I am crying.
That realization comes slowly, filtered through sensation rather than thought. My chest convulses. My throat burns. Warm liquid streaks down my face and drips onto something soft beneath me.
A pillow.
A bed.
A room.
For the first time since this began, I am human again.
My vision clears in fragments.
A dimly lit bedroom. Pale blue walls. A ceiling fan spinning unevenly, clicking once every rotation. The smell of detergent and dust. Familiar. Painfully familiar.
This is my room.
Not exactly as I remember it—but close enough that my chest tightens.
I try to sit up.
My body lets me.
No resistance. No conceptual friction. No pressure from time or probability.
Just muscles. Bones. Gravity.
I clutch my head with both hands and sob, the sound ripping out of me without permission.
Because I remember now.
Not everything.
But enough.
Someone is sitting on the edge of the bed.
A woman.
Her shoulders are shaking.
She's crying too.
"You scared me," she whispers.
"You scared me so much."
My mother.
The word forms automatically, with an ache that feels older than memory.
I look at her.
Really look.
Her hair is tied back loosely, strands slipping free. Dark circles sit under her eyes, deeper than they should be. She looks exhausted—like someone who hasn't slept properly in weeks.
Because of me.
"You were screaming," she says, wiping her face.
"You wouldn't wake up. I thought—"
She stops herself.
I know what she was going to say.
I thought you were dead.
The irony almost breaks me.
I try to speak.
My mouth opens.
Nothing comes out.
My throat locks, flooded with too many incompatible thoughts—Glass pressure, swarm logic, dead timelines.
I force myself to focus.
Human rules.
Air in.
Air out.
"I'm… okay," I manage.
The lie tastes wrong.
But she nods desperately, clinging to it.
"You've been having these episodes more often," she says quietly.
"The doctor said stress can do strange things, but—"
She trails off, fear leaking through her careful tone.
Episodes.
That's what this world calls it.
Memory trickles back in pieces.
A hospital room.
White walls.
A monitor beeping steadily.
A diagnosis that explained nothing.
Dissociative episodes.
Stress-induced hallucinations.
Possible neurological disorder.
I remember agreeing with them.
Because how do you explain this?
My phone buzzes on the bedside table.
The sound makes my heart leap violently.
I stare at it.
For a split second, I expect it to speak in probabilities or echo with alien voices.
It doesn't.
It's just a phone.
My mother glances at it, then back at me.
"Your friend's been texting," she says gently.
"I told him you weren't feeling well."
Friend.
Another anchor.
Another risk.
"Can you give me a minute?" I ask.
My voice is steadier now.
She hesitates, then nods.
"I'll be in the kitchen," she says.
"If you need anything… anything at all."
She touches my arm before leaving.
The warmth lingers long after the door closes.
Alone.
The room hums softly with normalcy.
Too normal.
I pick up my phone.
Dozens of unread messages.
You okay?
You disappeared again.
Dude you scared us.
Again.
That word sinks its claws into me.
This isn't new.
This has been happening longer than I realized.
A notification sits at the top.
Calendar reminder.
Neurology Appointment — Today
My stomach twists.
As I stare at the screen, something else stirs.
Not a voice.
Not a memory.
A presence.
Quiet.
Observing.
Human baseline restored, a familiar voice murmurs.
Cognitive stability: temporary.
I freeze.
You, I whisper.
Yes, the human-self replies.
You made it back intact. Barely.
Why here? I ask.
Why this timeline?
A pause.
Long enough to feel intentional.
Because this is the anchor, he says.
The version of us the system keeps returning to.
My heart pounds.
Why?
Because you still care.
The weight of that answer crushes me.
Caring is a weakness.
In the swarm, it would have been eliminated.
In the dead timeline, it would have faded.
Here—
It hurts.
You can't stay too long, he continues.
This body can't handle repeated transfers. Each jump leaves residue.
Residue of what?
Of decision.
I swallow.
What happens if I refuse to jump again?
Silence.
Then—
Then this timeline becomes the test case.
Cold dread spreads through me.
Meaning?
Meaning they'll start applying pressure here.
Accidents. Coincidences. Catastrophes that aren't quite random.
I think of my mother in the kitchen.
My friends.
This fragile, ordinary world.
They'll kill people, I say.
They'll call it probability, he corrects.
The ceiling fan clicks overhead.
Once.
Twice.
I notice something I didn't before.
On the third rotation, it stutters.
Just slightly.
Time misaligns for a fraction of a second.
My breath catches.
They're already watching, I whisper.
Yes, the human-self says.
Because you hesitated.
I close my eyes.
I don't want to choose.
I don't want to sacrifice alien worlds or dead timelines or this one.
I don't want to be a filter.
But refusal has consequences too.
I learned that already.
My phone buzzes again.
A new message.
From an unknown number.
Just one line.
You can't keep hiding in the easy version of yourself.
My blood turns to ice.
That's not me, I say.
The presence inside me goes very still.
No, the human-self replies slowly.
That's not any of us.
The ceiling fan stops.
The room falls silent.
And I understand—
This timeline is no longer safe.