Prologue: Here Comes the Sun

I move my piece forward.

Lucian doesn't react right away. He's too busy chewing, staring at the board with the same lazy, half-bored expression he always has when we do this. His instant noodles sit half-finished beside him, the broth soaking into the cardboard cup.

"Your turn," I remind him.

He finally exhales through his nose, setting his chopsticks down as he slides a piece into place. A predictable move. I see through it immediately.

Outside, a car alarm goes off.

Once.

Twice.

Then it cuts out.

I barely register it. Just another sound in the background of a late-night game.

Lucian leans back in his chair, stretching, like he already knows he's going to win. "Tomorrow's gonna suck."

"Why?" I don't look up from the board. I'm already setting up my counterplay.

"We promised to meet up with X, remember?" He groans. "And if we're even a second late, you already know—"

The light flickers.

Just once. Barely a second.

Lucian doesn't react.

I do.

I pause, watching the bulb above us, waiting for it to do something else.

Nothing.

I let out a slow breath through my nose and refocus on the game.

Lucian makes his next move, rolling his shoulders. "We'll meet up, get food, hang out, and then you'll run home early to avoid human interaction."

"Obviously."

He smirks.

And then, in one smooth motion, he moves his final piece into place.

"Checkmate."

I stare at the board.

Not in frustration.

Not even in disbelief.

Just… confusion.

That shouldn't have happened.

Lucian wins plenty of times, sure. But not this fast. Not against me.

I should have seen it coming.

I always see it coming.

My head suddenly feels heavy. Not tired—just… off.

I exhale, rubbing my temple, pushing the thought away.

The clock ticks forward.

Lucian smirks, pushing his chair back. "Finally. Took me long enough to beat you today."

I don't correct him.

I don't say that something feels wrong.

That the game wasn't just off—it felt like it had already been played before.

Instead, I just nod, letting him have his win.

Everything is normal.

Nothing is wrong.

Lucian stretches and pulls out his phone.

"Oh, crap. X texted us like ten times."

I pull out mine and see the same thing.

"They always text you first," Lucian grumbles.

"Because you never answer."

"Fair point."

I opened the group chat.

[Group Chat: "Three Idiots"]

X: IF YOU TWO DON'T CONFIRM, I'M PICKING THE WORST PLACE POSSIBLE.

X: AND YOU'RE BOTH PAYING.

Lucian: Chill. We're coming.

X: Took you long enough. You're both useless.

Regulus: Where are we going?

X: You didn't even read my texts, did you?

Lucian: Nope.

Regulus: No.

X: I hate both of you.

X: Fine. We're meeting at noon. That new place near the station.

Lucian: Ugh, fancy food?

X: No, dumbass, it's a ramen shop.

Lucian: Oh, hell yeah.

Regulus: Fine.

X: Be on time.

Lucian: No promises.

X: REG, IF YOU'RE LATE, I'M FIGHTING YOU.

Regulus: I'd win.

X: Bold of you to assume I fight fair.

Lucian: He's got a point.

Regulus: Noted.

X: Good. See you losers tomorrow.

I lock my phone and shove it back in my pocket.

"So. Noon," Lucian says. "Means we don't have to wake up early."

"You never wake up early anyway."

"And you never sleep. I think it balances out."

He stretches, yawning. "Guess I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Don't be late."

"That's your job."

He waves me off as he heads toward the train station. I start walking in the other direction.

The night is quiet.

Too quiet.

I tell myself I'm imagining it.

But as I walk, I swear I hear footsteps behind me.

I stop.

The sound stops too.

I turn.

The street is empty.

I stay there for a second, watching, waiting.

Nothing.

I keep walking.

A few minutes later, I get home. The moment I shut the door, I feel it again—that weird heaviness behind my eyes.

I don't bother turning on the lights. I just drop onto my bed, exhaling.

For just a second, I think I hear something whispering.

I tell myself it's nothing.

I close my eyes.

The clock ticks forward.

The first thing I notice when I wake up is that my phone is dead.

Which is weird, because I swear I charged it before sleeping.

I sit up, rubbing my eyes, then reach for the charger and plug it in. Nothing.

I frown. Maybe the power went out? But the digital clock on my desk is still glowing, the red numbers blinking 7:42 AM.

I stare at it for a second too long. Something about the numbers feels off.

Like they're lagging behind.

I blink, and the feeling passes.

Shaking off the lingering haze, I get up and go through my usual morning routine.

The kitchen is quiet except for the faint hum of the fridge. I pour myself cereal, not bothering to heat up anything else.

