~June 18th, 1982~

~Cycle 236~

Patrice stood from his chair with a projector in hand and walked to the podium at the center of a large circular room. In that dim room of town hall several hundred people had filed in for this presentation. Renee and Germain, along with several others from the community, were presiding over it.

In the crowd he noticed a few individuals he recognized, including Jeremiah watching from the back rows. He spotted Henri and his new girlfriend watching his presentation. Patrice was sure this one would end badly for Henri, just like all his other relationships based around sex. He was sure he'd hear about how everything soured sooner or later.

He turned his attention to the room as a whole. Patrice plugged his projector into an outlet, set it on the podium, and turned it on. Light shone on the wall, projecting the map of their city there. The map of the city Patrice had projected on the screen had many markings of X's and O's on it, with the O's being oriented more within the city, while the X's were on the borders or outside of the city. It looked as if it was drawn on haphazardly, as if it were in a rush.

Despite having hundreds of eyes on Patrice, he wasn't nervous. He never had trouble with public speaking. He was just ready to share what he found. He cleared his throat and began.

"Apologies for my markings. I've had to redraw this on each new cycle. So, this isn't exact, but is a good representation. As far as we can tell, the people of La Ville Sans Fin are the only ones in the world who are aware that this day keeps repeating. Since the beginning of these cycles, I've been doing what I can to understand how it operates. Once I got Renee and the community's help, it helped facilitate this." Patrice explained for everyone who had gathered there.

"With help of members of the community, we've had people wait for the cycle to end in different places across the city. The locations marked with an 'O' are locations where they retained their memories of the previous cycle. The locations marked with an 'X' are places where people did not retain their memories of the previous cycle. You can see that the farther from the city you get, the more likely it is that a person wouldn't remember a cycle. But strangely enough, it doesn't seem to be centered on the very center of the city. I hope we continue to charter the exact bounds so we can find the center of the effect. That may give us more answers."

Patrice did a sweeping glance across the audience. Some seemed to be following him fine, others were struggling. He figured those intelligent enough to understand him would be the ones to fix the problem. Not those who couldn't keep up.

"We also discovered that the time of the reset isn't static. On the early cycles, the day would reset around 10:30 PM, and would start back up at nearly 6:58 AM earlier that day. But as the cycles have gone on, we've found that this hasn't been consistent. Most recently the cycle restarted at 10:35PM, starting back up at 7:03 AM. Some of the cycles have run slightly longer than others. Whatever the trigger for this is, it isn't consistent." Patrice explained. "I'm hoping that I can get support to find out more. If we can find out what the trigger for the day repeating is, we might be able to stop it. That's all I have for now..."

With that, Patrice flicked off the projector, and someone else in the room turned the lights back on. Patrice returned to his seat beside Renee, and she gave him a small nod. She stood and walked to the podium to address everyone.

"Thanks Patrice. We have one more person who'd like to share what he's found before opening this up to everyone else here. We'll all have a chance to voice our thoughts about this repeated day." Renee said, "Germain, can you come up?"

Germain stood, appearing more nervous than Patrice was, running his hands through his brown hair before reaching the podium, setting down a notebook in front of him.

Patrice screened some of the information Germain had prepared before the meeting. He wanted to deal with promising data, not loose speculative theories. He wanted to avoid muddying the information they presented. Patrice at least made sure that he would be the first to present.

Germain coughed a little before speaking unevenly into the microphone, "Hello everyone."

Patrice grimaced.

"Umm, I know many people have pointed to the comet as the cause of our days repeating. I've been doing research on the comet and its previous appearances. In ..." Germain glanced at his notebook, "In 1743 the comet flew over an island country to the far south of here just like it did for us today. All history on that indicates that to be a day of celebration for that country, nothing more. In 1419 the comet appeared over the city of Mortel as well. For them it was a surprise. Apparently, there was a small panic until the comet flew over. There was nothing else significant about that day."

Patrice nodded to himself. As soon as Germain started talking, he became more comfortable. He was going over the information they had discussed before.

"The comet had flown over multiple times in centuries past, with no other significant event being tied to it. I investigated any documentation or research on celestial bodies having any sort of time dilating or shrinking effects, but there wasn't anything like that. It's my belief that the comet's arrival coinciding with the day repeating is a coincidence."

"Then what is causing it!?" Bellowed a voice from the crowd of people listening to the presentation.

Renee quickly stood, "Please wait for him to finish. At the end we'll have an open forum where everyone can ask questions and share their thoughts."

Germain nodded, "It's alright Renee, I'd like to address that question if I can."

Patrice frowned... What was he doing? They didn't discuss anything else to be brought up for the presentation.

Germain addressed the individual in the audience, "Well... during all my research I did find an interesting story of a city from nearly a thousand years ago. In the country of Damin, now called Rhivera. It may not be related, but I thought I might share."

