Rael was late for work again.
The office corridor stretched on forever, lights buzzing overhead. His supervisor's heels clicked behind him, faster and faster, until the sound turned into the tick of a wall clock. The corridor walls blurred into a crowded living room—relatives staring, mouths moving, questions piling up.
"When will you settle down?"
"What are your plans for marriage?"
He opened his mouth to answer and found nothing there. No words. No air.
The room shrank. The voices overlapped. Someone laughed. Someone sighed. The ceiling pressed lower and lower—
—and then everything snapped black.
For a heartbeat he floated in it, weightless.
Then a different ceiling swam into focus above him: white plaster, cracked in a thin line that ran from the light fixture to the corner. A familiar ceiling. The faint smell of detergent and old wood. Soft snores from nearby.
Rael woke up, not breathing.
Memories rushed in like cold water.
The office corridor. The neighbours. His mother's tired face, older than he wanted to remember. Years of drifting, saying "it's fine" while nothing changed, then suddenly a kid blurred memories of people around then growing up in an orphanage, caretakers, other kids, big brothers and sisters.
He turned his head slowly.
Three rows of bunk beds, squeezed into a long, narrow room. A high window leaking in thin moonlight. Shadows of other boys, curled under thin blankets. The metal trunk at the foot of his bed. A dented plastic bottle on top of it.
Dawnrise Home.
The orphanage he'd grown up in on Solvar. The place he had been living in for a decade?
His heart thudded hard enough that he felt it in his throat.
"...no way," he whispered, voice barely a breath.
The sound disappeared into the dark.
He lifted his hands in front of his face. Small. Thin wrists. No calluses from typing all day, nor that constant discomfort in the neck, neither the heaviness on chest due to years of smoking.
He pinched the soft skin of his forearm. Pain bloomed, sharp and real.
He waited for the scene to tear like paper. For the real world to bleed through: his cluttered rented room, his buzzing phone, his unread messages.
Nothing changed.
The boys around him kept breathing in uneven rhythms.
"This is… real?" he mouthed.
His thoughts running on hyperdrive.
Had he died? Was this a dream? A hallucination? Some elaborate, long, vivid nightmare?
He chased for the memory of the end and found only fragments: scrolling through pointless posts, lying on his back staring at the ceiling, that familiar sinking feeling of "just another day passing," a vague heaviness in his limbs.
No crash. No blood. No hospital. Just sleeping and then waking up here.
The more he tried to focus on that last moment, the more it blurred, like a word he'd seen once and couldn't quite recall.
The not‑knowing made his chest tighten again, vaguely realising what happened and yet finding it hardly believable, fearing it to be true and false at same time.
He closed his eyes and took deep breaths again and again and again until his thoughts calmed down somewhat.
In his mind he recalled the image of Teren's blank, sleepy stare then Lian appearing, he recalled sitting on computer systems teaching students for hours daily, he recalled playing with the kids in the orphanage, he recalled always finding excuses to postpone his marriage because he knew he wasn't capable.
His stomach clenched.
He opened his eyes and stared at the cracked ceiling again. The line in the plaster had been there even before, he remembered. As a kid, he'd used to trace it with his eyes until sleep dragged him under. Some nights he imagined it was a road leading out of Dawnrise.
Now it felt more like a seam between lives.
"If it's real," he thought, "it'll still be here in the morning."
And if it wasn't… then he'd wake in his old bed, late for another grey day, and nothing would have changed.
Either way, he was too tired to untangle it now.
He pulled the blanket up to his chin, closed his eyes, and forced himself to follow the rhythm of the boy breathing in the bunk above him. In. Out. In. Out. Muscles unwound, inch by inch. Thoughts slowed, tripping over each other, until the crack in the ceiling blurred and the dark rolled in again.
Sleep took him, thick and heavy.
***
The second time Rael woke, a bell was ringing.
