Light exploded behind my eyelids.
Air rushed back into my lungs like I'd been underwater.
I jerked upright.
Cold floor.
Hallway.
The blue diary beside me.
Morning light spilled through the window.
For a second, everything felt normal.
Too normal.
No screams.
No phone ringing.
No shadow stretching across the walls.
My head throbbed.
Fragments floated through my mind—
Fog.
Rain.
The Guardian.
Bound.
And the final words—
"Choose with clarity this time."
My breath quickened.
It wasn't a dream.
It couldn't be.
I grabbed the diary.
My hands hesitated before opening it.
The pages flipped normally at first.
Dates. Ink. Handwriting.
Until—
My fingers caught on something uneven.
I froze.
Halfway through the book—
A jagged tear.
A page ripped out.
Not clean.
Not accidental.
Torn.
My heart started pounding.
I flipped back.
The page before it ended mid-sentence.
If you choose her ag—
That was it.
Gone.
The next page began calmly.
Balance will not warn you twice.
My stomach dropped.
I didn't tear this.
I would remember tearing this.
Wouldn't I?
A sharp pressure stabbed behind my eyes.
Like something trying to surface.
I squeezed them shut.
Nothing came.
Just fog.
My phone buzzed.
I flinched so hard it slipped from my hand.
Screen lit up.
Mira.
My chest tightened.
I answered immediately.
"H-hello?"
Silence for a second.
Then her voice.
"You're awake."
A strange pause in the way she said it.
"How do you know I was asleep?"
Another pause.
"You don't remember?"
Cold spread through my body.
"Remember what?"
She exhaled shakily.
"You came to my house last night."
Everything inside me went still.
"That's not funny."
"I'm not joking," she said. "You showed up around midnight."
Midnight.
That was when—
"You looked… weird," she continued quietly. "Like you weren't fully there."
My fingers tightened around the phone.
"What did I do?"
"You gave me something."
My throat dried.
"What?"
Paper rustled on her end.
Then—
"I'm sending you a picture."
The call ended.
A message notification popped up instantly.
My hands were trembling as I opened it.
The image loaded slowly.
And my world tilted.
It was the missing page.
Folded once.
Lying on her desk.
The tear matched perfectly.
Same jagged edges.
Same paper.
Same ink.
My handwriting.
I zoomed in.
My breath caught.
The words were clear.
If you're reading this, it means I chose you again.
The room felt too small.
Too tight.
I couldn't breathe properly.
Again.
Again meant—
This had happened before.
A second message came.
"I didn't understand what you meant," Mira typed.
"You kept saying if something happens to your mom, it's not my fault."
The phone slipped from my hand.
The Guardian's voice echoed faintly in my memory.
Correction.
Every choice removes something.
My knees felt weak.
If I gave her this page—
Then one of two things was true.
Either—
I lost time.
Or—
Another version of me made the choice.
And acted on it.
Behind my back.
My phone buzzed again.
One final message from Mira.
"There's something else."
A typing bubble.
It stopped.
Started again.
Stopped.
Then finally—
"You weren't alone."
The message stayed on my screen, unmoving, yet it felt like it was breathing. Expanding. Watching me.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard, but I didn't know what to ask first. Who was with me? What did she see? Why couldn't I remember any of it?
I tried to pull the memory forward — forced myself to picture last night clearly. I remembered falling. The cold floor. The fog. The Guardian's voice.
After that… nothing.
No walking.
No leaving the house.
No knocking on Mira's door.
No handing her a torn page from my diary.
Yet the evidence was sitting in her chat window.
The missing page.
In my handwriting.
In her room.
A dull ache spread behind my temples. I pressed my fingers there, as if I could physically push the confusion into place.
How did I meet her?
How did I stand in her house?
How did I return here… to the exact same spot on the hallway floor?
I looked around slowly.
The railing beside me.
The faint scratch on the wooden step.
The same angle of morning light.
It didn't feel like I had walked back here.
It felt like I had been placed.
Carefully.
Returned.
Like a book slid back into its exact position on a shelf.
My breathing grew uneven.
If I went to Mira's house, someone would have seen me leave. My parents. The front door camera. Something.
Unless—
Unless I never left in this version.
The thought made my stomach twist.
I grabbed the diary again, flipping through the pages faster this time. The tear was still there. The sentence still cut mid-word.
If you choose her ag—
The ink looked slightly smudged, as if it had been written in a hurry.
Or rewritten.
I couldn't tell anymore.
My reflection in the black phone screen startled me. I looked pale. Not scared — just… displaced.
Like I didn't fully belong in my own face.
The Guardian's voice echoed faintly in my head.
You are remembering fragments of many.
Fragments.
Maybe I wasn't supposed to remember the walk to Mira's house.
Maybe that memory belonged to a different version.
A version that made the choice.
A version that acted.
And I woke up in the aftermath.
The idea made my chest tighten.
Was I living the decision… or inheriting it?
My phone buzzed again.
I flinched so hard my heart skipped.
A new message from Mira.
"Rhea… you kept asking me something."
My throat went dry.
"What did I ask?" I typed back slowly.
Her reply took longer this time.
Long enough for doubt to settle deeper inside me.
"You asked me… if I remembered it too."
The room felt quieter than it should have been.
Remembered what?
I didn't even remember going.
I stared at the torn space in the diary again.
The missing page felt less like paper now and more like a hole in reality.
And the worst part wasn't the Guardian.
It wasn't balance.
It wasn't even the possibility of losing someone again.
It was this—
I wasn't sure which version of me had stood in Mira's room last night.
And I wasn't sure which version of me was sitting here now.
The thought wouldn't settle. It kept circling, like it was trying to land somewhere solid and couldn't find ground.
I looked down at my hands again.
They didn't feel unfamiliar.
They just didn't feel entirely mine.
The cut near my thumb stung faintly, as if reacting to my attention. I pressed it gently and watched a thin line of red surface before fading again. Real. Physical. Undeniable.
So I must have gone.
I must have stood in front of Mira.
I must have spoken.
But where were those memories?
It wasn't like forgetting a dream.
Dreams blur.
This was different.
This was… erased.
Cleanly.
Precisely.
Like someone had removed only the middle of a sentence and left the beginning and the end untouched.
I stood slowly, my legs unsteady, and walked toward the front door.
Each step felt measured. Careful.
Like I was afraid of catching myself doing something I didn't approve of.
The door handle was slightly damp.
I stared at it.
There was no rain this morning.
No storm.
No reason for moisture.
Unless—
My eyes dropped to the floor mat.
Tiny specks of gravel.
Darkened patches.
Mud.
The same color as the stain on my pajamas.
A tightness crept up my spine.
I bent down, touching the mat lightly.
Cold.
Still slightly wet.
I pulled my hand back as if it had burned me.
I left.
Not in theory.
Not in imagination.
I left this house.
Walked somewhere.
Spoke to someone.
Made a choice.
And then—
Woke up on the hallway floor like none of it happened.
A sudden wave of dizziness hit me again. I steadied myself against the wall.
Was this what the Guardian meant?
Choose with clarity.
But how could I choose anything if I didn't even remember making the last choice?
My phone buzzed again.
I didn't jump this time.
I just stared at it for a few seconds before picking it up.
Mira.
"I checked the time," her message read.
"You were here for almost forty minutes."
Forty minutes.
My chest tightened.
Forty minutes of conversation.
Forty minutes of movement.
Forty minutes that did not exist inside my head.
"What did I say?" I typed carefully.
....