I can pinpoint the exact minute it started, though I wouldn’t have realized it then. Tuesday, 11:57 a.m. I was standing on the corner of Main and Sixth, waiting to cross the street, when I noticed the woman with the red scarf. There was something odd about her—not odd enough to stop my day, but enough to catch my eye. She had this blank, empty look, almost as if she was waiting for someone to wind her up again.

The light changed, and she crossed the street, disappearing down Sixth Avenue. Just another pedestrian in a city that eats up people by the thousands. I forgot about her in minutes.

Then it happened.

“11:57 a.m.”

A text popped up on my phone, and my brain jolted with a flash of familiarity. I’d just checked the time, hadn’t I? A strange sensation settled in, a kind of buzzing in the base of my skull. I looked up, and there she was. The woman with the red scarf, standing across the street, staring blankly into space.

I blinked, shook my head. Maybe it was a trick of memory or some odd déjà vu. I chalked it up to sleep deprivation. Who really pays attention to clocks, anyway? I crossed the street, ignoring the creeping unease that had wrapped around me like a fog.

“11:57 a.m.”

The sound of a car horn blared, jerking me out of a daze. I glanced at my phone.

11:57 a.m. again.

My breath hitched. It was impossible. This was a bad dream, or maybe I’d fallen asleep on my feet. The woman with the red scarf caught my eye again, and she looked right at me this time. It wasn’t blank, the look she gave me; it was almost…apologetic.

I started to sweat. The light turned, and she walked across the street. But something was different—an odd rhythm, a mismatch in the way her shoes hit the pavement. It was a beat too slow, like she was pulling against invisible strings. I didn’t cross. I just stood there, frozen, until the light cycled back.

“11:57 a.m.”

Panic flared. My heart beat like a wild animal in my chest. This was insane. This wasn’t just déjà vu anymore. No, I was trapped, or haunted, or maybe just losing my mind.

I glanced around, half-expecting to see people pointing and laughing, but nobody even looked at me. I couldn’t do this again. I turned on my heel and ran, as if I could outrun time itself. I ducked into a coffee shop, gasping for air, my mind racing. Coffee, I thought. Caffeine. Clarity.

But when I reached for my wallet, my hand froze.

“11:57 a.m.”

There’s a point when fear gives way to resignation, and I hit that point at least six loops in. I became numb to the sight of the red-scarf woman and the blare of that car horn. The only thing that changed was me. My heartbeat slowed, and I grew a little less frantic.

I tried talking to people, but nobody heard me. The barista didn’t blink when I asked for a coffee. I spoke louder, until I was shouting. Nothing. I felt like a ghost, wandering a city that couldn’t see me. Each loop, I became more invisible.

It’s remarkable how quickly the mind starts to make bargains with itself. Maybe this wasn’t hell, I thought. Maybe it was a test, or some cosmic prank. The thought gave me a kind of courage. I tried to manipulate things: I walked into traffic once, just to see if I could change the outcome. I didn’t feel the impact, only a blinding flash, then—

“11:57 a.m.”

I started to think of the red-scarf woman as a constant, a landmark in the shifting landscape of my reality. She was the only thing that stayed the same, the one piece that never shifted or changed. Once, I even stood in her way, but she walked right through me like mist, her apologetic look lingering as she passed.

That’s when I began to wonder if she was trapped, too.

I don’t know what drove me to try, but one loop, I took a deep breath and shouted, “Who are you?” as loud as I could. To my shock, her eyes flickered, almost like she’d heard me. And then she spoke, though I don’t think her lips moved. It was more like her voice was in my head.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Just that. “I’m sorry.”

That was it, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that she meant it.

I tried everything after that. I followed her. I walked where she walked, copying her every movement, hoping to break whatever spell was keeping us here. But every time, no matter what I did, the clock would reset, and I’d be back at the corner of Main and Sixth, staring at that cursed red scarf.

Days—or were they hours?—passed. I lost track. My mind splintered, stretched thin over a thousand identical minutes, each one looping back on itself like a snake eating its own tail.

Until one loop, she wasn’t there.

“11:57 a.m.”

I blinked. My surroundings blurred, sharpened. My hands felt oddly heavy, like I’d been carrying a weight for hours. I looked up, and the woman was gone. Relief coursed through me, a lightness I hadn’t felt in what felt like lifetimes.

I took a tentative step forward, half-expecting some unseen force to stop me. But nothing happened. The world around me was sharp and real. The car horn blared, the light changed, and I crossed the street, my steps echoing in the quiet morning air.

I reached the other side, half-expecting to be dragged back, but the clock kept ticking. 11:58, 11:59…

And then, as I took a shaky breath, noon struck.

I don’t remember much after that, only that I wandered the city in a daze, savoring the simple act of moving forward. The weight of those minutes lingered, pressing down on me, as if I’d been hollowed out by the repetition.

I never saw the red-scarf woman again. I don’t know if she escaped, or if she’s still trapped in that endless loop, crossing the street forever at 11:57 a.m., a prisoner of time.

As for me, I keep a wary eye on clocks, always glancing down, half-expecting the hands to betray me. And every time I see a flash of red in a crowd, I feel my heart skip, a pulse of fear quickening in my veins.

Because deep down, I know the truth: Time doesn’t forget, and sometimes, it doesn’t forgive.