—

I'm back in the store.

In the card aisle.

With no answers, save a strange statement about mobius strips and the gained knowledge that the green-eyed cashier is somehow involved in all this.

I sigh. I shouldn't have expected any answers anyway. And besides, I didn't need to know why I was in the loop – mobius strip. Whatever – in order to break it, did I?

I leave the store immediately this time, not stopping to talk to the girl or the cashier this time, and go out into the rain. I don't know where I'm going. Just away, I guess. I need to be somewhere that isn't that convenience store.

I stop abruptly when I come to a sewage hole in the road; strangely, it's missing its cover.

I crouch down. The hole is pitch black.

I don't know why I do what I do next. I just have a… feeling. I'm on red alert for anything strange, anything that might possibly help me, and this hole is certainly the former, if not the latter. And I'm in a loop, aren't I? Won't my actions, crazy as they are, just reset themselves after however-much time?

I have the feeling the cashier would disagree with my logic there, but I don't really care. I'll do anything to get out of this loop.

I stand and give the hole a long hard stare.

And then I jump.

—

Is it possible to fall up? 

—

"How about we go through and wait by the drain until Willow passes on the way to the convenience store?" I suggest. "Then we can see if we can convince her to go through, and if that doesn't work, we can try to physically pull her in. Well, maybe." I look down at the drain. "The cashier, or whatever's possessing him or taking his form or whatever, is really powerful. I know he can reset the world at will, but I don't know how much he's aware of. We might be able to get Willow through without him knowing, but there's a lot we don't know about his powers." I look around at the others. "So, want to try it?"

—

I trip.

I'm spiraling down, down into a dark pit.  I scream, and I'm thrust back up, being spit out of the hole by some dark force.  Then gravity returns, and I fall flat on my face, knocking over Peri.

Wren and Pancake stare at me.

"Oh," my face turns red.  "Hi." 

"Ow! Oh! Hi, Tsuki," I say. Tsuki's face is red, but mine's probably redder. I shouldn't have been standing in the way. "You're just in time. We were just planning how to get Willow to jump into a sewer hole. I don't know if we should even try. We've all met Willow, and she's… Oddly stubborn when it comes to getting that melon soda." We all share a grimace and nod. 

"So… You're just gonna pull her into a sewer?!" Tsuki asks.

"Well, maybe," I say, shrugging. "I mean, it's for her own good. And you fell into the sewer, it doesn't hurt that much, right? So what do you say, guys? Should we sneak up on her and push her in?" 

"Sure," I say.  "Why not?"

〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜 

At that moment, a guy with a cheesy smile and blonde gelled hair comes up to me, holding a trophy.  "Congratulations, Tsuki!  You've won the award for the Shortest Post Ever!"

—

We've all agreed on the plan. All that's left is its execution.

I pull my coat tight around my shoulders and jump into the drain. I hear, for an instant, the sound of someone jumping in after me, and then, somehow, I'm falling up into the looped world. I land on the road beside the drain.

I stumble out of the way as, one by one, Pancake, Tsuki, and Periwinkle fall through (up? down? into?) the drain to this other world and land next to the drain. It's a peculiar sight – it makes me glad no one was around to see us come through in the normal world.

Quick footsteps against wet asphalt – I turn, and see Willow in the distance, walking fast through the rain, a melon soda clutched in one hand.

Pancake, Tsuki, Periwinkle, and I step back and wait for her to pass the sewer drain. I feel a bit like some kind of criminal, waiting to ambush somebody and knock her down a sewer drain, for goodness sake, but I know that she's trapped and this is the way out.

—

__

Willow hurries to the convenience store.  She's carrying an umbrella, then looks at it quizzically.  She looks back up at the sun.

Not a cloud in the sky.  Why…?

She shakes her head, then runs faster.  She's passing the convenience store and…

"Three, two, one."

All together, we push her in. 

—

Willow is falling. Faster and faster, she can feel the phantom handprints on her back, that pushed her into this alice-in-wonderland rabbit hole of darkness.

She lands, hearing a sickening crunch from one of her bones.

Footsteps, and whispering, as whoever pushed her in descends into the sewer–because surely that's where she is, a sewer.

And then a pinprick of light appears in the darkness.

You made a mistake. 

—

[Heya! Author here, I'll be posting the next thread shortly, and I'm declaring this one officially over. Good job guys, you're almost at the end!]