Chapter 18

Miley woke before her alarm again.

The house was quiet, bathed in dim morning light. Familiar. Ordinary. And yet… something felt heavier. She stayed under the blanket for a long moment, listening to the soft hum of the fridge and the faint creak of the walls.

The thought came unbidden: I’ve done this before.

Shaking it off, she pulled herself up. Clothes went on automatically-a skirt, a soft sweater-but this time she paused at the mirror. Her reflection stared back, calm and unknowing. Miley wondered if she looked scared yet. She wasn’t sure she even knew what scared felt like anymore.

Breakfast passed in routine. Toast. Tea.
Minimal conversation. Her parents mentioned the basketball match. It shouldn’t have mattered, and yet the memory of it happening days ago made her stomach twist.

She walked to school with an unusual alertness, noticing the cracks in the pavement, the way the leaves had gathered near the fence, the chill that made her pull her sweater tighter. Everything was… the same.

Blackwood High felt noisy but familiar. Lockers slammed. Students shouted. Anya spotted her near the notice board and waved.

“You look fine today,” Anya said.

Miley forced a smile. “Thanks.”

Inside the classroom, everything fell into place as usual. She took her seat, opened her notebook, and tried to focus. But her eyes caught Felix almost immediately.

He was already there. Sitting with that same easy posture, pen between his fingers, talking quietly to someone behind him.

Her stomach tightened. Here it comes again.

The teacher’s voice started. Words she had heard before-words she had written down countless times-flowed across the room. Miley tried to listen, to ignore the déjà vu tightening in her chest, but it was impossible. Every phrase, every pause, every sigh matched exactly what she remembered.

The announcement came.

“Before we continue, we’ll have a short quiz.”

Her hands shook. Just slightly, at first, then more noticeably. She forced a deep breath. It’s just a quiz. It’s just a quiz.

The papers were handed out. The questions stared up at her, unchanged. Order, phrasing, even the small smudges on the paper-identical to before.

Her pen hovered. Her mind raced.

I’ve done this. Twice. Three times. How many times?

A whisper beside her startled her.

“You okay?”

Felix. His voice soft, concerned. Real.

Miley jumped slightly, and she forced a nod. “Yeah… yeah, I’m fine.

But she wasn’t fine.

She wrote the date in her notebook,
hurriedly, almost frantically. Her pen scratched across the page. She wrote down the first question, then the second, then all of them, to make sure it wasn’t her imagination.

By the time the bell rang, the room felt smaller. Quieter. Heavier.

Felix said something polite as he left. Miley nodded. She barely heard him.

Lunch was the same. Anya chatted animatedly, but Miley’s attention was elsewhere. Every laugh, every comment, every bite of food felt already known.

By the afternoon, she wasn’t listening anymore. She was watching. Counting repetitions. Noticing details that shouldn’t exist, but did: a loose thread on her sweater, a scratch on the desk, a pen rolled slightly out of place.

The walk home felt longer, heavier. Clouds hung low, gray and oppressive.

When she got back to the quiet, old-feeling house, she didn’t move right away. Her bag dropped at the stairs, shoes kicked off, but she stayed standing for a long time, feeling the weight of the day pressing down.

Eventually, she reached her room. Notebook in hand. Blanket pulled around her shoulders.

She wrote.

The date.

The quiz.

The words she’d heard, the order they came in, the way Felix had forgotten her and remembered her and forgotten her again.

Her hand shook as she wrote, the pen almost slipping. But she kept going.

By the time she set it down, her chest was tight, her thoughts a whirlwind. And yet… there was clarity in the chaos.

It’s happening again.

And this time, she would not forget.
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Chapter ended