Signals From Tomorrow

CHAPTER 7: Everyday Prediction

For the next few days, Ethan carried the weight of what he had learned like a stone in his pocket.

He had tried to change things. He had tried to use what he knew to rewrite the story, to stop bad things from happening, to take control of his own life. And every single time, the result had been the same. The event he had tried to prevent had simply shifted shape, moved location, or happened in a different way—but the outcome had remained exactly as the phone had predicted.

Knowledge does not equal control.

Those words echoed in his mind constantly. It was a hard lesson to learn, and even harder to accept. For a while, he had felt angry—angry that he had been given this gift, this incredible ability to see everything that was coming, only to discover that he couldn’t actually do anything meaningful with it. What was the point of knowing the future if you were still just along for the ride?

But as the days passed, and the anger faded into something quieter and more thoughtful, Ethan began to realise something important.

He couldn’t change what happened… but he could change how he experienced it.

If the future was fixed, if events were going to unfold no matter what he did, then he didn’t have to waste his energy fighting against it. Instead, he could use what he knew to prepare. To navigate. To turn situations that would have been difficult, painful, or embarrassing into things he could handle easily, or even avoid feeling the impact of entirely.

The big things might be set in stone, but the small things? The details, the timing, the way things affected him personally? Those were things he could manage.

And so, Ethan began a new phase. He stopped looking for ways to alter the course of events, and started looking for ways to make his life work with the flow of time, rather than against it.

He called it — learning the rhythm.

It started with the simplest things, the tiny details that made up the fabric of every single day.

He woke up each morning now, and the first thing he did was reach for the phone. The screen would already be lit, waiting for him, displaying a list of everything that was going to happen over the coming hours. No longer did he read these messages with the desperate need to stop them or change them. He read them calmly, carefully, like someone reading a schedule or a map, noting down what he needed to know.

"Prediction 011: This morning, the bus you usually take will be ten minutes late. It will be crowded, hot, and uncomfortable. However, the earlier bus, which you rarely catch, will be nearly empty and will arrive on time."

Ethan read this message one Tuesday morning, and instead of feeling frustrated that his usual routine was going to be disrupted, he simply adjusted his alarm clock ten minutes earlier. He got up, got ready, and left the house sooner than he normally would. He caught the earlier bus, sat comfortably by the window with plenty of space around him, and watched as the bus he usually took pulled up later, packed tight with people who were standing in the aisles, tired and irritated from the delay.

He hadn’t stopped the bus from being late. He hadn’t changed the fact that it was crowded. Those things were still going to happen. But he had made sure they didn’t happen to him.

It was a small victory, but it felt huge.

He began to do the same thing with everything else.

"Prediction 012: Today’s lunch menu will be mostly cold food. The sandwiches will be stale, and the soup will be watery and tasteless. The fruit available will be bruised and overripe.”

Instead of waiting in line and being disappointed, Ethan simply packed a little extra food from the kitchen before he left the house. He brought things he knew he liked, things that would keep well, and while everyone else complained about the bad food, he ate well and felt satisfied.

"Prediction 013: During break time, it will rain heavily for exactly twelve minutes. The sky will turn dark, and anyone standing outside will get soaked. The rain will stop abruptly at 11:04 AM, and the sun will come out immediately.”

Ethan brought his umbrella with him, even though the morning sky had been clear and blue. He stayed under cover during the shower, watching as students ran for shelter, shaking water from their hair and clothes, cold and wet and miserable. When the rain stopped exactly as predicted, he stepped out into the fresh air dry and comfortable, while everyone else was still trying to dry off and warm up.

"Prediction 014: Mr. Carter will collect homework at the start of class today. He will be checking every page carefully, and anyone who has missed questions or done work that is incomplete will receive a low grade and extra assignments to complete over the weekend.”

Ethan had finished his work days ago, but he went through it again anyway, checking every single answer, making sure everything was written neatly and clearly. While other students panicked at the last minute, scribbling answers down just to have something to hand in, Ethan sat back calmly, his work complete and perfect, and received one of the highest marks in the class.

Slowly, day by day, Ethan’s life began to change—not because the world around him was different, but because he was now moving through it with his eyes wide open. He knew when things would be easy and when they would be hard. He knew what to bring and what to leave behind. He knew when to hurry and when to take his time. He knew who to avoid and who it was safe to talk to.

He knew, for example, exactly when Marcus and his friends would be in the corridors, which routes they would take, and what they would be looking for.

"Prediction 015: Marcus and his group will be near the gymnasium at 2:30 PM. They are looking for someone to tease or push around. They will stay there for approximately twenty minutes before moving to the sports field.”

Ethan didn’t try to confront them. He didn’t try to stop them from being cruel or looking for trouble. He simply knew exactly where they would be and exactly when they would leave. He adjusted his own path accordingly, taking different hallways, arriving earlier or later, and for the first time in years, he walked through the school building without constantly looking over his shoulder, without feeling that tight knot of fear in his stomach, without spending every minute waiting for the next attack.

