Chapter 2

Sebastian’s Pov.

If you have ever had a nightmare where a glass skyscraper snaps like a twig beneath your feet, you know the specific, desperate relief of opening your eyes to a quiet bedroom. Your heart hammers against your ribs, your lungs burn for air, and then you see the sunlight on the ceiling and realize none of it was real.

I sat upright in bed, gasping, my fingers clawing at the cotton sheets. My chest ached with the phantom echo of twisted steel and screaming crowds.

It was just a dream, I said to myself, letting my shoulders drop as I forced a slow breath into my lungs. A ridiculous, hyper-vivid nightmare.

And then the horn section started.

It was a loud, overenthusiastic mariachi band playing at top volume right beside my ear.

I froze.

My brain hadn’t even registered the sound before my body reacted. I didn’t look at the nightstand. I didn’t need to. I knew, with an uncanny, instant certainty, precisely what was about to happen next.

A pale, slim arm shot out from under the messy white duvet. Her hand slapped the wood twice, knocked over an empty glass, missed her phone, and finally buried the screen under her palm. Silence returned to the room.

From beneath the mountain of pillows came a heavy, tragic groan.

I didn’t even wait for her to speak. My lips moved of their own accord, whispering the words a fraction of a second before she actually said them:

“I’m dead, Seb. Call my boss.”

“I’m dead, Seb,” Helena muffled directly into the mattress. “Call my boss. Tell them I died doing what I loved: sleeping.”

The breath locked in my throat.

I stared down at the dark mess of hair sticking out from the blanket. A cold prickle of sweat broke out along the back of my neck.

“Did… did you say something else?” I managed to ask, my voice sounding thin and raspy.

Her head popped out from under the duvet, squinting at me with sleepy, dark eyes.

“What? No. What’s wrong with you? You look like you just watched someone drop a toaster in the bathtub.”

“Nothing,” I lied quickly, forcing a stiff, awkward laugh. “Just… insane déjà vu.”

I spent the next twenty minutes telling myself I was losing my mind. Brains are weird. Brain chemistry is unpredictable. Maybe I’d had a micro-dream right as the alarm went off and processed it backward. That made sense. That was scientific.

Except the science fell apart the second we got out of bed.

By nine o’clock, Helena was floating through the hallway in her yellow summer dress, humming that same wildly off-key melody. I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, gripping the edges of the porcelain sink, watching her reflection in the glass.

“Sebastian!” she called out, leaning against the doorframe with her toothbrush in hand. “If you spend another ten minutes admiring your own reflection, I’m leaving without you and”

“taking the neighbor’s dog instead,” I finished for her, turning around to face her before she could hit the punchline. “At least he doesn’t fuss over his collar.”

Helena stopped dead in her tracks. She lowered her toothbrush, her brow furrowing in genuine confusion. “How did you know I was going to say that? I literally just thought of that joke.”

“Lucky guess,” I muttered, trying to smile.

My heart was beating entirely too fast. My palm was so clammy I almost dropped my comb when I picked it up. It wasn’t just that she was saying the same things; it was the rhythm of it. The exact pause between her footsteps, the slight tilt of her head when she looked in the mirror, the tiny smudge of white toothpaste on her left thumb.

“Are we still going to the flower festival?” she asked, grabbing a towel to wipe her face.

“Yeah,” I said slowly, watching her every move. “Yeah, we’re still going.”

I decided to test it. If my brain was just playing tricks on me, all I had to do was break the script.

“Let’s not take the car,” I said as we stepped out of the apartment building. “Let’s walk down Fourth Avenue and get breakfast at that little corner bakery first.”

Helena blinked, surprised. “Oh! Okay, sure. I love their sourdough.”

Satisfied, I took her hand. See? I thought to myself, breathing a sigh of relief. You’re just tired, Seb. You changing the plan proves today is brand new.

We walked two blocks before a bright orange traffic cone blocked the sidewalk. A large municipal utility truck was parked across the entire lane, engines idling loudly, while two workers in hi-vis vests hauled heavy yellow hoses out of a manhole.

“Sorry, folks,” one of the city workers called out, waving a gloved hand. “Gas line check. Sidewalk is closed for the next two hours. You’ll have to double back and take Main Street.”

I stared at the orange cones. Main Street was the exact route we had walked in my “dream.”

“That’s fine!” Helena said brightly, easily turning us around. “Main Street gets us closer to the café anyway.”

Five minutes later, we stood in front of the little corner bakery. The glass front door was locked. A handwritten piece of cardboard hung in the window: Oven broke down! Closed for repairs today.

“Bummer,” Helena sighed, patting her stomach softly.

“Well, there’s always those food stalls at the flower festival! Come on, Seb, the flowers won’t wait for us.”

She pulled me by the wrist, steering us right back onto the exact trajectory I had tried so hard to avoid. A strange, heavy sensation settled in the pit of my stomach. It felt less like a series of random coincidences and more like the universe was a giant piece of bent wire, stubbornly snapping itself back into its original shape no matter how hard I tried to twist it.

By the time we reached the botanical park, the sun was warm and the sweet scent of hyacinths hung heavy in the air.

Families strolled past us. Street musicians plucked acoustic guitars under the shade of massive oak trees. Everything was vibrant, beautiful, and utterly terrifying.

Because I knew what was coming.

“Seb, look at these purple tulips!” Helena gasped, leaning over a flower bed.

I didn’t look at the tulips. I turned my head toward the central plaza, my eyes scanning the stone fountain.

And there he was.

