The wind blew slowly on a calm winter night.
Snow drifted along through the air, catching on the small branches of trees and the like.
As the screams died down and the end passed slowly, a hooded stranger moved methodically as they drew a few silvery strings, new and old, around their harvest sickle.
Their gaze fell to the insignificant beast working below. The little insect was gnawing at bone and flesh alike, slowly drawing its little patterns.
As the stranger's gaze moved away, they took a few steps as they drew their sickle back into their flawless cloak. As they moved, however, a bottle in their cloak tipped and from it fell one singular drop.
The drop fell onto their sickle and ran down one of the silvery threads wrapped on it.
The stranger chuckled softly. A pure level of glee in their voice as they hummed curiously,
"How lucky. Very well, I shall let you have that."
As the stranger stepped away, the thread, soaked in the drop, slipped away from their sickle and down to a body below.
And then
They awoke once more.
-*- - *--- -- -*- * ----
10.
That was the age I first rewound.
It was supposed to have been a simple winter night. With Christmas on its way, I had gone to bed eager as ever.
Then, he came.
He was a hideous one. Tall, pale, thin and almost skeleton-like if it had not been for his face. A wretched grin and a long pale beard. The sheer amount of disgust his face produced in me was all I needed to know that he was undoubtedly not human.
I had always had fantasies of such things. Though, my fantasies of nonhuman beings were always the fairytale kind. Elves, dwarves, beautiful fairies, and wonderous mermaids. This being threw a wrench into my childish imagination.
Of course, I had not had much time to think about what he was. As the moment I had awoken, he was already dragging me, kicking and screaming, out of my room and down the stairs.
It was only by the time that I arrived in the living room when I recognized that I wasn't the only one screaming. My mother was pinned to the wooden wall, knives stabbed through most of her limbs, keeping her trapped.
My father, God knows, he was regretting having that knife collection. Especially since a handful were in him as well.
The thing, the one who had broken in, tossed me onto the floor before picking up the sofa with one hand. With inhuman strength, it casually pinned me under the weighty object, seemingly enjoying seeing me struggle.
Then, he went back upstairs, and not too long later, he returned with my younger sister. He held her in the air by the hair even as she cried and begged.
What happened after...well...
It is quite simple actually.
He killed us all.
Well, almost all of us, had time been allowed to move its normal course, then he would have actually abducted my little sister after he had finished making his mess with the rest of our organs.
Nevertheless, after he killed me, I felt cold. It was as if I was drowning in the open air. There was a constant and ever-growing weight that pushed down against my chest.
No matter where I looked or how I tried to struggle, nothing happened. I was surrounded by a sea of darkness, drowning in nothing.
What I felt next was a sheer feeling of pure bliss. As if a drop of everything good had encompassed me from head to toe. Joy's grip on me only lasted for a few moments before I awoke.
I gasped and spasmed in bed as my chest heaved for air. My shirt and sheets were drenched in sweat. My pajamas were soaked by a natural liquid that would have usually left me embarrassed.
Oh, how fast I ran to my parents' room on stumbling legs.
A bad dream, they called it. Fear built up from the strange noises and sights my sister and I had been experiencing the past few days.
Of course, we all died again. Painfully slowly.
I hadn't been able to convince them to do anything, and He came just as he had before.
And then, I was drowning again, surrounded in the darkness of the void.
When I woke up again, I felt ...different, to say the least. It was as if a fog in my mind was being slowly parted.
In fear and terror, I disregarded the strange feeling as I tried once more to get my parents to my side.
Once more, I failed.
And once more, I died.
Again and again, I tried to survive, to stop Him from killing us all.
With every death, I felt myself slipping away as my brain seemed to clear and the air of concealment in my head came undone.
-*- - *--- -- -*- * ----
"So, it failed...no matter, you should have known that even we can't do anything permanent to a higher soul, Youngest. You should have been more careful with your elixir around a soul from above. All you had to do was watch it until it drifted back to the greater plane."
"Come now, Oldest, how much does it really matter? Sure, its soul will stay around for a few years more. So what? When not in the higher plane, it cannot truly affect anything."
"Hmm...very well. Let us go; the few years it flounders around here will not matter."
-*- - *--- -- -*- * ----
After the 13th death, I truly awoke. Memories flooded my head, memories not belonging to this body, the world, this entire reality. Files, videos, wikis, games, and beings that a random girl should never have been aware of, all these things suddenly erupted and existed in my head.
"SCP...4666, The Yule Man..."
My voice resounded softly through my room as I became aware.