The alarm Rang at 6:57 — the same sound, the same light, the same stillness hanging over the
room, Arin couldn't tell if he had woken up or if the dream had simply changed its shape.
The sun slipped through the curtains, tracing faint lines across the dust on his desk — over the
same unfinished book, the same open page titled "Paradox of Time". For a moment, he felt
something stir inside him — a heartbeat he swore he'd already heard. But he shook all this like
always done and went on the morning the never really began.
The air was crisp, not cold, just new — like the world had been rinsed clean overnight. A few
birds chirped. Outside, the city is yawned. Inside, he boiled water for coffee he wouldn't drink.
He like the sound of it more than the taste. The hiss, the steam — it reminds him of something.
A hospital room, maybe. Or a dream. He wasn't sure about anymore.
Arin stepped out into the street, the world already half awake. The city stretched and yawned
beneath the morning haze — busses growled, footstep echoed, and for a brief second,
everything seemed to move in perfect synchronization, like a memory repeating itself.
He walked toward the college, passing the same cracked wall, the same stray dog sleeping
beneath it. Every morning felt like a scene rehearsed too many times. He wondered if he was the
only one who noticed the patterns, the invisible rhythm looping through the days.
His mind drifted, as always, to impossible thoughts:
What if I could change something?
What if I could rewrite a single moment?
He remembered his parents' accident — how helpless he was, how time refused to stop for his
screams. Maybe that's why he had started reading about time travel — articles, theories,
paradoxes. Anything that made him believe that the past wasn't permanent. That maybe, if you
loved enough, you could bend the universe to your will.
And then he saw her
Elara.
Red scarf. Headphones. That same slow, graceful pace, like she existed half a step outside of
time.
She was walking just ahead of him, sunlight glinting off her hair. For a second, the world grew
unbearably still — as if every sound had been drawn out of the air.
He didn't call her name. He never did. She never saw him, and maybe that was okay. To him, she
was already beyond reach — a living memory, an echo that time refused to fade.
But today felt heavier. Every step she took toward the crossing made his chest tighten. The
traffic light blinked red. Somewhere far away, a horn blared.
Then it happened.
The truck came faster than sound — a blur of metal and panic. Arin didn't think. His body
moved before his mind caught up. He ran — heart pounding, feet burning against the pavement
— his voice breaking through the noise:
"Elara!"
And just as the world shuttered into glass and screams, he felt something strange — a pull, like
falling inward instead of forward.
Light silence. Then the ringing.
The alarm
6:57.
The same sound. The same light. The same stillness pressing against the walls.
Arin gasped for breath.
He was back in bed.