A small boy, no older than five or six, wearing a bright blue jacket. He was running down the cobblestone path, clutching a crumpled paper bouquet of pink carnations and yellow daisies, his eyes fixed on a nearby ice cream cart.

My throat went completely dry.

“Don’t run,” I whispered, taking a step forward.

The kid caught his foot on the uneven cobblestone. He tumbled forward, landing hard on his hands and knees. The bouquet flew from his grip, splashing squarely into a muddy puddle left behind by the sprinklers.

Before I could move, Helena was already kneeling beside him in the dirt.

“Hey there, tiny human,” she said, her voice dropping into that soft, comforting tone. “Whoa, that was a top-tier stunt fall.”

I stood frozen on the path, watching the scene play out down to the exact millisecond. The way she wiped the stems on her yellow dress. The way she pulled the crisp twenty-dollar bill from her bag. The way the boy high-fived her and ran toward his grandmother.

It was a perfect, carbon-copy replay.

When Helena walked back over to me, wiping a smudge of dirt from her knee, she caught me staring at her.

“You’re doing it again,” she said, folding her arms. “Looking at me like I’ve grown another head.”

“Helena,” I interrupted, my voice sharp enough to make her flinch. I grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her a few inches closer. “Do you remember yesterday?”

She laughed, though her eyes darted over my face with sudden concern. “Yesterday? What are you talking about? You were trapped at the office until eight, and I worked a double shift at the clinic. We barely had time to say goodnight.”

“No,” I insisted, my fingers tightening on her arms. “Here. This. The flowers. The boy. We were here yesterday. We did all of this yesterday.”

Helena stared at me. There was no secret spark of recognition in her eyes, no playful smirk hinting at a joke. She looked genuinely, deeply confused…….and a little worried for me.

“Seb, sweetie… we haven’t been to this festival in two years,” she said softly, reaching up to lay a hand against my cheek. “Are you feeling okay? Did you sleep terribly last night?”

I looked into her eyes and realized the absolute, terrifying truth: she didn’t remember. Whatever was happening to the day, whatever glitch in reality was forcing this morning to repeat itself, it was only happening to me.

I stopped trying to change things. I just watched.

It was like being the only conscious actor on a stage where everyone else was blindly following a script.

A street violinist ten yards away lifted his bow and began playing Canon in D.

Three, two, one…I counted in my head.

Clatter! A vendor dropped a tray of warm pretzel buns on the brick path.

A black Labrador on a leather leash suddenly bolted forward, lunging at a floating red balloon. Pop!

I stood in the middle of the crowded walkway, watching a couple walk past me in slow motion. I opened my mouth and quietly mouthed the words right along with the man as he spoke to his wife:

“…and I told her, if she wants to bring her mother on the trip, she can pay for the flight herself…”

Word for word. Syllable for syllable.

Cold sweat soaked through the back of my shirt. A quiet, suffocating panic began to wrap its fingers around my chest. I wasn’t having déjà vu. I wasn’t losing my mind.

I was stuck.

“Look!” Helena exclaimed, catching my hand and pointing toward the center of the park.

Rising above the trees was the modern observation tower, its dark steel frame and massive glass panels gleaming sharply under the afternoon sun.

“We have to go up there!” she smiled, pulling my wrist.

“No.” The word shot out of my mouth before she could even finish her sentence.

She stopped, blinking at me in surprise. “What? Why not?”

“I don’t want to go up there, Helena. Let’s just stay on the ground. We can look at the rose garden.”

“Since when are you afraid of heights?” She laughed, thinking I was joking, and tugged on my arm again. “Come on, Seb! Look at the line, it’s super short right now. It’ll take five minutes!”

I stared at the towering glass spindle, my pulse thumping wildly in my ears. I couldn’t tell her the truth. I couldn’t tell her, because in twenty minutes, the structural cables are going to snap and the whole room is going to collapse. She would think I was having a mental breakdown.

“Helena, please”

“Five minutes, grumpy,” she teased, lacing her fingers through mine and pulling me into the queue before I could stop her. “I promise I won’t let you fall.”

The glass elevator rose smoothly into the sky.

The world below expanded into a breathtaking tapestry of colors. Everyone else in the elevator was oohing and aahing, pressing their faces near the glass, taking photos with their phones.

Helena was completely captivated, her hands pressed against the pane. “Seb, look at the rose garden from here! It’s shaped like a heart!”

I didn’t look at the roses. I stood right behind her, my hands hovering over her waist, my heart beating so hard it rattled my ribs.

I turned my wrist, looking at my watch.

The second hand ticked forward.

12:59 PM.

I didn’t look at the scenery. I didn’t breathe in her shampoo. I just counted the seconds in my head, watching the sweep of the red hand.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven…

“Seb, look at that light fog rolling in!” Helena laughed, pointing toward the distant horizon.

Three.

Two.

One.

Before the metallic snap even sounded, I lunged forward. I threw my arms around Helena’s waist, tackled her backward away from the glass perimeter, and slammed us both down onto the polished floor, covering her body with mine.

“Seb!” she shrieked in confusion.

A fraction of a second later, a violent, deafening sound tore through the air.

The floor dropped violently beneath us. The glass walls shuddered. The overhead lights hummed loudly and died, plunging the observation deck into utter darkness as blood-curdling screams filled the room.

Dust and loose metal rattled around us. Safe beneath my body, Helena looked up at me in the dark, her chest heaving, her dark eyes wide with complete, paralyzing shock.

“How…” she choked out, her voice trembling violently against my neck. “How did you know?”

I lay there in the dark, holding her as tightly as I could, unable to answer her.

Because I didn’t know how to tell her that we were going to wake up and do it all over again.