Metal clanged in the corridor, sharp and insistent. A familiar voice shouted, "Up, boys! Don't make me drag you out myself. Sunview doesn't wait for sleepers."
Caretaker Lian.
Rael's eyes flew open.
For one instant, he had that soft, floating moment before memory. The ceiling, the bunks, the smell—just a normal morning.
Then last night's realisation dropped back into place like a stone.
Right. That hadn't been a dream. He really remembered a different life,or may be awakened memories of his previous life like in those novels he used to read?.
He pushed himself up on his elbows.
Moonlight had been replaced by pale grey dawn. The room was suddenly full of movement: blankets tossed aside, feet thudding to the floor, someone complaining about the bell, someone else laughing. The line of cracked plaster on the ceiling sat innocently where he'd left it.
"Rael, you awake or dead?" a voice asked.
He tilted his head. Teren hung halfway over the top bunk, hair sticking up in messy spikes, grin showing faintly in the dim light.
"I'm up," Rael said a bit absentmindedly
His voice was a pitch higher than the one he'd remembered in his last life, but it fit a child perfectly. It was a strange .
"Then move," Teren said, dropping down with a grunt. "Lian's in a mood."
Rael swung his legs over the side of the bed. His feet hovered for a moment above the cool floor. He felt the familiar drop, this usual thud upon jump, the cold floor under his ankles, for years he's been waking up here.
For a heartbeat, he felt both versions of himself at once: the tired thirty‑something who shuffled to the bathroom in worn slippers, and the ten‑year‑old orphan who just obeyed the bell.
His body chose the older habit. He shivered, rubbed his arms once, then bent to fold his blanket.
Corner to corner. Smooth it with a palm. Stack at the foot of the bed.
The movement came so naturally that he could have done it with his eyes closed. He paused halfway through, fingers digging into the fabric.
Last night, he had lain under this same blanket and realised his life had… reset? Rewound? or perhaps renewed? would explain it better, something impossible. He had then decided to sleep on it, like he did with every difficult choice in his old life.
And here he was a new life, morning bell ringing, now doing the same thing he had always done.
"Rael!"
Lian's voice cut through the dorm. "I want your feet on the floor, not floating."
"They're on the floor," he answered, without looking up.
The words slid out with the ease of instict. So did the small, not‑quite‑cheeky tone. Same as the young Rael line. If he kept talking like this, no one would notice anything.
He finished the blanket, then flipped open the dented trunk at the foot of his bed. Inside: folded Sunview Public uniform, some worn out clothes, a stack of old textbooks, a small towel, . Nothing that belonged to his old life. No worn wallet, no ID badge, no cracked phone.
"What if none of that happened?" a tiny, spiteful thought suggested. "What if this is the only real thing and you just imagined wasting thirty years?"
His chest tightened. He shut the trunk a little too hard.
"Rael?" Miko's head popped around the side of the next bunk.
The younger boy's hair was drooping over his eyes, and his shirt was buttoned in the wrong holes so that one side hung lower than the other.
"You're… really up?" Miko asked.
"Yeah," Rael said. "Your shirt isn't."
He stepped over, fingers moving almost before he decided to. He turned Miko by the shoulders, undid the crooked buttons, re‑fastened them from the bottom up.
Miko watched his hands with the earnest attention only smaller kids had.
"WoW!!!," Miko mumbled.
"It's nothing " Rael said. "Just hurry or Lian will yell at both of us."
That line tasted familiar, too. He'd used it more times than he could count. He wondered, how everything was coming to him so naturally, make him realise that he really lived a decade of New life in this similar yet different world.
"Washroom line!" Lian shouted from the doorway. "Oldest first. Teren, if you push, I will personally put you at the back."
Groans, shuffling, the soft slap of slippers on the floor followed. Rael slid into place in line without thinking: third from the last, in front of Jarel and Teren, behind Miko and other guys.
