As soon as the bullet ricocheted off the monster's forehead, doing a total of zero damage, the man knew he was dead meat.

Lightning illuminated his broken figure as the pistol clattered onto the ground, slipping from his fingers. He felt as if a warm bubble of liquid surrounded him – yet he could feel his life draining out from his wounds as the warmth left him bit by bit.  The hot, sticky substance dripping from his fingers was the one thing that reminded him of what lay in his path. 

Blood wasn't the only thing draining out of his body. As his face turned blue and purple, he instinctively gasped for air, his fingers trying their best to pry the monster's fingers away, to let some oxygen into his system. 

His whole vision flickered out of focus like one of those old televisions from the 80s. Everything around him slowly faded into black and white. He strained to keep his eyelids from dropping, but no matter how hard he tried to focus on the figure killing him, darkness enveloped every last corner of his vision, splotch by splotch. His soul, ripped from his own body forcefully, started fading into nothingness. 

The storm still howled on, unbothered by the man's demise. The monster dropped the corpse from its grasp, tilting its head sideways curiously as it stared at its victim. Its tears, which had previously stopped, reappeared in its eyes. Its "eyes" narrowed as if concentrating on something.

At first glance from far away, it might seem harmless – it took the form of a little girl, with two merrily brushed braids swinging and bouncing. It wore a dress with faded patterns – one that used to be pretty. Now it was worn out, torn, splattered with dark red blood. Perhaps it took this harmless form to lure its victims in more easily. 

Moments later, the man's corpse vanished, leaving no trace behind. The blood stains melted away; the pistol and the lone bullet lying quietly on the ground crumbled into dust; the door swung shut again. A man, drenched from head to toe stumbled into the mansion. As he lay sprawled in the hallway, catching his breath, the front door swung shut silently. Immediately, the man heard the sound of a child crying coming from upstairs.

The man didn't understand why, but a familiar streak of terror seized his heart for a second. It was inexplicable, he reasoned with himself. It's only a child, most likely lost and trapped in a mansion in nowhere. 

Yet what were the odds of such things happening? Ignoring the fluttering in his stomach, he reached into his pockets and felt the cold yet reassuring touch of metal. He was certain that whatever was up there, he could protect himself with the pistol. 

The wooden floorboards, ancient and waterlogged, creaked as the man crept toward the room where the crying came from. The moldy air made him wrinkle his nose in disgust. As he gave the door a hefty push, it swung open. Inside, a little girl sat there, bawling.

She could only be about 6 or 7 years old. Her merrily brushed braids swung cheerfully as she turned and looked at the intruder.

Immediately, the man's heart plummeted as his eyes widened, staring at the figure that could only be called a monster. A strangled scream escaped from his throat as he scrambled backward, groping blindly for the door that had shut itself behind him. Tears streamed down the cheeks of the little girl with no face. 

The longer he stared at the monster, the more horrific details were etched into his mind. The monster had no nose, no mouth. Two hollow holes that looked like eye sockets served as her "eyes", void of any life and emotion. Black tears streamed out of them endlessly. 

"Don't leave."

All his blood froze with fear as he quietly reached for the pistol concealed in his pockets, pulling the safety pin. His voice, a trembling whisper lingering in the air, pleaded. "I mean no harm."

The girl – no, the monster titled its head curiously. He could feel its glare burning into his face. 

"Then why did you kill me?"

Something hit him hard in the chest before any more words sprouted out of him. The tingling sense of familiarity in his gut spiraled out of control as something clicked in his mind, and memories came flooding back into his mind. He crumpled to the ground, horrified as realization washed over him. All the familiarity he'd felt ever since he entered the mansion... 

His pleading seemed to do nothing as it took a step forward. Its voice was pretty and chirpy as usual, but the words that came out of its mouth were cold and unforgiving. "The dad I knew never cared about me."

Excuses leaped to his lips, but nothing came out. 

"I once heard a tale." It continued, its voice surprisingly melodic and sweet. "The tale of someone who'd angered the gods, whose punishment would end when he could push a boulder up a hill. But every time, just as the boulder was about to reach the top of the hill, it would roll back down. A loop."

"You're no god," he spat back. "You're now just a bloodthirsty monster."

With an enraged roar, he fired a shot at the monster. The bullet hit its intended mark, but instead of killing the monster, it just bounced off its forehead. Within the blink of an eye, the monster's fingers wrapped tightly around his neck, stamping the air out of him.

A loop. It hit him like a thunderbolt as revelation crept up to him. A well-crafted, tailor-made punishment just for him, carried out by his very own daughter. The wisp of guilt he had was snuffed down instantly, replaced by dread. Would this torture never end? Would this be his story's ending? 

If he'd known something like this would happen, he would've gotten rid of the girl differently. He should've left her in an orphanage. He should've thrown her to one of her mother's relatives – the mother who'd fled the city, leaving her daughter behind. 

As his vision flickered out of focus, the figure strangling him slowly overlapped with his own. As if time itself was reversed, as if it was a week ago – as if he was strangling the girl to death again, the girl who wouldn't stop crying, who bothered him so much he'd beat her with a coathanger.

He knew the monster wanted him to feel remorse, to feel regret for what he did. But deep down, he understood that even if there were thousands of different timelines, every single one of him would still strangle the girl out of rage. He understood what a scumbag he was, but refused to acknowledge it aloud, even when he was on the verge of death. He'd run away from his home, from the police. He'd tried to escape the consequences of his actions. But they caught up to him, and will never let him out of their clutches.

The monster stared down at the man's corpse. The man who was once a father – a selfish, cold-blooded coward. 

"If there's one thing you'd taught me, Dad," it said softly. "It's that stories won't always have good endings. For some people, they're just unlucky. But for some, they truly deserve a ghastly ending. An ending so horrific, they'd never be able to disentangle themselves from it. I once had the chance to live – a chance to at least live a decent life – but you robbed it from me. And so I shall rob yours away from you, over and over again."

And so it did. As the monster narrowed its "eyes", every single trace of the man's existence withered away. Moments later, a man stumbled into the mansion, drenched and oblivious to what awaited him in there. A fate that can never be overwritten or hampered with; a Möbius strip etched with the very fabric of torment – the torment he truly deserved.