(AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN…) SAY PSYCH RIGHT NOW II

In her third loop, something changed.

It was not anything dramatic or intentional, and certainly not the result of a sudden revelation or a carefully formed plan. Taylor did not sit straighter or steel herself with renewed determination, nor did she begin searching for some clever way to outmaneuver the loop that had claimed her life again and again. Instead, as the bus lurched away from the curb and settled into its familiar rhythm, she found herself listening.

Really listening.

At first, it was nothing more than the usual background noise she had long since learned to tune out. The low murmur of overlapping conversations blended into an indistinct hum, punctuated by the rumble of the engine, the occasional hiss of the doors opening, and the scrape of shoes against the floor as passengers boarded or made their way down the aisle. 

It was the same mundane soundscape she had experienced countless times before, so familiar it usually faded into nothing, but gradually, words began to separate themselves from the noise, slipping into her awareness whether she meant to pay attention or not.

“Did you hear about Lung?”

That was what caught her attention.

Taylor shifted slightly in her seat, her hands still folded loosely in her lap, and let the conversation wash over her. A group of people a few rows ahead of her had leaned toward one another, voices lowered in the conspiratorial way of strangers sharing gossip.

“Captured last night,” someone said. “By Armsmaster, apparently. And some villain group.”

“The Undersiders,” another voice supplied, sounding incredulous. “They’re small-time. Mostly robberies, if I remember correctly.”

That earned a few skeptical noises from those listening. Taylor frowned slightly, her thoughts snagging on the name despite herself. Armsmaster, she knew. Everyone in Brockton Bay knew Armsmaster, and she had admired him for as long as she could remember. The Undersiders, on the other hand, barely registered as more than a footnote in the city’s crime scene. The idea of the two working together felt wrong in a way she could not quite put into words.

As the bus continued down the road, more people joined in, either chiming in on the same conversation or starting their own nearby. The news spread quickly, bouncing from seat to seat like a stone skipping across water.

Most of the reactions were exactly what she would have expected. Relief, first and foremost. Lung had been a constant presence in the city for as long as Taylor could remember, a looming threat that everyone learned to live around. People spoke of him with a mix of fear and bitter humor, trading stories of near misses and old encounters as though he were a natural disaster rather than a man. Hearing that he was gone seemed to lift an invisible weight from many shoulders.

But not everyone was celebrating.

“There’s going to be fallout,” a man near the aisle said, his tone grim with certainty. “You take someone like Lung out of the picture and something worse always fills the gap.”

“That… that isn’t wrong,” someone else replied after a pause. “I hate the guy as much as anyone, but he was predictable. Lazy, even. He had his territory and his reputation, and that was enough for him.”

A woman nearby scoffed loudly. “He didn’t need to expand. Everyone already feared him. Why rock the boat when you can sit back and let your name do the work?”

That sentiment echoed among a handful of others. They spoke carefully, clearly worried about being misunderstood, quick to add that they did not like Lung and never had. No one liked Lung. Still, there was an uneasy logic to what they were saying. He had been content to remain where he was, growing slowly without provoking the kind of chaos that drew harsher attention. With him gone, the city might not become safer so much as unstable.

Normally, Taylor would not have cared.

A week ago, even a day ago, this kind of conversation would have slid right past her. The state of Brockton Bay had always felt distant and abstract compared to the immediate reality of her own life. Right now, she had far more pressing concerns than the shifting balance of villain politics. She was trapped in a cycle of dying and restarting, her mental health already in a dark place, and her future reduced to a series of repeated moments she could not escape.

And yet, something about this stuck with her.

She did not know why at first. Perhaps it was the sheer oddity of the situation, the dissonance of hearing Armsmaster’s name spoken in the same breath as a villain group, regardless of their reputation. Perhaps it was the way the collective mood on the bus had shifted so quickly, relief giving way to unease as people considered what might come next.

Or perhaps it was the woman.

Taylor only noticed her once the general chatter began to fade. She stood near the front of the bus, gripping one of the metal poles so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Her voice rose above the others, strained and urgent, cutting through every attempt to calm her down. She looked older than most of the passengers, Asian too, with her face drawn tight with emotion, and eyes glassy as she spoke.

“This is bad,” the woman insisted, her words tumbling over each other. “This is really bad. You don’t understand. You think this is a good thing, but it’s not. It’s going to make everything worse.”

Someone tried to reassure her, murmuring that Lung had hurt people, that the city was better off without him. Another passenger glanced around awkwardly, clearly unsure how to react.

But the woman shook her head, her voice trembling now. “You don’t know what’s coming. You don’t. He kept things contained. He did. And now there’s nothing holding her back.”

She sounded close to tears, her distress so raw and disproportionate that the rest of the conversation slowly died around her. People either offered hesitant words of comfort or stared at her in open confusion, as though trying to piece together what she knew that they did not.

Taylor watched her, unease creeping up her spine.

Why was this random woman so deeply affected by Lung’s arrest? Why did she look as though the world had just ended?

The question lingered, unanswered, as the bus rolled on, because Taylor never got the chance to think about it any further.

She died again.