Patrice nearly groaned. This was exactly the sort of thing he wanted to avoid.

Germain continued, "There was a village where it's residents apparently went mad overnight. Those that could speak tried to explain that they were trapped in darkness.

Whenever it seemed that the sun would rise, it would suddenly disappear from the sky, and they couldn't leave their village. They referred to it as a 'night of a thousand years' Perhaps what happened to that village all that time ago is similar to what is happening to us."

The entire room had their attention firmly on Germain. Patrice understood this was the worst thing he could share with everyone. Even if there was a connection, this would only cause a panic. There was no way to validate the information either. Patrice glanced at Renee and whispered, "That's enough."

Renee didn't stop him though. She seemed as captivated by this new information as everyone else.

"...So how do we stop it?" Another voice from the audience asked.

"I'm not sure. I'll continue to investigate it." Germain replied, "That is all I have for now."

Germain picked up his notebook and returned to his seat. Renee took a moment to remember she needed to step up again. She returned to the podium and introduced the next person from the community to share their findings.

After revolving through the remainder of people who had information to share from the community, Renee started an open forum, where anyone who wished to share what they believed could step up and speak. Patrice had argued against it, but she insisted that it would be helpful for everyone to be heard.

Several people decided to step up, sharing some of their own experiences. Much of it seemed more like therapy than anything, but a few people had interesting thoughts.

One individual stepped up to the podium and insisted that he knew exactly what was going on. He explained that they were all living in a simulation that had started glitching out, and unless the creators of the simulation restarted the program, they'd be stuck like this forever. No one had any comments or questions for him.

A college student named Elise suggested it may be something magical, like a sort of time spell. She mentioned that in college she was a part of a magic club. But when asked if her club had performed any spells or magic, she admitted that they hadn't. She quickly began to doubt her own idea, and said it probably wasn't anything like that.

Another mentioned a movie from another country in which a man relived the same day repeatedly until he learned a life lesson. He suggested that there was some lesson that the people of La Ville Sans Fin needed to learn to move on. Patrice sincerely hoped that wasn't the cause of their predicament. He doubted that an entire city of people could do such a thing.

There were plenty of other theories and thoughts, but Patrice stopped paying attention after the fifth outlandish idea was presented. Once everyone had said their piece, Renee stepped up to the podium, thanked everyone for their time, and said that if they all worked together, that the people of La Ville Sans Fin would get through this.

Hundreds filed out of the town hall building towards the park. Patrice and Renee waited for the building to empty before they stepped out themselves. As they watched the crowd leave, Patrice said, "We really shouldn't have let anyone speak."

Renee looked at him from the corner of her eye, "We led with your information. That's what people will remember most. Giving everyone a chance to speak at least made everyone feel together."

"I don't think that matters."

Renee shook her head, "You've heard about the gangs around the city, right?"

Patrice raised an eyebrow, "Yeah?"

"A few of them have been fighting. That's the last thing we want. If we're all stuck fighting each other, we'll never get anywhere. If I can make sure everyone is working together, that can only be a good thing." Renee explained. "We've already had a violent outburst in the community, I want to avoid any more."

Just about everyone had filed out of town hall. Patrice and Renee began out the front doors. Patrice said, "You can't control that. If people are going to fight. The best thing we can do is find a solution as soon as possible. And we don't want to waste time on the wrong things."

The two descended down a set of steps outside the front door of townhall towards the park. Renee sighed and asked, "Did you ever consider that maybe we can't solve this issue ourselves? Us finding out what's causing this might not allow us to stop it. If we're going to be trapped in this day forever, we might as well get alon-"

Renee suddenly fell back hard, blood shooting out from her ear. A loud boom echoed out through the park. A gunshot. Patrice took a quick look around. There were several multi-story buildings surround the park and around town hall. A gunman could be positioned at any one of those points.

Patrice looked at Renee trying to pick herself up from the townhall steps. He deliberated for a moment. He could run and try to save himself or try to save her.

But if he didn't try to save her, and she survived, she'd never to forget that he left her behind. He may not be able to count on her and the community's support going forward. He needed that. If they died, they'd be back on the next cycle with some memory loss. It was worth the risk.

Patrice stooped down and help Renee to her feet, trying to carry her up the steps back into town hall. It looked like part of her ear had been torn through by the bullet. Another gunshot rang out, but it only hit the stone steps of town hall. Fortunately, the shooter wasn't very accurate.

Patrice and Renee were able to stumble into town hall. He peeked out and saw the hundreds of people in the park in a panic, scattering in every direction to avoid being shot. But among the crowd Patrice saw Henri and his new friends running with a determined gait towards one of the buildings. What was he up to?

Another gunshot was fired, and the bullet whizzed past Patrice into town hall. He quickly shut the front doors of the building.