The Broken Loop

Chapter 30: 'Exit?'

He remains silent, thinking for a few moments.

"There's this. . . door. . . at the bottomless pit, near the staircase." He replies hesitantly. "I don't remember managing to get onto the platform of it, but I do know it has a hidden message saying 'Exit?' with a question mark."

"How is there a message if you don't remember getting onto the platform?" Susie asks.

". . . The memories of each loop kind of merge with each other sometimes, due to basically repeating thee same thing over and over again. . . So I've forgotten quite a bit of them." Henry replies hesitantly.

"And that's completely fine, Henry." Linda replies, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"We can't expect you to know absolutely everything about the time loop with how long you've been trapped here." She
finishes while looking at us to get her message across.

Said message being 'Don't depend on him for everything and don't put a lot of pressure on him'.

"Linda's right. Susie, Sammy and Boris; do either of you know where this bottomless pit with a staircase is?"

Sammy remains silent, thinking, Wally tilts his head, pro-bably having a mental conversation with Buddy.

"Yes, actually." Susie says, we all look to her.

"In fact, Henry had to go up said staircase to get here, and crawl through vents." She explains.

"Well, I don't think any of us wants to crawl through vents." I say.

"If I can get a proper location on where it is. I could make an ink portal there. . although, I haven't traveled with more than just me and an unconscious Henry before." Sammy expla-ins.

We look over to Henry.

"You know that storage room with all those games?" Henry asks.

Everyone excluding Linda nods.

"There's a planning room just before that which has vents that leads to another room, it's basically empty except for a bunch of. . . Lost Ones. ." He trails off.

"Any rooms after that?" Sammy asks, Susie immediately elbows him in the ribs.

Henry shakes his head to clear whatever was going through his head.

"Yes, there's this room with a couch and a chest in it. Then this. . . corridor with hands coming out of the walls. . . Then the bottomless pit." He explains.

"I think I know where that is now." Sammy replies as he walks to the wall, he then stops for a moment before looking at Susie.

"Do you happen to have ink anywhere? I kind of need that to-" Sammy gets cut off when Norman smears ink from his hands onto the wall in front of him while staring at him.

"Uh. . Thank you, Norman." Sammy says, confused.

"No problem." Norman replies.

Wally seems to be snickering.

A few moments later, Sammy walks through the wall where the ink was smeared. We wait, looking at each other before he comes back.

"I think I put it in the right place? There's this box at the edge of the platform I was standing on, right in front of another platform with a door." He explains.

"Yes, that sounds about right." Henry replies.

"Do we have to be touching you to go through the portal?" Susie asks.

"Yep." Sammy replies.
"I'll drag Norman through first, then I'll come back for. . ." Sammy pauses as he looks around then room at us.
"Henry?" He finishes, while looking at him.