everyone experiences a time loop in their life. the duration varies, from person to person, loop to loop — the length of the loop window itself, and the times it, well, loops. the shortest window on record was a ten minute loop (the woman who experienced that nearly went mad, repeating those minutes for months) and the longest loop window was two years.
there are people, too, it’s said, who barely even know they were in a loop: two or three times, and a sense of deja vu.
but everyone knows that it must have been there loop, that moment, that feeling; because everyone experiences a loop, one way or another.
statistically, it’s most likely you’ll experience your loop sometime between the ages of 18 to 45. it’s rare that the loop happens before someone reaches puberty but not unheard of: only three in the whole of record history, though scholars allow there could be more that weren’t reported, not noticed.
the oldest recorded looper was a 92, and lived two weeks for five years. he died a few days later.
there are lots of theories about the loops, whole schools of thought devoted to why humans experience time like this, once in their lives. people spend their whole lives studying it, hoping maybe they’ll spend their own loop looking at it (though of course what you build in your loop is always left behind). books are written, movies are made, time loops romanticized and made more beautiful than they are.
because here is the thing: the point of the time loop isn’t to save or prevent something: it’s to embrace the things we cannot change.
they don’t know it until much later, but nancy, jonathan, and joyce have a rare semi-shared loop: will’s disappearance, the week after. it lasts longer for nancy than it does for the others, unable to stop trying to save barb.
hopper’s always been surprised he didn’t relive sara’s death: instead, it’s the moment he chooses to give eleven up for will, and the rest of them.
max experiences the third and fourth of july, 1985, over and over and over and —
eleven spends an eternity in that desert bunker, though really it’s only two days.
steve only realizes he’s in his loop when he goes to bed the night after they bury eddie munson in an unmarked and he wakes up next to nancy wheeler in 1983.
already too late for barb, he thinks, mind spinning, palms clammy. so what’s it gonna be?