When I sit down, I scroll through my phone. It turned back on, but…

The group chat has no messages.

Not even the ones from last night.

I blink. Refresh. Nothing.

Weird. But not impossible. Maybe Lucian or X deleted them. Or maybe my phone's just bugging out.

I set it down and take a bite. The cereal is stale. Great.

Halfway through eating, I realize the clock on the microwave is frozen.

7:42 AM.

I frown. Didn't I wake up at that time?

I glance back at my phone. 7:53 AM.

The numbers don't match.

I stare at both clocks for a while, waiting for one to move.

They don't.

Then, all at once, the microwave clock jumps ahead by ten minutes.

I blink.

A weird, weightless sensation washes over me, like I've just skipped forward in time, but my body hasn't caught up yet.

Déjà vu.

It's stronger than before.

I exhale, rubbing my temple. My mind drifts—somewhere far, far away from this kitchen, this apartment, this moment in time.

Reincarnation.

It's a stupid thought. Something people joke about. A fantasy trope. A comforting lie for people afraid of the unknown.

But if I did reincarnate, I think I'd want to come back different.

Maybe as a girl.

Not for any deep reason. Just… a passing thought. A curiosity.

Would it change anything? Would I feel any different? Would life be easier, or harder, or exactly the same?

Would I still feel like me?

I shake my head, forcing the thought away. It's just one of those random things that pop up when you're half-awake and running on autopilot.

I grab my phone again.

The screen is black.

Battery dead. Again.

I exhale through my nose, shove it in my pocket, and finish my cereal.

By the time I leave the apartment, the sky looks… off.

I can't explain it.

The color is the same—dull gray, the usual—but the clouds aren't moving.

I stop at the curb, hands in my pockets, and squint up at them.

Maybe they are moving, just really slowly? Or maybe I'm still half-asleep.

I blink. No change.

Weird.

I exhale through my nose and check my phone. Battery: 1%.

I frown. I just charged it.

I unlock the screen, but before I can check anything, it dies again.

Great.

I shove it back in my pocket and glance at the street. People are walking like normal, heads down, lost in their own worlds. A man in a suit power-walks past me, phone pressed to his ear, muttering about a deadline.

Nothing weird.

I tell myself to stop overthinking.

Then I see it.

A man walking on the opposite sidewalk—fast, like he's in a hurry.

Except—

He flickers.

Just for a second.

Like a bad frame in a video.

I freeze.

My brain takes a second too long to process what I just saw.

I glance around, expecting someone else to notice. But no one reacts. The world moves on like nothing happened.

I look back at the man.

He's already halfway down the block, walking like nothing's wrong.

I swallow. My hands feel cold.

Maybe I imagined it.

I stand there for a moment longer, watching the clouds again. Still unmoving.

I should feel something about this.

Fear. Confusion. Alarm.

Instead, I just feel tired.

I shake my head and decided to walk to the station.

Not because I like walking. I don't.

But the idea of being crammed onto a train with strangers breathing down my neck sounds worse.

The air is cold but not freezing, and the streets are mostly empty. Mornings always feel different than nights—less suffocating, but still too loud in some ways.

I pull out my phone to check the time. Still dead.

Weird.

I know for a fact I plugged it in before sleeping. I even checked it when I woke up—still at 7:42 AM.

I shove it back in my pocket and keep walking.

A few streets later, I stop at a crosswalk and glance at the traffic lights.

They aren't changing.

Red.

Still red.

I glance at the cars waiting at the intersection.

No one is moving.

Then—

The light jumps straight to green.

The cars go.

I blink.

Okay. Weird.

I shake my head and cross, putting it aside.

It's probably just my imagination.

Then I see another one. This time a woman.

She was standing at the other end of the crosswalk.

She isn't looking at me. She isn't really looking at anything.

She's frozen.

I slow my steps.

She's not moving. Not blinking.

Just… standing there.

The people around her keep walking like nothing's wrong.

Then—

She glitches.

Flickers, like an image failing to load.

I stop walking.

She jolts suddenly, as if something yanked her forward. Then her movements catch up all at once—she keeps walking like nothing happened.

The second she passes me, my head throbs.

A single word echoes in my skull.

"Remember."

I turn, but she's already gone.

I stand there for a second longer, pulse pounding.

Then I shake my head.

Keep moving.

Lucian is already waiting outside the station, leaning against a railing, scrolling his phone with his usual bored expression.

The second he sees me, he raises an eyebrow.

"You look like you saw a ghost."