His mind kept throwing up other images over the scene: a crowded bus, the office lift, his old apartment corridor. All the lines he used to stand in. All the places he'd let himself be carried along.
The bathhroom smelled of damp water, cheap soap, and too many boys. partition lined one wall, taps and basin in them; shower hunched at the back. The cracked mirror at the basins gave back a foggy version of the bathroom.
Rael took his usual spot at the third stand by without needing to look.
He turned the tap. Water spluttered, then ran in a thin stream. He splashed his face and finally forced himself to glance at the mirror.
A ten‑year‑old looked back at him. Dark hair flattened on one side, uniform T‑shirt still on, eyes a little too old for the face they were in. Same nose. Same faint crease between the brows when he frowned.
That's me. Again.
He held his own gaze a second too long. The reflection made the whole "maybe I'm dreaming" argument much harder to cling to.
He looked away first. Toothbrush. Paste. Foam. The small, simple rituals he could still control.
from the stand beside his came Jarel complai loudly, "Cold again. Nyla promised she'd talk to Corv about the heater"
"She says that every week," Teren replied. "Why would Corv waste money on warm water for us? We're lucky it's not ice."
"Ice would be better," Jarel said. "Then we could skip washing."
Rael let their voices wash over him. In his old life, mornings had been filled with different noise: traffic, TV, news hosts shouting about elections and scandals. It had always felt like the world was on fire somewhere far away, while he stood in his doorway, too tired to care.
Here, the biggest morning problem was cold water.
He wasn't sure if that made this life harder or easier.
"Rael, you're done, right?"A while later as he finished bathing Jarel called from the outside . "come out quickly, or i will freeze out here"
"Done," Rael said, stepping outside.
Back in the dorm, uniforms replaced pyjamas in a messy wave. Rael pulled on his Sunview shirt and trousers. The cloth scratched slightly at the seams. He remembered hating that, too, the first time around.
He folded his sleep clothes before dropping them into the trunk. This time, the corners lined up a little cleaner than usual, an old adult habit slipping through his ten‑year‑old fingers.
"Whoa," Teren said, watching. "Planning to impress Lian ? share with me if he gives something good ,kay"
"Nah,just she won't yell this way," Rael said.
"Ha. She'll just find new things to yell about."
Maybe. But lining the cloth up precisely made something in his chest loosen. In his old rented room, the bed had been the one corner that stayed in his control when everything else spun.
Funny how that had followed him even here.
The bell rang again from downstairs. "Breakfast!" Lian called. "If you're late, Nyla keeps you for dishes."
"Run," Jarel announced, herding two smaller boys ahead like a proud general.
The dining hall was a long room with plastic tables bolted to the floor. Big steel pots steamed at the front. Vira and Nyla stood behind them, ladles moving in a practised rhythm. Lian stayed closer to the boys, keeping the line from dissolving into a swarm.
Rael joined the queue behind Teren. Lines were easy. You didn't have to choose much; you just followed.
Nyla handed him a plate with a brief nod: flatbread, lentil stew, a tin cup of milk. Her eyes lingered on his face for a heartbeat.
"You look a bit pale," she said. "are you feeling any cold?"
"No,Mrs. Nyla" Rael said.
"Eat, then," Nyla said briskly. "Don't give your teacher an excuse to send you back here."
He found a place on a bench. Teren flopped down on one side. Miko squeezed in on the other, nearly spilling his milk. Across from them, Jarel and two younger boys argued over who would win in a fight: a holo‑drama hero or their sector's local sports star.
The stew tasted exactly like it always had—mild, a little grainy, filling without being memorable. Rael chewed, swallowed, listened.
His mind wandered back, uninvited, to his previous life's breakfasts: sometimes rushed street food, sometimes instant noodles, sometimes just coffee strong enough to hide the hunger. Occasional festival feasts where relatives compared salaries over sweets.
None of those tables would ever see him again.
The thought felt distant, like remembering a book he'd read once. No sharp grief. Just a hollow space.
