It happened in the smallest way possible, which was exactly what made it terrifying.
Seo-yeon was walking home when she saw it: a red bicycle lying on its side near the sidewalk. Her breath caught. She knew that bicycle—not from this life, but from the other one. In her first life, she had seen it broken, a twisted ruin left in the aftermath of the accident, after the rain.
Her chest tightened violently. It wasn't supposed to be here. Not now, and certainly not like this.
She stepped closer, her fingers trembling. The timeline was diverging, and not just because of her actions. It was something deeper, something structural. When she touched the handlebar, it felt cold and undeniably real.
Her mind raced. This wasn't a coincidence; it was evidence. The future she remembered hadn't been erased—it was fragmenting. Pieces of it were appearing where they didn't belong.
She stepped back slowly, her breathing uneven. For the first time since her return, she felt something she hadn't felt before. It wasn't the familiar fear of loss, but a raw fear of instability. If the timeline itself wasn't stable, then neither was her survival.
She turned toward home, her steps slower and more careful now. She understood something new: changing fate didn't erase consequences. It only redistributed them. And she didn't know yet where they would land next.