The thought didn't scream inside me.
It settled.
Like something inevitable.
Like something already decided.
"Rhea…"
Dad's voice felt far away, like it was reaching me through water.
I didn't realize I was crying until my vision blurred completely.
Mira lay on the hospital bed, wrapped in wires and silence.
Her lips — the same lips that teased me yesterday — were pale.
Her hands — the same hands that used to grab mine when crossing roads — were still.
Too still.
"I was awake," I whispered.
No one understood what I meant.
"I was awake at 3:17."
Dad placed his hand on my shoulder gently. "Beta, this is not—"
"She left because of me!" My voice cracked so loudly it startled even me. "She came because I was alone!"
People turned.
I didn't care.
My chest tightened suddenly.
Like something had wrapped itself around my lungs.
I tried to inhale.
Air entered halfway and stopped.
"Rhea?" Dad's grip tightened. "Breathe."
But I couldn't.
The hospital walls felt too close.
The machines beeped too loudly.
The numbers on the monitor flickered.
Time.
Everything was about time.
I clutched Dad's shirt.
"Take me home," I gasped.
"What? Not now—"
"Please!" I choked, tears streaming uncontrollably. "Please take me home. I need to see something. I need to know what's happening."
He hesitated.
He looked back at Mira.
Then at me — shaking, trembling, unable to breathe properly.
"Okay," he said finally. "Okay. Calm down. Let's go."
But I wasn't calm.
I was breaking.
The car ride back felt endless.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking.
The numbers on the dashboard clock burned into my eyes.
11:42 AM.
Morning.
Broad daylight.
Nothing supernatural.
Nothing strange.
So why did it feel like something invisible had just tightened its grip?
Dad kept glancing at me.
"You're not responsible," he said quietly. "Accidents happen. Don't let your mind do this."
I nodded.
But inside—
My mind wasn't doing this.
It felt like something else was.
We reached home.
I didn't wait for the car to stop fully.
I rushed inside.
Straight to my room.
Straight to the drawer.
The diary lay there.
Still.
Silent.
Ordinary.
I stared at it like it might breathe.
Like it might move.
Like it might explain.
"What do you want?" I whispered.
My voice trembled.
My fingers hovered above it before finally touching the cover.
Cold.
Normal.
I opened it.
The pages flipped too easily.
Too lightly.
I searched for the date.
Last night's page.
The one I had read again and again.
The one that mentioned fear.
It looked the same.
Exactly the same.
No new words.
No dramatic message.
Just ink.
Just paper.
Just my imagination.
Right?
My breathing started becoming uneven again.
"Say something," I whispered desperately. "You've been saying things this whole time. Why are you silent now?"
The room felt too quiet.
I flipped further.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Then—
I noticed something small.
At the corner of one page.
A faint indentation.
Not ink.
Pressure.
As if something had been written hard on the next page once… and erased.
I tilted it toward the light.
There.
Barely visible.
A number.
3:17.
My heart slammed against my ribs so violently it hurt.
No.
That could have been from before.
That could have always been there.
I'm looking for it.
I'm forcing patterns.
Stop.
Just stop.
I pressed my hands into my face again.
Tears soaked into my palms.
"You're not real," I told the diary.
"You're not."
But my chest felt hollow.
Because whether it was real or not—
Mumma had fainted.
Mira was in ICU.
And I was untouched.
Protected.
Spared.
Why?
What made me safe?
I stumbled back from the desk.
My breathing turned shallow again.
Not as violent as before.
But heavy.
Heavy with realization.
What if this isn't about hurting me?
What if it's about making me watch?
The thought crawled slowly into my mind.
And once it entered—
It refused to leave.
Punishment doesn't always mean pain.
Sometimes it means survival.
I looked at the clock on my wall.
12:03 PM.
So far from 3:17.
Yet the number lived in my head now.
Like a brand.
Dad knocked gently on the door.
"Rhea?"
I wiped my face quickly.
"Yes?"
"Lie down for a while," he said softly. "You're overwhelmed."
Overwhelmed.
That word felt small compared to what was happening inside me.
But I lay down anyway.
The ceiling fan rotated slowly.
Round and round.
Like time.
Like cycles.
Like repetition.
If this was coincidence—
It was cruel.
If this was fate—
It was targeted.
If this was my mind—
It was dangerous.
And if this was something else—
Then it was patient.
Very patient.
Because it hadn't come for me.
It had just shown me.
And I didn't know which was worse.
My eyes slowly closed.
Not because I was calm.
But because exhaustion finally won.
And somewhere deep inside—
A new fear formed.
What happens at the fourth 3:17?
And who will be safe next?
Because at 3:17…
I was safe.
And she wasn't.
But next time—
What if the balance shifts?
And the waiting finally turns toward me?
The room felt too small for my grief. I sat on the floor with my back against the bed, the diary open in front of me, my tears falling freely onto its pages. I didn't even try to wipe them anymore. I was too tired of holding myself together.
"I didn't ask for this," I whispered, my voice breaking in the silence. "I didn't ask to be the one who stays safe."
The words echoed weakly against the walls, but no one answered. The house was quiet. Too quiet. And that silence felt cruel.
"I can't keep guessing," I cried, pressing my trembling hands onto the page. "I can't keep watching people get hurt while I stand there untouched. If this is about me, then tell me. If something is happening, then explain it. I can't live like this."
My tears soaked into the paper, spreading slowly across the blank surface. For a moment, nothing changed. And then the wetness began to move differently — not randomly, but along faint, almost invisible lines that I hadn't noticed before. My breathing stopped.
The page looked empty, yet something beneath it was surfacing. The ink wasn't appearing out of nowhere. It was rising, as if it had always been there, waiting for this exact moment.
Words began to darken slowly.
Nothing is going to happen to you.
My hands trembled violently.
Another sentence followed, pressing itself forward through the damp paper.
You were never the one meant to fall.
The air in the room grew heavier, as if it carried something older than the present moment.
More words formed.
You only remember this life. You have always been the one who survives. And you have always tried to fix what cannot be undone.
My heart pounded painfully against my ribs. Every lifetime?
The final line appeared more slowly than the others, but it carried the most weight.
It has happened in every lifetime.
A strange stillness settled inside me. Not peace. Not fear. Something deeper — something ancient and tired.
"Why me?" I whispered hoarsely.
The page remained quiet for a moment, and then another sentence surfaced.
You say that every time.
A chill moved through me, not sharp but familiar — like I had felt this before, somewhere beyond memory. Like this conversation wasn't new. Like it had been repeated in different rooms, different houses, different centuries.
"If nothing is going to happen to me," I said softly, "then why does it feel like something is waiting?"
The response came slower this time.
Because you are not the one being hunted. You are the one trying to stop the pattern.
Stop the pattern.
The words settled heavily inside me. Mumma. Mira. The guilt. The constant urge to understand before something worse happened.
You cannot save everyone. But you keep trying.
Tears slid down silently now — not wild, not desperate. Just exhausted.
If nothing is going to happen to me, then that means I will survive again.
And if I survive…
That means I will watch.
And if this has happened before —
Then I have watched before too.
The real horror was not dying.
It was staying.
It was remembering.
It was trying to fix something that resets every time.
I closed the diary slowly and held it against my chest, not because it comforted me, but because it felt like the only thing that understood the weight I was carrying.
Maybe 3:17 isn't a warning.
Maybe it's a reminder.
And maybe the question was never, "Why am I safe?"
Maybe the real question is —
How many times have I been?