I considered telling him. The woman. The glitch.

Instead, I say, "My microwave glitched."

Lucian stares at me for a second, then shrugs. "Cool. So, ramen?"

I roll my eyes.

We start walking.

For a few seconds, neither of us says anything. Just the usual morning silence.

Then Lucian stretches, exhaling loudly. "Man, something about today is off."

I glance at him. Finally, someone else noticed.

"How?"

"I dunno," he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Just feels weird. My walk here felt way longer than usual."

"Longer?"

"Yeah. Like… I swear I was walking for twice as long, but I don't remember passing half the usual stuff."

That makes me pause.

"I had something weird happen too," I say.

"Oh?"

"Phone died overnight."

Lucian frowns. "Okay, and?"

"It was plugged in. It should've been charging."

He blinks. "Huh. That's annoying."

"Not just that. When I turned it back on, our group chat was wiped. Like, the messages from last night were gone."

Lucian stops walking. "Wait, seriously?"

I nod.

He pulls out his phone and checks. A second later, he frowns. "Huh. That's… actually weird."

I watch as he taps around, scrolling through our messages.

"You got anything?" I ask.

"No. Just the old ones from last week. Nothing from yesterday."

Neither of us says anything for a second.

Lucian shakes his head. "Probably just X messing with us."

"Maybe."

"Or maybe your cursed microwave wiped your phone too."

"Shut up."

He laughs.

I don't.

Because the more I think about it, the more these little things aren't adding up.

The microwave glitch.

The frozen clock.

The missing messages.

The traffic lights not changing.

Lucian's walk feeling longer than it should've.

The man and woman who glitched.

I could write off one or two.

But all of them together?

I try to piece something together—some logical explanation. But I keep running into a wall.

Lucian doesn't seem bothered anymore.

So maybe it's just me.

Maybe I'm overthinking it.

I push it aside.

We keep walking.

By the time we get to the station, the usual morning crowd is already thinning out.

It's not completely empty—there are still commuters, workers, and students moving around—but something feels… off.

The sounds are all there. The hum of conversation. Footsteps. A train pulling into the platform.

But it's hollow.

Like someone took the real thing and played a recording of it instead.

Lucian doesn't seem to notice. He stretches, yawning. "Alright, where's X?"

I glance around.

There.

X is standing near one of the pillars, arms crossed, scrolling his phone. He's dressed casual as usual—hoodie, sneakers, always looking like he just rolled out of bed. His dark hair is messy, like he didn't even try this morning.

When he looks up and spots us, he scowls.

"You're late."

I check my phone—which finally turned on halfway through our walk—and frown. 11:52 AM.

"No, we're literally—" Lucian starts, but I cut him off.

"Early."

Lucian frowns, checking his phone too.

Eight minutes early. But X is looking at us like we made him wait for hours.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

X rubs his arms, like he's cold. "Something's weird today."

My stomach knots.

"Weird how?" Lucian asks.

"Like… everything. I woke up feeling like I forgot something important. And when I checked my phone, I had no messages. Even the ones from last night were gone."

I glance at Lucian.

He blinks. "Okay, that's freaky. That happened to me too."

"Same," I say.

X exhales sharply. "See? Weird."

For a second, none of us say anything.

The station is quiet.

Too quiet.

Then—

A deep, resonant hum fills the air.

Low at first. Almost imperceptible.

Then it grows.

Louder.

Louder.

Everything around us stops.

The station. The people. The train that just pulled in.

Even the wind.

Then—

The sky above us splits open.

A massive beam of light bursts down from above, blinding, searing, consuming everything in its path.

It strikes the ground directly beneath us.

Time slows.

I see people turning, eyes widening in shock.

I hear someone scream.

Lucian's hand moves, like he's trying to grab me—grab something—before it's too late.

X's mouth opens, as if to say something.

Then—

Everything disappears in white.

The beam of light fades as suddenly as it appeared.

For a split second, the world is silent.

Then—

Screams.

A woman stumbles back, eyes wide. A businessman grips his briefcase tighter, staring at the spot where we stood. Someone fumbles with their phone, hands shaking as they hit record.

A train conductor steps out from the halted train, frowning. He was just looking at us—just saw us standing there.

But now—

There's nothing.

No dust. No heat. No scorch marks.

Just empty space.

His voice wavers. "Where… did they go?"

More people whisper.

"Did they—just disappear?"

"That light—what was that?"

"Someone call the police!"

Phones are already out. Cameras already rolling.

And as the first video uploads, the world begins to wonder where we went.