Day 11

Sitting in front of the bathroom mirror in nothing but her pajamas, Amber looked back at her reflection and sighed. She had hoped to get a relatively straightforward body today. One that would allow her to go to the bar tonight to meet the other cursed people without too much difficulty. It was too much to ask, obviously.

Marcus’ hand landed on her shoulder. “Ready to get dressed?” 

She looked up at him and smiled. “Mmhmm. Do you mind doing it here? I…” She thought for a moment. “I have this headache… I think I’ll limit my transfers today.”

“You do you.” 

He folded himself in half to land a kiss on her lips and went back inside the bedroom to fetch her clothes. He let them fall beside her in a messy pile and, kneeling behind Amber, slid his hand underneath her shirt to undress her, exposing the body she had to use that day.

From her shoulders, absolutely nothing came about. Not even the thought of an arm, not even the idea of a finger. Going up from her chest, her shoulders narrowed and almost melted away in her neck, severely limiting her ability to move anything on the upper part of her body. She shrugged and tried to extend them outwards then down, noticing her breasts shifting slightly along with her movement. 

She chuckled and shrugged down when Marcus kissed her neck, twisting her right hip forward to adjust the position of her only limb, a thigh about a quarter of the length it had once been. Short and stumped, it was devoid of anything that could’ve been of use to her. No toes, no foot, no knee, or any semblance of anything apart from its rounded end.

As her boyfriend adjusted the position of her breasts inside the cup of her bra, she stared at its reflection, and at how it slumped slightly under her weight. There had to be at least part of a femur hidden deep in there, at least one that allowed her to move her limb. But how long and how strong it was, that could’ve been anyone’s guess. Even trying to move it felt like the hardest thing she had ever done. She couldn’t wait to see the effort it would take her to take a step or two like this…

While Marcus fit a pair of jean shorts over her leg, Amber waddled as best she could into the rest of it as he tugged on it in short bursts. Then, he passed her head into the collar of a flowery shirt that tightened underneath her breast with a thin string, allowing the rest of the design to hang freely around her stomach. The adjusted shoulders, however, hung limply on her own, too narrow for the shape of her garment. 

After being carried to the kitchen, Marcus sat her on a raised chair she didn’t know they had, and was glad to see there were armrests to prevent her from falling down. A few minutes later, her boyfriend brought over a plate filled with scrambled eggs and chopped ham, and set a fork in front of her, positioned in an angle near her right side.

“Bon appétit.” He said with a smile, not skipping a beat, before attacking his own food.

Amber's smile quickly faded as she realized she wasn't going to get any help eating, at least not if she didn't ask for it. She raised a shoulder uselessly, meaning to facepalm herself. There was nothing new in this routine for Marcus. Nothing ever was, at least not since Amber’s transformations had begun. In the first few days this had been a big source of anxiety for her, but surprisingly enough, the absurdity of losing limbs overnight was quickly becoming her new normal. She scooted forward an inch or two and poked at the utensil with her side, having absolutely no idea how she was going to do it. 

If she had had any arms at all, she could’ve pinched it between her jaw and stump, or perhaps even brought both arms together like she had done a few days ago, even without needing hands or fingers. It hadn’t been the most solid grip, but at least it had worked. Or if she still had a leg and a foot, she could’ve used her toes, and they would’ve been a lot more dexterous than before any of her transformations. 

But she had none of those. 

She leaned forward, trying to reach the fork with a shoulder but failed miserably. How was she going to do it? Her range of motion was almost negative. She rolled her neck and craned towards the fork, grabbing the handle between her lips before poking at the eggs. After a few tries, she had managed to get a few pieces in a precarious position onto the utensil and so she put it down, thinking about her next move. Pushing hard on her chair using her leg, she waddled a few millimeters forward and rotated the fork with her tongue to get access to her precious bite, although still need needed to tense all the muscles in her body, including lifting herself with her leg, to be able to fit the eggs in her mouth. She slumped back, slightly out of breath, and looked up at Markus with pride hoping he would acknowledge her success, yet he was too absorbed in whatever he was reading on her phone to even notice her. His girlfriend sat in a high chair, fighting with her food without a single limb, and he didn't bat an eye. How normal it had become for him… At least I’m not a burden, she thought. 

Then, taking a deep breath and arming herself with courage, she stretched her neck again and started over, mouthing her fork like a horse reaching for hay, more often failing than succeeding, yet always trying, always persevering. With no way to opt out of her new life, what other options did she have?

“I’ll grab a taxi to get home tonight. I’m meeting friends at a café for drinks.” Amber said, the fork pinched at the corner of her mouth.

“Yeah sure.” Marcus said without taking his eyes off of his phone. “Do you have a…” He cleared his throat. “Plan..?” 

