The next morning, I woke before the alarm. The sky outside my window was a heavy, muted gray, the kind that made you feel like the day hadn't fully woken up yet.
But I was awake. Wide awake. Because the dream—no, the memory—was still clinging to me like frost on skin. I had seen something. Or someone. A flash of faces I didn't recognize, streets I'd never walked, voices that weren't mine. And above it all, that same whisper I couldn't understand, a voice just beyond hearing.
I sat up and glanced at the clock.
6:19 AM.
I blinked.
7:04 AM.
The numbers changed. My heart jumped. I hadn't looked away. I hadn't blinked. But time—time had skipped again.
---
By the time I reached school, I felt like I was floating through two worlds at once: one where life moved forward, and one where pieces of reality kept falling away like broken glass.
The others felt it too. I could see it now—their eyes, their subtle confusion. Lina looked tired, her hands shaky. Teachers stumbled over lessons they couldn't quite remember preparing. Even the principal looked dazed during morning assembly, pausing awkwardly mid-sentence as if his mind had dropped through a crack.
But no one said it out loud.
---
At lunch, I cornered Lina in the courtyard. "Tell me the truth," I said quietly. "Do you feel it? The days… the way things are missing?"
She hesitated. Her lips pressed into a thin line. "I… sometimes I feel like I'm losing things," she admitted softly. "Memories. Hours. I thought it was just stress. Or maybe I'm…" She trailed off, too scared to finish.
"You're not crazy," I murmured. "It's happening. To everyone."
Her eyes widened. "How do you know?"
I hesitated, then pulled the two notes from my pocket. The ones left in my room.
Lina's breath caught. "Who—?"
"I don't know," I whispered. "But whoever they are, they know something. And they want me to find out."
---
That night, I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about the dream, the skipped hours, the blank faces. Something was building. I could feel it in my bones.
Around midnight, I heard the knock.
Three soft taps on my window.
I froze. My skin prickled. Slowly, I peeled back the curtain.
No one.
Only the street below, lit by the flicker of the broken streetlight. Empty. Still.
But there—on the glass—were words written in fog, as if traced by a finger from the outside:
"Remember the cracks."
My breath fogged the glass as I whispered to myself, "What cracks?"
And then the world tilted—just for a heartbeat. The window, the room, the night outside—it all shimmered. For a split second, I wasn't in my room at all. I saw… something else. A black sky. A strange cityscape. Shapes I couldn't name. My mind screamed and then—
Darkness.
I woke on the floor.
My clock blinked 3:33 AM.
I didn't remember falling asleep. I didn't remember how I got there.
But I remembered the words:
Remember the cracks.
And I knew, with cold certainty, this wasn't just skipping days anymore. The very fabric of reality—the mirror itself—was starting to break.
---
To be continued...