wasn't paying attention. I haven't had a unique death since she healed my bones. Which means, I currently don't know where my checkpoint is set. It could be set after I healed, from the relief of escaping the odds. Or maybe I won't have one until shortly before I die in another unexpected way. I wonder if I remember the coin-flip-sequence. I really don't want to bleed out again.

I remember being born. I don't like to tell people why because it makes them uncomfortable. They give weird faces or squirm or they try to kill me and sometimes they do, but that's okay. I appreciate that people are so easy to understand. But this one? I can't. I don't know why but I can't understand this person. That makes it feel so much more exciting!

"So, what's your name?" I asked. I've never felt this way with a human before. He makes me uncomfortable. He's so obviously on edge. He's tense. Scared? Worried? Anxious? He's not saying anything. I'm looking at him and he still won't say anything. "Hello? Are you there?" I'm not going to stop staring at him until he says something.

Finally, he turned to me and smiled, "Remi." He had this faraway stare with a blank face, and when I said something, he turned to me and gave me this stupid smile. Now he's back to that blank face. What's with that? It's so irritating.

"Hmmmmm," I cooed, "Okay Remi. How did you get in the sky?" He was silent for a while longer. What is he thinking? I studied his face for a little bit. His eyes are darting around and his brows are wrinkled. He looks stiff. Concerned? Confused? Something else? With the wind blowing his hair around, he doesn't even stop to get it out of his eyes. Too long. I would cut my hair if it were that long. Annoying. How does he not get annoyed? He's taking so long to answer. Ugh.

"I just, showed up there I guess. I really don't know why."

"All that thinking and you couldn't come up with anything better?"

"I was trying to decide if I should lie or tell the truth, but I think you could tell if I'm lying, and I think you would kill me if I lied to you."

I laughed so hard I pulled a muscle in my stomach but it's so funny I don't even care. He knows me so well! "You shouldn't be so scared of me. I'm very normal!" He looked at me for a moment, more tension in his brows, less tension in his cheeks. He's so confused. I really like him!

I really don't like her. What archetype is she even supposed to be? I'm clearly in a fantasy world of swords and magic. The central conceit of my situation follows isekai tropes pretty well. If this were an anime, I would be transported to another world with a chance encounter with the main love interest who adheres to the beauty standards of the publishing-year's most popular trope. And Tavi is, what? Impulsive and destructive, socially transgressive, gratuitously violent? Looks like a humanities major I could have walked by in undergrad? I should have kept my phone on me before I fell so I could at least browse Kiwix between deaths.

That's what I appreciate about anime. I don't even need to read a plot synopsis. Every protagonist is a stand in for the target demographic (generic enough with some endearing personal characteristic) and every other character fits a decades-old established archetype. I can identify the entire personality of a character with a single stereotype, and then the story can surprise me with little variations that make them unique. If every tsundere is a fork of Akane Tendo or Asuka Langely, then Tavi is a fork of who?

I don't even care anymore. I almost just want her to kill me already and give me an excuse to go back to testing. I still need to know more about the 4th and 5th Rules. But now that I think about it, what kind of world is this really? "Swords and magic" from Arthurian legend? Tolkien fantasy? Dungeons and Dragons? Dragon Quest? Modern isekai? When she healed me, Tavi pulled out a book from under her robe, but when she killed me, she flicked her fingers the way you would flick water to annoy a cat. I hadn't considered until now that the existence of magic implies a whole new system to boundary test.

I'm tired. I have to talk to this woman and I can barely remember all the elements of the Rules I've been testing. I have no Internet, no computer, no Obsidian, no Notion, no Wiki, no database, not even a fucking piece of paper or a pencil. All I have is whatever I can remember. And frankly, I've never had a great short-term memory to begin with. I've already forgotten the coin-sequence. Heads, tails, tails... Maybe if I kill myself over and over, I'll have enough time to rote memorize the principles of this world with spaced repetition. Or maybe I should just give up thinking. But if I do, what else is left of me?

Update on the 3rd Rule: I don't respawn with all of my memories. My memories are still human. I'm still human.