——When the Past Returns as a Whisper
The study felt heavier than before, as if the very air had thickened with unseen currents.
Shawn sat frozen, his grandfather's words pressing down on him like an invisible weight.
"Lucy was… remarkable. "
Sandy exhaled slowly, his gaze distant, as if peering through layers of time itself.
"And dangerous, in the eyes of some."
He leaned back, fingers tracing the rim of his untouched teacup.
"She wasn't supposed to exist. Not in the way she did."
Shawn frowned. "What do you mean?"
His grandfather didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he reached for the book in Shawn's lap—the one about the I Ching's origins.
He flipped it open, carefully turning the delicate pages.
Then, he stopped at a particular passage and turned the book toward Shawn.
Shawn read:
"When the unseen is glimpsed, the loop shifts. That which was lost begins again. The Observer must awaken."
A chill ran down his spine. "What does this have to do with Lucy?"
Sandy tapped the passage lightly.
"She believed this wasn't just philosophy. "
"She believed it was real. "
"That somewhere in the patterns of history, in the flow of change, there were… echoes. And some people could hear them."
Shawn swallowed hard. "And she was one of them?"
Sandy's eyes darkened. "She was the first I ever met."
---
Eighteen Years Ago
The memory flickered to life in Sandy's mind, vivid as if it had happened yesterday.
He had been a young researcher at the Meta Origin Society (M.O.S.), an independent think tank dedicated to decoding the intersections between ancient metaphysics and modern science.
That was where he met her.
Lucy.
She had arrived one evening, unannounced, requesting an audience with the senior scholars. Most visitors brought academic credentials or letters of recommendation.
Lucy brought something else.
A symbol.
Not just any symbol—the same one Shawn had found on the slip of paper, hidden in his grandfather's books.
At first, the researchers dismissed her as an eccentric, but Lucy had been patient. And then, she had done something that none of them could ignore.
She had predicted an event before it happened.
A fire.
A week after her arrival, one of the archive rooms at M.O.S. mysteriously caught fire, destroying sensitive documents. But Lucy had known. She had told them in advance.
That was when they started listening.
Sandy had watched from the sidelines as the senior members of M.O.S. interrogated her. Where had she learned these things? How had she known?
She only ever gave them the same answer:
"Because I remember."
---
Sandy paused, rubbing his temples as the weight of the past settled upon him. "You have to understand, Shawn. What she said… it wasn't possible."
Shawn's hands clenched into fists. "What do you mean?"
"She spoke about events before they happened. Not just once. Repeatedly." Sandy hesitated. "And she claimed she had lived two lives."
Shawn inhaled sharply.
"She said she had existed in another version of reality—a timeline where she had already walked this path before."
"That's…" Shawn struggled to find the words.
"Crazy?" Sandy finished for him. He nodded. "Yes. That's what most of M.O.S. thought too."
"But you didn't."
His grandfather smiled faintly. "No. I didn't."
"Why?"
Sandy leaned forward, his voice lower now. "Because I felt it, too. The sense of something unfinished. The weight of unseen choices. And… because Lucy knew things about me she shouldn't have known."
Shawn's heartbeat quickened. "Like what?"
Sandy's eyes locked onto his.
"Like the exact words my grandfather whispered to me on his deathbed. Words I never shared with anyone."
Shawn's skin prickled with cold.
Lucy had known.
---
Over time, Sandy and Lucy had grown close. He had seen firsthand that she wasn't lying—she was reliving something. But the more she remembered, the more restless she became.
Then, one night, she came to him with a warning.
"The cycle is breaking."
He had never seen her so excited.
"Something is different this time," she told him. "I don't know why. But I won't live past this cycle."
Sandy had refused to believe her. He had wanted to believe she was wrong.
But then, on April 24, 2013, she vanished.
Without a trace.
Shawn stiffened.
"April 24?"
Sandy nodded grimly. "Your birthday."
The room seemed to contract around them. The ticking of the clock on the wall grew louder, like an unseen presence was marking time itself.
The coincidence was too perfect. Too deliberate.
Shawn's chest tightened. Was it really a coincidence? Or had Lucy known this would happen? Had she chosen to disappear on that exact day?
The realization sent a shudder through him.
A few weeks after her disappearance, Sandy had received a single slip of paper.
A poem.
The same poem that now rested in Shawn's hands.
---
Sandy finished his story and looked at his grandson. "She left this message for you, Shawn. Not me."
Shawn swallowed. "But… why?"
"I don't know." His grandfather exhaled. "But I do know this—Lucy believed you would come to this moment. She said the next Observer would be born under a broken cycle.That you would need to know."
Shawn looked down at the poem again. The words blurred as a new thought gripped him.
If Lucy had truly seen the future…
Then she had known they would have this conversation.
And she had left something behind for him to find.
The answer was waiting.
---
Shawn lifted his gaze, determination hardening in his chest.
"What if she's still out there?"
Sandy's breath caught.
Shawn's mind raced. If Lucy had truly understood the cycles of time, if she had disappeared instead of simply dying—then maybe she wasn't gone.
Maybe she was waiting.
The thought sent a surge of electricity through his veins.
"I need to know more," he said. "Everything she knew. Everything she left behind."
Sandy studied him for a long moment, then nodded slowly.
"There is one more thing."
Shawn's pulse pounded as his grandfather reached for something hidden beneath the desk drawer.
A worn, leather-bound journal.
Lucy's journal.