The way he said the word plan sounded as if that’s what he called someone to help her. Amber took it as so and answered without feeling hurt. “Yeah, don’t worry about me. Maureen is used to this kind of stuff. It’s no problem at all.”

—

The woman coughed and mumbled through her mask. “A picture of my lungs, I think.”

“That would be an X-ray, then.” Amber turned her chair around and guided her through the complicated process of pressing on the only button on the screen, a big red circle. “Head on straight ahead and sit on the gray chairs, someone will call your number shortly.”

Without a nod or even a smile the old lady hobbled towards the waiting room and Amber repositioned herself facing the door. She stared at the people walking by through the frosted gate, occasionally recognizing a patient from the days prior. Usually, she would've been the one sitting at the reception desk calling them in but without any limbs, there was hardly anything she could do. She had been relegated to a job as exciting as being a Walmart greeter.

She let her thoughts run freely in her mind, thinking about her upcoming meeting with the others. Getting to meet Maureen and Mr Parkinson had been quite a shock already, and she was excited to get chatting with the others, too. What if they didn't all cycle through the same disabilities?

Yesterday, while Maureen was an amputee just like her, Mr Parkinson instead seemed to be affected by the condition not unlike his last name. Were his time loops always defined with neurological disorders instead of missing limbs? What about Maureen? Would Amber herself wake up one day stricken with cerebral palsy, or some sort of congenital paralysis? Or was she cursed to always be missing a limb or another? She shivered and shrugged her empty shoulders and the seatbelt tightened around her chest.

“Is everything under control over here?”

Amber craned her neck and locked eyes with Sylvia, who manned the reception desk by herself today in Amber's newest congenital absence. She had walked up front and laid her hand on Amber's shoulder.

“Yup.” The latter answered unconvincingly. “Living the dream.”

“Why don’t you go get us some donuts across the streets, huh? My treat.” 

“You’re serious?” Amber frowned, both surprised by the gesture and gutted by the perspective of navigating a purchase on her own without arms or legs.

“Of course! Here..”

Reaching in her back pocket, Silvia pulled out her credit card and slid it in a small paper sleeve. Then, she clipped it onto the strap of Amber’s top on the opposite side of her chair’s joystick. She gave it a little flick. 

“I’ll cover for you, don’t worry about it.”

Amber straightened her back and felt herself flush in anticipation. “G-g-great, thanks! I’ll… I’ll be right back.”

She quickly checked her blind spot to confirm that her small backpack still hung at the back of her chair and looked down at herself worryingly. 

I can do it, she told herself.

She loosened her shoulders and cleared the hair out of her face with a precise head shake before leaning forward and pressing her limbless torso against her restraints. The diagonal strap dug between her breasts in a comical, almost caricatural way, but she did her best to ignore it. Then, as naturally as Amber could muster them, she pouted her lips like a horse reaching for hay and mouthed her chair forward out of the clinic. 

Amber closed her eyes to shield herself from the blinding sun, giving them a few seconds to adjust to the daylight brightness. Then, she represented herself. There it was, the café where Maureen worked. It was on the other side of the street and a few hundred meters to her left. An unsurmountable task for her without any motorized assistance. 

Ignoring the astounded looks people were throwing her way, she uneventfully drove along the sidewalk to the rhythm of the light pedestrian traffic, taking time to look around in this shifted perspective. She felt like a child again, getting looked down by almost everybody around her. 

A few minutes later, she arrived at the pedestrian crossing and, unable to press the button on the pole next to her, waited patiently for someone to notice her. After a minute or two, a good Samaritan decided to stop and honk at the others, inciting them to do the same. As she nodded a silent thanks to the driver closest to her and was about to drive forward again, she heard a loud horn blare in her ear.

Barreling down the street was a semi trailer truck filled to the absolute brim with timber of all shapes and sizes. What it was doing on a commercial street like this one was a mystery to Amber, however, and one she would never get to elucidate. 

Unable to stop in time, the driver of the semi slammed its brakes and swerved out of traffic. He was now on a collision course with Amber, who could do very little but stare at the bug-splattered license plate. 

If she had had legs, Amber could’ve jumped out of the way.

If she had had arms, Amber could’ve grabbed on to something, or someone even.

But without limbs, and within the limitations of her wheelchair, there truly was nothing she could do but watch and wait. 

Her weakness, helplessness, and inability to fend for herself even in life or death situations shook Amber to the very foundations of her being. 

She felt the warmth of urine against her groin.

And before she could even close her eyes…

Day 12

Amber was jolted awake and gasped for air.

The cold air burned her throat and sent her into a coughing fit, one which she thought she’d never recover from. Every time she seemed to get control over her breathing again, a piece of plastic was shoved down the back of her throat to suction out anything that she had managed to get out of her lungs. She gagged and coughed again, too weak to even think about rubbing the drool and phlegm that hung off of her chin.