They were still there. They were still the same people. They were still doing the same things. But because he knew where they were and what they were doing, they had lost their power over him. They couldn’t surprise him anymore. They couldn’t catch him off guard. They couldn’t hurt him, because he was never where they expected him to be, never when they expected him to be there.

He was living his life on his own schedule, guided by knowledge that no one else possessed.

Even at home, things felt different.

He knew when his mother would be tired and stressed after work, so he would do extra chores around the house before she even had to ask, making her day a little easier. He knew when his father would be busy and preoccupied, so he would speak to him only when the time was right, avoiding the sharp words and short tempers that usually happened when his father was distracted.

He even knew what was going to happen with Jeffrey, and it helped him navigate the complicated feelings between them.

"Prediction 016: Jeffrey will come home from school in a bad mood today. He will have lost a game he was playing, and he will feel like everyone was against him. He will be looking for someone to blame, and he will be easily upset or angered.”

Instead of getting drawn into arguments or letting his brother’s bad mood ruin his own evening, Ethan simply knew to give him space. He stayed out of his way when he needed to, spoke softly and calmly when they did have to talk, and let the bad feeling pass without it spilling over into the whole house. By the time dinner came around, Jeffrey had cheered up completely, and the evening was peaceful and happy.

To his family, it seemed like Ethan had suddenly become more responsible, more helpful, more mature. They noticed the change, but they didn’t understand it.

“You’ve been doing so well lately,” his mother said one evening as they sat together watching television. “It’s nice to see you being so thoughtful and organised. Maybe things are finally starting to go right for you too, hmm? Maybe your luck is turning around.”

Ethan just smiled and nodded. He didn’t correct her. He didn’t tell her that luck had nothing to do with it. He didn’t tell her that he wasn’t just lucky—he was prepared.

Luck was random. Luck was chance. Luck was something that happened to you without you having any control over it.

This wasn’t luck. This was knowledge. This was awareness. This was seeing the patterns in everything, the connections between events, the way one thing led to another, the way the world moved along paths that were already set.

And as the days turned into weeks, Ethan began to notice something else. He started to see these patterns even without looking at the phone.

He would be walking down the street, and he would know instinctively that a car was about to turn the corner, even though he couldn’t hear or see it yet. He would be talking to someone, and he would know exactly what they were going to say before the words even left their mouth. He would be sitting in class, and he would know exactly what question the teacher was going to ask, exactly what point they were going to make, exactly how long the lesson would last.

It was as if the phone was changing the way his mind worked. It was training him to see the world differently. What had once seemed chaotic and unpredictable was now revealing itself as something ordered, structured, logical. Nothing happened by accident anymore. Nothing was random. Every event, every moment, every choice was just another part of the design.

He found himself thinking about this one afternoon as he walked home from school, the phone resting comfortably in his pocket. He had read the predictions for the day, used them to guide his steps, and everything had gone exactly as he had expected. He had avoided trouble, done his work well, and arrived home safely without incident.

He pulled the device out and looked at the screen, which was displaying a list of events for the evening and the following day. He read through them one by one, familiar with the style, the precision, the absolute certainty of every line.

And then, at the bottom of the list, he saw a new message that wasn’t like the others. It wasn’t a prediction of something that would happen. It was something else entirely.

"You have learned to use knowledge to make your life easier. You have learned to move with the current instead of fighting against it. You have understood that while you cannot change the story, you can choose how you live within it. But this is only the beginning. The events you have seen so far have been small, personal, limited to your own life and the people immediately around you. Soon, the scope will widen. Soon, you will see things that do not just affect you. Soon, you will be given information about events that matter to everyone. And when that happens… the choices you make will no longer be simple. The easy days are coming to an end. Prepare yourself. Nothing is random anymore… and soon, nothing will be small, either.”

Ethan stopped walking, standing still on the pavement as he read the words over and over.

He had been feeling safe, feeling comfortable, feeling like he had found the perfect way to exist with this power. He had thought that if he just kept using it for the little things, for the everyday moments, then everything would stay manageable, everything would stay under control.

But now he realised that this quiet period was just a pause. It was the calm before things got bigger, more complicated, more dangerous.

He looked up at the sky, which was turning soft shades of orange and purple as the sun began to set. The world around him looked peaceful, ordinary, just as it always had. But to Ethan, it felt different now. It felt like a stage that had been set for something much larger than anything he had experienced so far.

He slipped the phone back into his pocket, but this time, it didn’t feel like a tool or a helper. It felt like a warning.

He had thought that knowing the future would make life simpler. And in many ways, it had. But now he understood that simplicity came with a price.

Because when nothing is random, when everything has meaning, when every moment is connected to every other moment… then nothing is ever truly unimportant.

Even the smallest choice, even the smallest action, even the smallest piece of information could lead to something far greater.

And soon, he was going to find out exactly what that meant.