It's all the same.

I sat up in bed, frowning at the baby blue walls. Yesterday's attempt of repainting the walls didn't hold up, taking my progress along with it. The half-consumed can of lavender paint was gone, along with the mess of newspapers I used to protect the floor from stains. The brushes I bought on the way home probably flew back to their shelves as soon as the sun rose.

Why?

Because my life was messed up. I couldn't even paint a damn wall because of it.

I swung my legs off the bed, throwing the covers away. I left it that way as I stood up and slapped my cheeks without holding back. Time to remember, I told myself, my face stinging.

I shoved my fingers into my hair and messed it up. I walked away from the bed without fixing it. It's not like someone would barge into my room and see it. It's not like there was someone in the house with me to tell me to do it.

I didn't care. I didn't care about a lot of things anymore.

I glanced at the wall again and kicked the bedpost, skewing the bed a few millimeters. Stupid wall. Stupid life. Stupid loop.

I sighed, tramping towards my dresser pushed to a corner to the bed's right. Yesterday, I swashed paint over it as it was in my way in painting the west wall. I figured I didn't have time to re-position the dresser since I didn't have much time left last night. The reset was bound to happen as soon as the neighborhood lights all turn off.

I knew how it would turn up the moment I opened my eyes and saw my bland white ceiling. I knew that the world around me had gone back to the way it was and would be proceeding the way it does, every single time.

Sometimes, I try staying up until the actual reset happens but I never actually got to see it. I haven't seen people walking backwards or the sun backtracking in the sky in reverse projectile motion. All I saw were the stars blinking back at me, the night sky's way of laughing at me for believing that there was a way out of this.

I slammed the door to the closet, tossing a gray hoodie and a black track pants into my bed. Like clockwork, I stomped to the bathroom in front of my room and past the stairs that led down.

I went in without much ceremony, stripped my bed clothes that I always found myself wearing every morning I woke up on my bed, and tossed them into a pile on the dry floor. The water was cold as it touched my skin.

I ran my hands on the droplets snaking on the glass shower divider as it misted. Some stayed put on their little places while some dared snaking down the glass like a disfigured worm.

I sympathized with the droplets, finding myself somehow just like them. One moment, I was like those droplets that stayed put, following the course of the day like a dimwit. But time went on, I found myself relating more to the adventurous droplets, exploring the glass it was in with such vigor. Sadly and realistically, I seemed to be going in one direction—down.

The water from the shower head rained weak torrents on me as I went on with my washing up routine.

It has been this way ever since I could remember. Every single day, it's the same. The sky, the weather, even the animals that passed by the main road—they were all the same.

My stupid butt believed that I could find a way out of this. I believed I could escape. Granted, I could change everything during the day with just a random move. I could kill somebody or rob stores. I could be a millionaire in just seconds and I could be president within the day.

But all that vanishes as soon as the world resets. I would wake up on my bed, sprawled face-up, the blanket's stray threads tickling my nose, and I would be nobody, over again.

What was worse was that I was able to remember everything that happened the day before. I remember which goose I kicked in Ritch's barn. I remember which piece of steak I ate in Mr. Comb's grill. I remember what I was doing the day before the reset.

I remember everything.

My first thought was why? Out of all the people I came in contact with, why me? Why am I the only one that could remember?

Why do I even remember?

I recalled the first time I realized it. I woke up like normal and I realized that I know what I did the day before. I knew concepts like yesterday, tomorrow, and future. I knew what the word future means, for God's sake.

It's a process from there. I slowly learned about the world around me. I experimented with my interactions. I tried to make someone remember. I looked for a way to make someone be like me.

It's been four hundred and twelve days since that day. I still remember everything. No one remembers what yesterday looked like.

Welcome to my life.

I felt like I already did everything—I ruled the world in a day, I killed someone with a spatula (Not recommended. I spent the day puking like a drunk man and for once, wishing for the reset to come faster. Murder was never the answer), robbed a bank, got a tattoo, cut classes, burned a building.

All of them were erased from everyone's memory. Even the one I killed still greeted me every morning. The only things I acquired were guilt, shame, and yes, loneliness.

I was alone. In this vast world of repeats, I was alone.

I dried myself inside the bathroom before wrapping myself with my towel. I let my wet hair drip their droplets as I padded to my room.

I finished by dressing myself with the gray hoodie and its matching track pants. I slipped on my familiar pink running shoes. I tied my hair in a simple ponytail. I slipped my gold, rounded glasses on. I donned my usual white, Nike cap. I winked at myself in the mirror by my dresser. I looked average, just like how I look every day.

