Static hearts
1089 Words
The library at Vireya Academy was a living thing.Not in the charming, magical way books sometimes felt alive but in the way something enormous might sleep beneath the floors and breathe through the walls.Cassiel felt it the moment he stepped past the threshold. The silence was too deliberate, the air too heavy. The light was wrong too golden at the edges, flickering like candlelight despite the sleek neon fixtures overhead.He didn’t know why he came here.Correction: He did know. The photograph. The scrawled note. The timestamp that wasn’t a timestamp.Everything was pulling him somewhere, and this was the only place that felt like a gate.He wandered through sections he didn’t remember entering. Not that it mattered every wing twisted strangely, layouts changing behind him. There was no one else around, and yet sometimes he’d catch the whisper of pages turning. Footsteps that weren’t his.In the eastern archive, tucked between a crumbling volume on Chrono-Philosophy and a laminated handbook about portal safety, he found something that didn’t belong.
A notebook.
Leather-bound, warm to the touch.No name. No markings. But when he opened it—
His own handwriting stared back at him.
Entry #72: I think this version of me is worse. He keeps pretending he doesn’t care, but he’s bleeding on the inside. Maybe he’ll remember in time. Maybe not. I should stop interfering, but I miss him. I miss me.
Cassiel flipped through pages, heart thudding louder each second. Dozens of entries. All in his handwriting. All written to…himself?
Entry #88: Rhea always finds me too early in this version. It throws things off. Maybe she remembers more than she lets on. Or maybe she just wants it over.
Entry #101: Elior kissed me in Version 17. I think I broke the loop because I said yes. Maybe love really is the problem. Or maybe it’s the key.
Cassiel shut the notebook.Then reopened it.It was blank.Every page. Empty. Clean.His breath caught in his throat.He scanned the shelves, as if the library itself might offer an explanation. But the archive felt suddenly smaller, the ceiling lower. The exit farther away than before.He backed out slowly, trying not to run. He didn’t want to know what would happen if he ran.Outside, the weather had shifted.Clouds churned in unnatural spirals above Vireya’s spires. Wind stung his eyes, though the trees around campus were still. Static buzzed faintly against his skin.
And the sky—
He noticed the glitch again. Bigger now. Pulsing.Like a cracked mirror in the fabric of the universe.Dozens of students stood clustered in confusion, some laughing nervously, others filming with shaky hands. A few whispered words that set Cassiel’s teeth on edge:
"Time split." "Residual bleed." "Another version collapsed."
He turned.Rhea was there, walking toward him with that strange gravity she always carried. Like she’d done this before. Like she never forgot.
“You saw it?” she asked.
“I saw everything,” he said, voice hoarse.
She tilted her head. “And did you remember?”
“No. But I think someone wants me to.”
Rhea looked up at the sky. “Then we’re almost out of time.”
They climbed to the rooftop observatory, where the stars bent differently and the shadows lingered too long.
“Who wrote in the journal?” he asked her.
“You did.”
“In another version?”
She nodded.
“But I don’t remember writing it.”
She smirked faintly. “That’s because you’re not him.”
Cassiel flinched. “What?”
“You’re a version. A branch. A fracture of a self that’s been split too many times. The you that wrote those words doesn’t exist here anymore,not entirely.”
He stared at her, stunned. “And you?”
“I’m not a version. I’m a variable.”
“Meaning?”
“I change depending on you. I can remember some things. Not all. Not always. But enough.”
Cassiel leaned on the ledge, dizzy.
“Why does this keep happening?”
“Because someone won’t let it end,” Rhea said softly. “And maybe that someone is you.”
The next morning, the sky had healed.The glitch was gone. Or hidden. No one talked about it. Even the footage from the night before had vanished from devices. Cassiel checked his phone,no trace.Not even a photo in his gallery.He skipped his lectures. Wandered back to the dorm tower, heart tight.The corridor to his room felt longer than usual. His door was ajar.He stepped inside.Elior was there. Sitting on the edge of Cassiel’s bed like he belonged to it.
Cassiel tensed. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been trying to remember,” Elior said simply. “And I think being near you helps.”
Cassiel blinked. “Why?”
“Because I know you.”
Cassiel swallowed. “We don’t even talk.”
Elior rose and walked over, close enough that Cassiel could smell the faint sharpness of ozone on his skin.
“I kissed you once,” Elior said. “Not here. Not now. In a version before this one. I think you kissed me back.”
Cassiel’s breath caught.
“And I think,” Elior continued, “you left something behind when you reset. Some part of you that remembers me.”
Their eyes locked.Cassiel didn’t know who leaned in first.But the kiss was real.Sharp, electric. Familiar.Like coming home.But behind his closed eyes, something whispered:
You can’t love them all. Not here. Not now. One of them will ruin everything.
He pulled away, gasping. “We shouldn’t—”
Elior smiled, almost sad. “I know.”
He left without another word.Later that night, Arlen found Cassiel again.They sat in silence outside the dorm, legs dangling over the stone railing. The glitch had returned, barely visible,a thin shimmer if you looked too long at the stars.
“Elior kissed me,” Cassiel said softly.
Arlen didn’t react.
“You’re not jealous?”
“I’m not only me,” Arlen replied. “Not anymore.”
Cassiel turned to him. “Do you remember now?”
“I remember pain,” Arlen said. “A version where I lost you. And one where I killed you.”
Cassiel flinched.
“And one,” Arlen said slowly, “where I loved you so much I let you go.”
They looked at each other.
Cassiel wasn’t sure which truth hurt more.The glitch in the sky pulsed once.And across the campus, Rhea lit a match in the dark.
The game was shifting.
Again.
To be continued.
- Writer