"Rael?" a voice came from behind.
He turned. Lian stood there, arms folded loosely, eyebrows raised.
"You're more quiet than usual," she said. "And that's saying something."
"I'm just tired," Rael said.
"something worng?"
He thought of the corridor, the walls pressing in, the blank at the end.
"woke up last night" he admitted.
Lian's expression softened. "Hmm...bad dream? ...No more scary stories before bed. Tell Teren I'll confiscate the CDs if he keeps showing you those ghosh videos."
"I will," Rael said.
It was easier to let her be wrong than to try to explain something even he didn't understand.
"Eat up," she said, giving his shoulder a brief squeeze. "Don't fall asleep in class."
She moved on to lecture Jarel about talking with his mouth full.
Rael watched her go and felt a small, absurd relief. Being misread was familiar. Comfortable, even. It meant no one was looking too closely.
Breakfast ended in a clatter of plates. The older boys carried stacks to the washing area. Nyla rattled off reminders: keep track of school IDs, no wandering off after class, stay with your group on the way back.
In the yard, children sorted into lines. Sunview Public students here. Kindergarten group there. The youngest clung to Vira's hands. Sela moved along the older line, poking shoulders back into place, her sharp tongue keeping the row mostly straight.
"Back straight, not noodles," she said. "You'll get bent enough sitting in class."
Warden Corv watched from the doorway, hands clasped behind his back, gaze counting heads. His presence sat like a frame around a picture—solid and strict.
"Lines straight," he said. "Teachers have enough work without you making trouble."
"Yes, Warden," the chorus rose.
Rael's mouth formed the words with everyone else's. Corv's eyes passed over him without pause. Just another boy in the group.
The gates opened. Sunview Sector's morning spilled in: scooters buzzing, distant vendors calling prices. Digital signboards flickered on building walls, some half‑working, colours washed out in the early light.
"New game dropped on Loop yesterday," Teren said as they walked towards the school two streets away "They say the graphics are so good you forget real life."
"As if you have a system to play, you can't play during computer class " Jarel snorted.
Miko trotted along close to Rael's side, hugging his bag strap. "Do you think Teacher Mirra will check homework today?" he whispered.
"She always checks it everyday," Rael said automatically.
Miko groaned. "I know...ugh..."
The words had come out of his mouth before he'd thought about them. Of course he knew Mirra's habits; he'd sat through her classes so many times already.
Around them, the city stretched wider than Dawnrise's little bubble. Taller buildings. Holo‑ads over shop fronts. A strip of sky that looked bluer than he remembered from his old world, though that might just have been memory being a bit blurred.
New world, he reminded himself. Different rules. Different chances.
His feet still found the same place in the line. His mouth still gave the same safe answers. His shoulders stayed at the same careful, unremarkable height.
"The world changed," he thought, watching a garbage van skim past. "I didn't."
The realisation sat in his chest like a pebble. Not sharp enough to hurt badly, just heavy enough to notice.
He let it sit.
Sunview Public School appeared as they turned the last corner: low buildings, faded paint, a courtyard that turned dusty in dry weather and muddy in rain. The flagpole leaned, as always, a little to one side.
The guard at the gate waved them through with a bored glance.
"Another glorious day," Teren sighed.
"Don't jinx it," Jarel said.
Rael stepped over the threshold with them, shoes grinding grit into the schoolyard. For a second, he had the strangest urge to stop and look back at the road, at Dawnrise waiting somewhere beyond the curve.
Then the line moved, and his feet followed, like they always had.
Second chances, wasted lives, unknown deaths—those were problems for some future version of him. Right now, he had a uniform that itched, a homework sheet half‑finished in his bag, and a homeroom teacher who hated late arrivals.
"For now," he decided, "just get through today without doing anything weird."
It wasn't much of a plan.
But for Rael, on his first morning back in a new life , it was all he could manage.