Time Loop

Day 1 Part 2

John slowly began to be able to move after a few hours had passed while he was still under the effects of the poison. He found the stillness to become agonizing after a while. During that time John had been able to think through all that Troy had said. Her voice rang in his head still, soft but menacing. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do or if he wanted to do anything at all. He still had the choice of staying put in the alcove where his world estimated to his sketchbook and the dusty books that surrounded him. 

No one had come to check on what was going on in the alcove, but that wasn't unusual. He knew that no one ever came to this part of the library unless they were truly desperate for silence. Usually that meant they were interested in the Latin books that surrounded him. That seemed unlikely though since the high school didn't have Latin classes and the internet was much more useful than any book.

John slowly earned back the mobility in his fingers and his mouth at first. He still couldn't quite move his entire body yet to act out any decision he makes. He looked down at the sketch he had made of Troy, wanting to tear the page out of his book. Now that she was gone and the poison was letting up his anger was flaring wildly in his chest. The time passing so slowly made it hard for him to keep it there. 

John began to groan as he began to get movement in his arms and neck. His body was hurting all over as if he were being stabbed with billions of tiny needles, small prickling spreading through his fingers and up his arms. The feeling was moving slowly as if his body were waking up one nerve at a time. 

He took his time reaching for the bottle of alcohol and raised it over his head to the light that hung high over the table. Lighting the alcove with a dim yellow tint which usually made it hard to read and draw. He saw that the bottle had a green tint to it that he knew it didn't originally have when he stole it. His arms were still weak and caused him to have to place the bottle on the table. His muscles ached as if they were too tired to continue moving. 

"Shit..." John grumbled to himself, feeling ridiculous and humiliated. 

He had allowed someone to get to him like this. It could have been worse than just some teenage girl making him paralyzed for a few hours. How could he have let this happen to himself though? Why had he been acting so stupid? John was better than this and he knew it. 

He looked in the direction Troy had left. John stared, watching the dust float across the room, hoping that maybe she would come back and tell him that it was all a joke. That her group of friends had put her up to this to make fun of him for being like his father, the town drunk.  She didn't.

It was another few hours before he could fully move, albeit stiffly, as Troy had said before she left. John hadn't really understood any of what she had said, but he didn't want to take the chance of whatever bad would happen. Even if it was just a stupid joke. It wouldn't be the first time kids had done this kind of thing. Maybe not exactly this way but kids could be cruel. He knew it as much as any adult did. 

John packed away the bottle in his bag, thinking that maybe it might come into use later. He would have to replace the rest of his stash though. There wasn't any way that Troy would know he would take this bottle out of the ones he kept out in the woods. He wanted to know how she found the spot in the first place and poisoned it without his knowledge. He's always been certain of making sure that no one ever followed him into the woods. 

Next was his sketchbook. John stared at the page with a glare, not yet sure if he wanted to keep it. She was beautiful but he didn't trust her. 

John settled in the middle with tearing her drawing out but folding it and keeping it in the sketchbook. 

Before John left the alcove he looked around at the shelves of books as Troy had done, but he held more admiration for them than disdain as she had shown. The books were decades, possibly centuries, old and still managing to hold up enough to be kept in a library. It was more likely the librarian at the front of the building didn't even remember that these books are back here anymore.