I don't know where I got these clothes. They don't vanish from my closet unlike every item I bring inside the house. Along with a dress, a shirt, a pair of faded denim jeans, and my underwear, thankfully, I was faced with a choice among three outfits every day.

The other things that didn't vanish were the food in my fridge. Anything I buy from the supermarket would go back as soon as the reset happens. But not these suckers in the cooler. No.

I tackled the stairs two at a time, enjoying the feeling of weightlessness it momentarily brought me. I don't want to eat breakfast today, knowing that there would be the same food in the fridge. I don't really mind going out hungry. I could always buy some stuff along the way, although my daily budget and the only money I have on the house was limited. Or I could just starve and die.

Just kidding.

I don't want to die, no matter how horrible this reality was. Because people could die even inside a loop. Sure, the one I killed got resurrected because it's my doing. Those who simply had their time, those who simply had to die without my intervention, they vanished. Literally. They would be gone as soon as the reset happened. People around them would proceed with their lives as if that person didn't even exist.

I witnessed this the first time in Gracie Martin's case. She was my fifth neighbor who always quarreled with Mrs. Amelia Mazur, the old lady that sat around all day in her lawn in a wooden sunbathing chair. They would always bicker about dead leaves from Mrs. Mazur's tree falling inside Gracie's fence.

It would happen every day, without fail. Until Gracie stopped coming. Until everyone in the neighborhood acted like she never existed. Gracie had always been flirting with the ranch owner's son, Todd. And even Todd stopped coming out of the ranch every day to greet Gracie.

Gracie just stopped existing one day. She was forgotten. People don't even know she was gone. They just...moved on.

In summary, if I die, I will be forgotten. Not a single shred of me would remain in this world. No one would even remember me. Interactions change as well, in order to suit the disappearance of a single factor in their day. If I was forgotten, I might as well be dead.

I guess that was the reality in death. People move on. The world moves on, with or without me. And killing myself just to escape—it's no way to live. Because even a person like me has ideals. I want to live a life worthy of living. I want to be part of something big or something important.

Maybe that's why I want to get out of this loop. It's because I want to see if life has something more for me.

So here I am, making breakfast and making sure I don't get starved to death.

I yanked the fridge's door open, seeing my parents' note tacked on the surface with a magnet. My mood soured, even though it's still early in the morning.

I have read that note a thousand times. I have smelled the ink they used on it a thousand times. I have believed the words printed on it a thousand times.

We will be back by dinner. I know the words by heart. I know the strokes my mom made in writing her d's and the elaborate way her double l's looped when she writes them consecutively. I know the exact color of the notepad they used. I know everything about that note.

But I don't know anything beyond that.

I couldn't remember what my parents looked like. I couldn't remember their voices. They weren't back by dinner. They just....vanished. They were immediately forgotten.

So I did the most sensible thing that occurred to me. I moved on. I moved on like nobody's business. I distracted myself from the thought that there was one thing I couldn't remember and that's my own parents. I made a legion of breakfasts. I painted my walls so many times I didn't bother tallying.

But all of that progress went back as soon as the world righted itself. The food went back to the fridge. The paint and the brushes went back to the hardware store. The newspapers went back to their racks. So why didn't my parents?

Why weren't they back?

I used to care about those questions. I still want answers but I figured out how pointless it would be to go out looking for them. I have tried making sense of it all only to fail. No matter how I look at it, which perspective I see it with, my reality didn't make sense.

That's why I want to escape. I needed to escape.

I drained my bowl up to the last drop of milk, the tangy taste of the strawberry cereal still thick in my tongue. It was enough to last me until lunch.

I washed my bowl with my ever-present soap and set it on the rack to dry. I dried my hands on my track pants, walked past the dining room and the living room, and straddled my school bag, hanging unceremoniously on the coat hanger by the ante.

I could technically skip school and stop worrying about it. I have done it so many times it became normal and I craved coming to school again. So I did. Then, I want to stop doing it. The cycle continues on.

So I started not caring. I figured that if I stick to my schedule, if I play by the rules, then I could delude myself into thinking that this was the life I was meant to live. I could be happy. I could be free.

What a lie.

I twisted the knob of the door that's supposed to lead me outside. I looked back at the house and sighed. Solitude was a looming shadow behind me and there's nothing I could do to get out of it.

Because no matter what I do, everything is the same as it was before.