Aria had always believed memory was a gentle thing.
Something that faded slowly, like chalk on a board after rain.
Lately, it felt sharper.
She sat by the window in her dorm room, notebook open on her lap. Outside, students laughed as they crossed the courtyard, living inside a timeline that felt perfectly intact.
She envied them.
Her pen hovered above the page.
She didn't remember deciding to write — only realizing she already had.
Some moments don't belong to this version of the world.
Aria frowned.
She flipped back a few pages.
Dates repeated.
Events overlapped.
Small details contradicted each other — conversations she knew she'd had, but couldn't place in time.
Her chest tightened.
She pressed her hand to her head, trying to force the memories into order. Instead, something surfaced uninvited.
Luca standing on the track — frustrated.
Marc arguing quietly in the hallway.
Hana crying somewhere Aria had never physically been.
Aria inhaled sharply.
"I shouldn't know this," she whispered.
There was no pain. No distortion.
Just awareness.
Later that day, she found Marc sitting on the dorm steps, elbows on his knees, staring at nothing.
"You look tired," Aria said.
Marc glanced up. "You ever feel like you're carrying weight nobody else can see?"
Aria sat beside him. "Every day."
Marc laughed quietly. "Figures."
They sat in silence.
Then Aria spoke, carefully. "Marc… do you ever feel like some days repeat emotionally? Even if the events don't?"
Marc's jaw tightened — just for a second.
"Why do you ask?"
Aria met his eyes. "Because sometimes I feel like I'm remembering consequences, not causes."
Marc looked away.
"That's… a weird way to put it."
"I know." She smiled faintly. "I don't understand it either."
But Marc did.
And that scared him more than the loops ever had.
That night, Aria dreamed.
Not of the past — but of absence.
A version of the world without her in it.
She woke with tears on her face and no memory of why.