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"Why do you care about me?" Martyn snarls, straining from where Ren's pinned him on the forest floor, sullying his white hair and fine clothes with dirt and leaves.
It's a question that sticks with Ren even when Martyn eventually breaks free of his grip and slashes his throat, watching on in horror as he chokes on his own blood. Ren had no choice of giving him a reply in this go around, and for that, he's thankful, because he truly didn't have any sort of response at all. Slowly bleeding out is never a fun process, but he's had enough experience with it that he's already feeling numb and floaty. He figures he'll have enough time to mull about Martyn's words in the moments where he chooses to embrace the inevitable end, conscious that his next breath would be both his first and last, as time rewound and began anew.
—
He wakes up again, gasping for air. Not unlike the first time he had died, when it felt like something had wedged itself within his lungs, and every breath felt like mud and ash. Now, his first breath just tastes bitter, slightly metallic and stinging. Another reminder of his failure.
He always wakes up on the edge of Oakhurst, lying in a field just outside the town proper. It's a bright, sunny day, one of the last ones of the season before the persistent fog rolls in, blanketing the world in a dim gray.
Ren's lost track of how many times he's woken up here. Dozens, at least, and each time, he's failed to understand why. The days before he first came to Oakhurst feel like a far off, distant dream, floating just along the edge of his memories. Things like his mother's face, her wise words, these things rarely stick with him.
"Your destiny lies with Oakhurst," she had said- one of the things he clearly remembers, her wrinkled hand warm where it tucked a wayward strand of hair behind his ear. Now, Ren wonders what she truly knew, if she could see more than he had. If she could see that perhaps it was not just his tongue that had been cursed.
In the first go around, the militia had failed spectacularly, and in every attempt after, it still didn't hold up. Sometimes the core group of himself, Martyn, Apo and M remained human until the bitter end, but more often than not one of them would turn and everything would fall apart from there. There were some go arounds where people would be swapped out- Cleo and Pearl one time, or young Avid starting it up in another- and sometimes there wouldn't even be a militia at all. There wasn't any rhyme or reason for things, so it made it hard for Ren to figure out where things messed up and how to fix it for next time.
Because there would always be a next time- that had been established from the start. Ren had first assumed the way to get out was to save everybody, but Owen and Scott always proved too far gone, too entrenched in their own darkness to want to change, so Ren had amended his goal to protect all humans. He held onto that as tight as he could, and refused to let himself be pulled from it in any way. If he could resist the pull of darkness, he could teach the rest of town to resist too.
His greatest failure, on that front, was always with Martyn.
Oh, young Mr. Woodhurst. His closest companion, the only person he could trust that first go around, even as everyone else fell to the temptation of darkness. Martyn proved he had the capability to resist, that he could stand strong with Ren, charge bravely against the forces of evil and come out the other side unscathed. He was pure- but pure things were destroyed completely once impurities came into the mix. Ren had seen that firsthand, when the good doctor gripped Martyn's arm with a grim determination, plunging his teeth into flesh, drinking and corrupting until there was nothing of Martyn left, and Ren had been left alone with the knowledge that truly no one could be trusted, that humanity was all he had and he would never let that be taken from him.
Martyn fell just as easily in subsequent loops, unfortunately. Young men always yearned for power and control, and it broke Ren's heart to see him give into the curse of vampirism every time. Martyn's turning always hurt him the most because he could be better, Ren had seen him resist, yet sometimes he simply wasn't strong enough.
But Ren had no right criticizing Martyn, anyways. If Ren were stronger, smarter, he would've found a way out of this hell already. He would've been able to save his fellow humans, vanquish the evil once and for all, finally break free of this curse binding him.
His priorities had been wrong in the last loop. He had neglected Martyn, allowed him associate with unsavory folk. He would stick close to him this time, make sure he wouldn't go astray. Martyn's support, once he had it, was unwavering, and Ren would do anything to make sure he had it this time instead of bared teeth and sharpened claws. It didn't matter what else needed to be sacrificed to achieve it, Ren would pay whatever price necessary. Perhaps that was his problem before- he had set his goals too high. Owen and Scott were lost causes, he established that fairly early on, and perhaps it was unrealistic to assume he could save everyone. The loops had started after he and Martyn died, after all, and he'd failed to save Martyn ever since. Maybe all he needed to do was ensure his and Martyn's survival.
Still, Martyn's words from the last loop ring in his head.
"Why do you care about me?"
The words were spat out like poison, and Ren had been too stunned to reply. That was what he would change this time. He'd show Martyn, prove it to him again and again, that he was worthy of being cared for. He'd coax Martyn back into the light, soothe the gaping holes in his heart, so he'd never consider the temptations of darkness.
With a grim determination, Ren makes his way back to Oakhurst.