The days after the dream felt… wrong.
At first, Elias thought it was just exhaustion. Too many sleepless nights, too much coffee, and an overworked mind trying to stitch together an unfinished novel. But as the hours stretched into days, an unsettling pattern emerged—one he couldn't ignore.
It started small. He'd reach for his phone before it rang, already knowing who was calling. He'd type a sentence in his manuscript, only to feel as if he'd written it before. Conversations with strangers felt eerily familiar, as if he had lived through them once already.
Déjà vu.
He tried to brush it off. Everyone experiences it, right? A glitch in the brain, a misfiring of memory. But this was different. It wasn't just a vague sense of familiarity—it was certainty.
On the second day, Elias stepped into a grocery store, intending to pick up bread and milk. The moment he entered, he knew exactly where everything was—despite never having been there before. His feet moved on instinct, leading him through the aisles without hesitation.
When he reached the cashier, he muttered the total under his breath a second before the register displayed it. The cashier, a middle-aged woman, blinked at him.
"Been here before?" she asked, scanning his items.
Elias hesitated. "No, first time."
She hummed. "Could've fooled me."
By the third day, it got worse.
Walking past a café, Elias caught the scent of freshly baked bread and was hit with a sudden rush of memories—except they weren't his. The hum of a conversation he couldn't remember having, a table he'd never sat at, a glimpse of a woman laughing softly—her face blurred, just like in his dream.
His hands trembled as he stepped back. He had never been to this café before. And yet… he knew its layout, the color of the walls, the exact placement of the sugar packets on the counter.
He left without stepping inside.
On the fourth day, something changed.
Elias had been working on his novel, typing away at his desk when he realized he was thirsty. He got up, walked to the kitchen, poured himself a glass of water, and returned to his desk.
Only, when he sat down, his glass was already there. Full. Untouched.
His stomach twisted. He looked back toward the kitchen, half expecting to see another version of himself standing there, mid-action. The silence of his apartment felt suffocating.
Did I… ever leave my chair?
His fingers curled around the glass. It was cold. He had just poured it. But the memory of actually doing it felt distant, as if it had happened hours ago—or not at all.
He placed the glass down, rubbing his temples. He needed rest.
By the fifth day, the déjà vu came in bursts.
He would write a sentence, only to find it already on the page. He would unlock his phone and see messages he didn't remember sending. At one point, he bumped into an old friend on the street—except they weren't old friends.
"You don't remember me, do you?" the man asked, his tone laced with amusement.
Elias forced a smile. "Of course I do."
The man clapped his shoulder. "Good. We had a hell of a night last time."
Elias laughed weakly, pretending he knew what that meant.
The sixth day blurred. He stopped trying to rationalize it.
And then, on the seventh day, it happened again.
The dream.
The same endless field. The same faceless woman.
But this time, her voice—though still fractured and distorted—was clearer.
"You… must listen… to what… I—"
Static filled the spaces between her words, like a broken transmission. Elias tried to respond, to force words out of his throat, but the same suffocating silence held him in place.
Her voice cracked—some words sharp, others lost in the void. "Time… no longer… safe."
Elias clenched his fists. I need to ask something. Who are you? Why am I seeing this?
But no words came out.
The woman's head tilted slightly, as if she heard him despite the silence. Then, just like before, her form flickered—her features shifting, never settling into a face.
The dream ended as suddenly as before.
Elias shot upright in his chair, heart pounding, throat unbearably dry. His glass of water was empty—had he drank it in his sleep? He couldn't remember.
The déjà vu. The visions. The dreams.
This wasn't coincidence anymore.
Something had changed.
And whether he liked it or not, he was at the center of it.
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