Ava’s heart was already hammering in her chest when the floor beneath her feet wobbled—like the world had just shifted on its axis.
She staggered, gripping the edge of her dresser to steady herself, her fingers trembling. The room around her blinked—like the lens of a camera out of focus—and then blinked again.
One moment, it was the same pink-and-purple mess she had left behind: posters peeling on the walls, stuffed animals scattered across the bed, the relics of her teenage years. The next, her grown-up self’s makeup bag appeared on the desk, then vanished. It reappeared a second later, only to flicker out of sight.
She gasped, a cold shiver creeping down her spine. Her bookshelf flickered, first showing textbooks, then design magazines, then back to textbooks again.
The mirror on the wall pulsed with double images—her teen self, standing side by side with her adult reflection, an impossible overlay.
Ava squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her temples. “What is happening?” she whispered to herself, but the words didn’t seem to help.
Her heartbeat was louder than the chaos in her room, her body still struggling to hold onto something real. Hands weren’t steady. She couldn’t stop the dizziness spinning in her head. And then—the engagement ring.
It flashed on her finger—Nathaniel’s ring—sparkling in the dim light. A breath caught in her chest.
Then, just as quickly, it was gone. Ava gasped. Her stomach churned. Reality isn’t just cracking, she thought. It’s folding in on itself.
Memories were battling against her choices. Her body couldn’t decide who she was anymore, who she should be. Was she the girl in the pink bedroom? Or the woman she had become?
The floor beneath her feet trembled again, and she stumbled toward the door, desperate for something solid, something to hold onto. She stepped out into the hallway, but the walls seemed to pulse with the same unsteady rhythm.
The photos in the frames beside her shimmered, and the faces inside them warped. One moment, it was her sixteen-year-old self, braces and all, smiling awkwardly at a family gathering.
The next, it was her adult self staring back, a confused expression on her face, not sure which version of herself she should trust.
Her heart pounded.
“Mom?” Ava called out into the empty house, her voice cracking against the silence.
There was no answer.
Nothing but the hum of collapsing time.
She turned toward the kitchen. One second it smelled like fresh coffee—warm, inviting. The next, it was cold, silent, like it had never been filled with the bustle of morning routines.
Ava’s chest tightened. She took one more step toward the window. She needed to see something—anything—to remind her of who she was.
Outside, the street was glitching. Cars jumped forward like skipping records. A tree bent awkwardly, then snapped back upright like a film reel with missing frames. Ava’s stomach flipped.
She couldn’t take it anymore. She ran to the front door and flung it open. Nothing.
The shop. Darla’s Watch Repair—the tiny, impossible place that had somehow started all of this—was gone.
The sidewalk where it had been was empty. Dust floated in the air where the tiny, sacred store used to stand. She looked up and down the street, eyes frantic, as if she might have missed it. But it was gone. The world had swallowed it whole.
Her breath hitched as she stared at the cracked pavement, panic starting to squeeze her chest.
‘Had it ever been real?’ she wondered. ‘Was it just a memory my brain made up to explain everything that couldn’t be explained?’
Ava dropped to her knees, pressing her hand to the cold ground. Nothing but dust. Her fingers slid through it as if trying to touch something that had already been erased.
A gust of wind blasted through her, biting at her skin like a warning.
She looked up at the school across the street, still humming with life. The same chaos, the same lights flickering through the windows. She could hear the buzz of students, the rush of lockers slamming, and the scrape of sneakers on the sidewalk.
“Okay,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “Okay, think. If the timelines are collapsing, then maybe… maybe there’s still something I’m supposed to fix.”
But the chest pain wasn’t just from panic. It was from loss. The shop had been her tether, her anchor. And now it was gone. She stared at the cracked pavement again, unsure of what to do next.
‘Darla,’ she thought. ‘If you can still hear me… I need help.’
But no one answered. Not the wind. Not the empty street. Not the version of herself still standing somewhere in time.
Her clothes flickered again, teen jeans replaced by her adult trench coat, then back again. The glitch in her fingers, the flickering in the corner of her eyes.
She could feel the world warping, but she couldn’t make it stop.
“I can’t do this,” she muttered to herself, staring at her hands. “Not alone.”
With her heart pounding in her chest, she ran toward the school. If there was anything left to ground her, it was there. The place that had haunted her longer than she wanted to admit.
She threw open the doors of the school, ignoring the students laughing and talking, ignoring their stares. She marched to her locker, fingers already going through the motions, her mind locked on muscle memory.
The hall shimmered around her. Faces blurred. Bells rang too loudly. The walls rippled like liquid, distorting reality as she passed.
Finally, she reached her locker. The metal was cold, real. She didn’t hesitate. She spun the dial and opened the door. Her hands shook as she pulled it open, not expecting what she found.
Inside was nothing familiar. No gym bag. No textbooks. Only one thing: a letter.
Folded carefully. Tucked in the middle of the locker like it had been waiting.
Ava stared at it, unsure of what to do. The handwriting on the front was hers. But not her teenage self. No—this was the handwriting of the present. The handwriting of someone she didn’t remember writing to.
Her heart raced. She reached out, breath held, picking it up carefully as if it might disappear.
She turned it over. And then, in shock, she read the first line: “If you’re reading this, you already chose love over fear.”