Thin plastic prongs were fitted inside her nostrils and a warm cloth cleaned her face in a brisk but practiced motion. Her eyes were dry and her mouth clammy, her body was sore and her head was pounding. When she pried her eyes open, the blinding neon lights burned her retinas like a partial solar eclipse.

There was a cacophony of sounds around her. Alarms beeping, air whooshing, people talking, fingers tapping screens, pens scribbling paper. Amber tried to block out her eyes and plug her ears but she felt like her lifeforce had been drained along with the sputum in her mouth. She took a deep breath and coughed again, this time swallowing whatever had been brought up instead of soiling herself like a baby. Something stroked her right cheek and she turned in that direction.

Marcus.

“Hi baby..”

His voice died out with emotion. His eyes were moist with tears, his beard scruffy, his hair dirty, although dressed in clean clothes. The dark circles under his eyes betrayed the amount of sleep deprivation he had been subjected to in the days prior to this moment.

“Ghaaaaaaahhhh..” She wheezed weakly.

Amber coughed again and tasted blood. 

“It’s okay, Precious, it’s okay…” He put a reassuring weight on her arm. “Doctor Parkinson said your voice could be sore for a few days…” He ran a hand through her tangled hair.

A drum banged at the back of her head like a wakeup call. 

“Doctor Parkins…” She cleared her throat and rolled her shoulders, like loosening rusty joints on an old decommissioned robot. “Marcus where…” Amber looked around. Her eyes were opened but her brain couldn’t understand. “Where am I?”

“In the ICU.” Marcus sniffled back his tears. “You almost died, Amber, I was so scared…”

“What…” Her body ached at a thousand different places at once and her voice was barely a whisper. “What are… What are you talking about..?”

“We took psilocybin pills at home after Brie left, remember?” He paused and squeezed her arm tenderly. “That was two weeks ago.”

“Two weeks..?”

Nausea rose at the back of her throat but she managed to repress it. Her eyes scanned the room once more and were able to recognize things she had mostly seen in movies and tv shows : Monitors. Monitors everywhere. 

Every time she blinked a new one seemed to materialize out of thin air. EKG lines rising and beeping in sync, arterial pressure lines, oxygen levels, respiratory rate. To her left was a big clunky machine that looked awfully like a respirator. She swallowed with difficulty and the pain in her throat suddenly made a lot more sense.

“Twelve days to be precise.” Marcus’ hand retreated to rub the sleep deprivation out of his eyes.

“Twelve days?! I… I don’t understand Marcus. What happened?”

He scoffed. “We went for a walk and, and… You started bad tripping really hard. You tripped on a crack in the pavement and hit your head on the cement. There was so much blood I thought you were…” He took a deep breath and wiped his tears again. “They put you in a coma because you were breathing erratically.”

“That can’t be true..” 

Amber scoured her memories of the last few days but they were getting foggier by the minute. The time loop, her limbs disappearing between each day, her meeting with Maureen and Mister Parkinson…

As she tried to move her arms, a feminine voice spoke over her left ear. “Let me untie these, you’ll be more comfortable.”

“Why was I tied down?!” Amber replied, almost panicking.

“That’s the standard procedure for intubated patients, Miss Amber.”

A chill ran down Amber’s spine.

She looked up at the man who had just spoken.

“I’m Doctor Parkinson, chief Critical Care physician here.” The man said, hands joined in front of him. He wore a clean, perfectly fitting light grey scrub the same color as his well trimmed beard. “How are you feeling?”

Confusion and anger wrestled for control over Amber’s brain. “Like sh…” She stopped to clear her throat, unable to get rid of a stubborn glob of secretions. “Like hell.”

He smiled politely and sat on the side of the bed. “There’s no easy way to tell you what I’m about to Miss Amber, so I’ll cut right to the chase if you’ll allow me.” She nodded. “My colleague had to intubate you in the ER to help protect your airways while we made sure there wasn’t any bleeding inside your skull. Unfortunately, there was an incident during the CAT scan. You had an allergic reaction to the contrasting fluids used for brain imaging that ended up putting your life at risk.”

Amber looked at Marcus, then back at Parkinson, before noticing something unusual at the foot of the bed.

The beige bed-sheets laid flat. 

And Amber’s legs should’ve been right where Doctor Parkinson had taken a seat.

“You went into septic shock, a sort of… maelstrom of infection that spread into every corner of your body. Your blood pressure plummeted and we had to use very high dosage of vasopressors to keep you alive. One of the possible side effects of this medication, however, is reduced blood flow to the limbs, which can have other very serious consequences.”

Something clicked into place in Amber’s mind. When she looked down at the bandaged stumps of her forearms and at the short thighs spread out in the bed underneath her, she finally understood. 

There had never been a time loop.

There was only her delirious mind, hallucinating on sedatives and fentanyl.

And now she was back in the real world. Forever.

“I’m terribly sorry, Miss Amber.”