The One Who Remembers
1069 Words
Aria woke in a cold sweat.
The mirror was no longer warped. Her reflection stared back as if nothing had happened. No voice. No ripple. No warning. Only her pale face and the echo of her own whispered breath.
You think this is about saving the future. But it’s not. It’s about choosing which one you’re willing to destroy.
She repeated the words over and over again, hoping they’d lose their meaning. They didn’t.
By morning, she couldn’t tell whether the encounter had been a hallucination or a message from something beyond time. Either way, she knew this: the mirror was no longer just a reflection.
It was a portal.
Isabel, Harper, and Wendy rushed to her house the moment they got her text.
Wendy carried crystals. Isabel brought a journal with hand-drawn charts. Harper had her fists clenched and her phone set to record—just in case the mirror spoke again.
They gathered around it like witches around a sacred pool.
“I swear,” Aria murmured, “it spoke to me. My reflection moved on its own.”
Harper placed a hand on the frame. “We’re not dealing with ordinary premonitions anymore. Something is inhabiting the visions.”
“Or someone,” Isabel added.
Wendy stepped forward. “It’s possible we’re not the only ones who came back different from that explosion.”
“Speaking of which…” Aria reached into her pocket and pulled out the newspaper clipping. “This happened on August 12th. Nineteen eighty-three. In the same woods.”
Isabel’s eyes widened. “Another temporal event?”
Harper whistled low. “So it’s a loop. Whatever hit us—it's cyclical.”
Wendy shook her head. “No. It’s worse. The past isn’t repeating… it’s converging.”
They stared at each other in silence, the air thick with dread.
And then—
A knock.
Three soft taps on Aria’s front door.
Everyone froze.
Harper moved like lightning, grabbing the nearest object—a heavy lamp.
Aria crept to the peephole.
No one.
She opened the door an inch.
A single envelope lay on the mat, fluttering in the breeze.
Harper grabbed it before Aria could.
There was no return address. No name. Just a small drawing of an hourglass made of fire.
Inside:
“He’s already here. The Traveler. Meet him at Locker 812.”
Locker 812 sat in the abandoned wing of Dunsley High.
It had been sealed off after the explosion—the blast radius had warped the walls, melted paint, and blackened the lockers. Officially, it was unstable and off-limits.
Unofficially, it was a threshold.
They arrived just after dusk, their footsteps muffled by silence and ash.
Aria led the way, pulse racing, heart thundering.
She paused in front of locker 812.
It looked… untouched.
The metal gleamed, clean and unscarred. Unlike the others, it had no sign of damage. It didn’t belong.
With a trembling hand, she turned the lock.
Click.
Inside: a velvet pouch, a folded paper, and a photograph.
She pulled out the picture first.
It was a photo of all four of them—five, actually.
Because standing beside Aria, with his hand on her waist and a grin she didn’t recognize, was a boy they’d never seen before.
Dark skin. Twisted locs. Golden eyes that practically glowed.
He was beautiful.
He was familiar.
He was a stranger.
Wendy blinked. “Wait… that’s not Elior.”
“No,” Isabel murmured. “That’s… someone else entirely.”
Aria unfolded the paper next.
It was a message written in perfect cursive:
My name is Nova Kai. I am the Fifth. I remember the timelines you’ve forgotten. I see what you’ve lost. And I can take you there.
Meet me at the clock tower. Midnight. Come alone.
“Absolutely not,” Harper said twenty minutes later, pacing Aria’s room like a tiger in a cage.
“Definitely not alone,” Wendy added, sitting on the edge of Aria’s bed.
“I have to,” Aria said quietly. “If he really is the fifth… he could be the key.”
Isabel tilted her head. “Why now? Why appear through a photograph none of us remember?”
Aria opened the velvet pouch. Inside was a necklace—silver, with a spinning glass orb in the center. She touched it and gasped.
The room vanished.
She stood in a sunlit field, wind in her hair, and laughter in the distance. Her fingers were entwined with Nova’s. She was older—maybe twenty, maybe more. She was happy.
Then—darkness.
Fire.
Screams.
The world collapsing.
The echo snapped back like a rubber band, and she dropped the necklace, breathless.
Harper caught her before she hit the floor.
“What did you see?” she asked.
“Another version of me,” Aria whispered. “Loving him. Losing everything.”
Wendy exhaled shakily. “He’s not just the fifth. He’s the choice.”
Aria looked up. “What do you mean?”
“You said the mirror told you it wasn’t about saving the future—it was about choosing one to destroy,” Wendy said softly. “Nova... might be that fork in the road.”
She went to the clock tower alone.
Not because she was brave—but because something inside her knew this was a meeting that couldn’t be witnessed.
Midnight struck.
She waited.
Then—a voice behind her.
“You found the locker.”
Aria turned.
Nova stood there, dressed in black, eyes gleaming like molten honey.
“You knew I would,” she whispered.
“I remembered that you did,” he said. “In one version.”
He stepped closer. His presence made her dizzy, like gravity had changed direction.
“I can take you forward,” he said. “Or back.”
Her throat tightened. “Back?”
“To before the explosion. Before the gifts. Before you kissed Elior.”
Her heart stopped.
“You remember all the timelines?” she asked.
“Not all,” he said. “But enough.”
She reached out. “Why me?”
Nova smiled softly.
“Because in every version where the world burns, it’s always your name on the wind.”
She stepped into his arms.
And for a moment—one crystalline second—the world stopped.
No visions. No pain. No fire.
Just the future breathing against her neck.
- Writer
