Chapter 14: The Girl Who Wasn’t in the Yearbook

The day moved like syrup—slow, thick, and clinging to Hale in places he couldn't shake off. Every second dragged, yet everything felt... displaced. People laughed too loud. The announcements echoed too long. Even the clock hands seemed unsure of their direction, like they were miming time rather than keeping it.

By lunch, Hale didn't feel hungry. Just hollow.

Barney sat at the usual table, launching crumpled napkins into a juice box like he was going for a slam dunk. Back to his usual self. A snide joke here. A jab at the cafeteria meat there. But even Barney felt... off, like someone wearing a perfect mask of himself.

"Dude," Barney leaned in, "you looked like a corpse this morning."

Hale didn't answer. Just stared.

Barney's grin crept wider. Then, quietly, as if it were a secret meant only for Hale:

"Anyway, this'll all reset at 3:12 tonight, right?"

Hale's blood iced over.

"What?" he said.

Barney blinked. "Kidding. Chill. Too dark?"

But Hale couldn't laugh. Couldn't even breathe.

For just a moment, Barney's grin slipped—something uncertain flickering beneath the surface—before he turned to harass someone about their sandwich like nothing happened at all.

Sixth period. Art.

Hale walked in like a ghost. Sleep had become a distant rumor. His dreams were too loud. Reality, too quiet. His body moved on autopilot.

Ivy was already there. Same seat. Same distant stare. Her pencil moved like it had somewhere urgent to go.

He glanced at her drawing.

His heart skipped.

It was the shape. His shape. The one beneath his shirt, etched into his skin like it had been burned there by something not of this world.

"You copied that from somewhere?" he asked, throat dry.

Ivy didn't look up. "No. Just something I keep seeing."

That sentence shouldn't have scared him. But it did.

He stared longer. The pencil strokes were too familiar—same angles, same eerie symmetry. Like they were speaking a language he wasn't supposed to understand.

The air felt colder around her.

Later, in the hallway, Hale dug through his bag for his phone.

His fingers brushed paper. Crumpled.

He pulled it out.

A sketch.

The same pattern. The mark. Only more complete now—refined lines, darker shadows, intentional cross-hatching like blueprints for something real.

At the bottom:

H. Hale

Date: Tomorrow.

He hadn't drawn this. He would remember. Wouldn't he?

His name felt foreign. Like it didn't belong to him anymore.

He didn't go to last period.

Instead, he drifted like smoke through the back hallways. Past forgotten classrooms, trophy cases full of dust, and lockers with gouges in the metal like claws had scraped them.

He stopped outside the old auditorium.

There, along the wall, was a display of yearbook photos. Framed. Faded. Smiling faces locked in time.

Senior classes. 1995. 1994. 1993…

He didn't know why he was looking. Maybe to ground himself. Maybe to prove that something—anything—still made sense.

Then he saw it.

A face.

Ivy.

Frozen in black and white. Same pale stare. Same faint frown. Her eyes locked on the camera like she knew exactly what it was doing.

The photo was labeled:

Class of '89.

Hale's breath stopped.

Because that wasn't just strange.

That was impossible.

It was 1996.