I was am an avid fan of time loop stories.

The passage of time, and the inherently nonchanging nature of them, brings out the best and worst in people. It grinds them down, forces them to confront themselves. After all, when the only thing that changes is them, then there is no external struggle. No challenges that cannot be inevitably beaten. No knowledge that cannot become eventually known. No mystery that cannot be solved. The only thing anyone can focus on in this situation is one's own actions.

Characters trapped in that situation know that morality doesn't apply to them. They could be the worst person ever, and it'd all be washed away the next loop. They could cure cancer, and it wouldn't matter. It's a microcosm of nihilistic determinism, where everything comes to naught. So when they decide to be kind, in spite of it all, it's a beautiful thing.

Such was not meant to be my fate. Transported to a third-world country, in the middle of a village that is to be subject to genocide at sunset of that day, a mysterious entity told me that my only way out was to join with the attackers. To senselessly and brutally destroy the lives of 'random' and 'inconsequential' people whom no one would hear of after the fact.

I refuse.

It's hard. Every day, seeing them die, again and again. They have no chance to fight back, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. There is no chance of survival.

And still, I refuse.

I get to know them. I delve deep into each one of the fifty-eight villagers' lives. I know them more intimately than any of my friends from before the loop. I become able to predict their every action and reaction to nearly every possible stimuli. I become impossibly bored, as I knew I eventually would, for there is nothing they can say or do that I haven't heard or seen thousands of times over.

And yet, I still refuse.

I focus on the attackers next. Learn what to say to avoid death, to ingratiate myself, to survive the day. Learn their stories. Come to empathize and understand.

But even then, I won't join them. I refuse.

I find myself developing self-imposed challenges. This situation, the genocide of a people, almost feels like a game at this point. I do an entire loop walking on my hands, or pretending not to know the language (which is English, somehow), or without clothes.

But I will not attack them. I will not hurt them. I refuse.

At first, I think it's out of spite. If that entity trapped me in this situation, then why should I do as they ask? But no, I'm not that sort of person.

Then, I think it's because it's wrong. But my sense of morality has been worn away by time. Some loops I want to hurt or even kill those around me just for the novelty. And yet I don't.

I'm tired. I'm bored. There is nothing left to say or do that would be new, other than what I was told to.

But I refuse. Because no matter how random or inconsequential life can be, I think kindness is the most beautiful thing of all. And I will strive for that beauty even if I must be trapped here for all eternity.