During one of those unproductive days, Sage received a pop-up email on her lagging computer. The old machine took hours to respond, leaving Sage with nothing better to do than read the first three paragraphs of the email.
[Hello Sage!
I hope you can read this letter I made for you. How are you doing right now? Haha, quite a loser for an introduction, ain't it? I am you, by the way. I'm currently 16 years old and will be moving on to Senior High School. The ceremony starts tomorrow. I will try my best not to cry, well, there isn't any reason to do so. I am not close with my classmates, hehe. Please send me a letter if my classmates leak the content of this letter. 👌
I'll make sure to read it in another 20 years or so, I guess.
Can you help me check a few things from the list below? I'm excited to know what the future me is doing…]
Sage blinked, re-reading the last sentence as she tried to grasp memories that felt distant and hazy. All she could picture was herself sitting in class, scribbling away in her notebook.
With a sigh, she leaned back and closed her eyes, feeling dizzy. When she opened them again, her gaze fell on the cracked mirror to her left.
She touched her face, tracing the lines of age and fatigue that had settled there. Her reflection was obscured by the cloudiness of the mirror and the darkness of her room, illuminated only by the glow of her computer screen.
A frown creased her brow. "Is this really what I look like?"
Her legs shook as she stood up from her chair and walked over to a small cabinet cluttered with moldy food wrappers and empty drink containers that had been there for who knows how long.
"I'm amazed I'm still alive," Sage muttered with a grimace. "Or maybe I've turned into a cockroach?"
She was taken aback by her current state, puzzled by her lack of daily memories as if she had been trapped in an endless dream.
"Let's see…" She began pulling apart the cabinet piece by piece. The first three sections were crammed with knotted, filthy clothes that reeked so strongly it made her gag.
Frustratedly rummaging through the mess, she paused, wondering why she had started this task in the first place.
"Maybe it's time for a clean-up," she mused as she tried on some clothes only to find they no longer fit—likely why many were torn at the sides.
Glancing back at her laptop, she noticed it was still struggling to function, now with added screen glitches.
She crafted a makeshift bag from an old dress, filled it with trash and clothes, then picked out a pair of denim shorts and folded them neatly.
Looking around for water, she found a bottle next to her laptop. Before taking it, she shut down her laptop and let it reboot.
Using a piece of clothing as a makeshift cloth, she dampened it with water and began dusting off every surface in sight—from the bed and tables to smaller items and walls.
'Gah! I forgot to check the date and time,' she thought irritably. 'Did I fall into a coma? This room wasn't part of that mad woman's house… or was it?'
With the worst of the smell gone but still wary of breathing too deeply, Sage tied up the dirty rag in her makeshift sack.
She changed into an old duster dress that once belonged to her mother before dragging the sacks towards what she hoped was the door out of this room.
Sage approached the stairs, her eyes meeting the pitch-black stairway. She took wide, cautious steps towards the locked door, the sacks thumping against the wooden stairs with a dull yet ironically loud thud.
"Was I kidnapped?" she whispered, her heart racing. The thuds made her even more cautious, imagining a large man coming upstairs. Faced with the choice between dying from the stench or confronting whoever was upstairs, she chose the latter.
Reaching the door, Sage was out of breath as if she had just run a 100-meter sprint. "Most people in their 20s are full of energy. Why am I panting after such a short distance when I used to be an athlete?" she lamented.
She turned the doorknob and slowly opened it, wincing at the sharp sound it made as it grazed the tiled floor. Pushing through, she dragged the sacks out of her hellhole and closed the door behind her.
Only then did she take a moment to observe the mansion. The tiles were intricately carved, and a peculiar chandelier hung two stories above. However, there were no visible stairs leading to the second floor.
"Isn't this too bright for a mansion?" Sage squinted against the light.
Shaking her head, she muttered, "Where are those damn thugs? Oh, wait. I should get out before they come back."
She dragged the sacks towards a large, brown transparent sliding door, quickening her pace despite their weight.
"Tita Sage?" A young lady's voice called out from behind her. "You've finally come out! It's nice to see you!"
Sage froze in panic, trembling for reasons unknown to her.
The lady draped an arm around Sage's shoulder and hugged her slightly. Sage's eyes followed the shadow of the lady who seemed both familiar and strange.
"Tita, don't you remember me? We've been seeing each other every other day for three months," the lady said cheerfully before shrieking with excitement about her supposed words of wisdom.
"Uh, ah. I… I don't have a niece your age," Sage stammered, looking around frantically. "And we're about the same age."
The lady flinched and gripped Sage's shoulders, making her face her directly. "Oh no, tita. You have dementia?"
Sage couldn't focus on what was being said; she was too caught up in her reflection in the lady's eyes.
She wasn't hallucinating earlier; her face bore wrinkles, scars, and bags under her eyes that made her look like a villain from an old Disney movie. Her eye sockets seemed hollowed out, her teeth crooked, and there were hideous scars on her cheeks as if they had been sliced off.
'How old am I? How old? How old? How old? I never wished to suddenly become a senior citizen overnight.'
She could vaguely recall pleading with a college professor for another chance. But what came after that?
Overwhelmed by panic, Sage barely heard the lady's distant voice.
"T-time?" she managed to whisper.
"Pardon, tita?" replied the lady.
"Time."
"Tie? Do you want me to tie your hair?" The lady moved behind Sage and touched her hair gently.
Sage jerked away and faced her with furrowed brows. "What time?"
The lady paused before answering softly, "It's 3:56 AM."
Sage shook her head in frustration. "Not time. I mean year, month."
The lady nodded. "May 12, 20xx. Why do you ask, tita?"
Sage didn't answer; instead, she turned away and resumed dragging the sacks. A few steps from the large door, she stopped.
"Is this the main door?" she asked.
The lady nodded with a slump in her posture that conveyed a sense of hopelessness.
With a smile, the lady opened the door for Sage, curious about what her 'tita' was planning.
Sage gave a slight nod of acknowledgment and stepped outside into an unfamiliar scene. Across from the mansion lay a neglected garden, and down the road, a row of townhouses stood in stark contrast to her memories.
"Aren't those where the Ynut family lives? I didn't know they could afford such houses," Sage mused with suspicion. The neighborhood looked entirely different from what she remembered—transformed from what was once referred to as "slums" into something out of another dimension or timeline.
The road that used to be muddy and littered with waste was now brick-tiled and clean.
As Sage's eyes adjusted to the outdoor brightness, she heard music blasting from afar and saw lights dancing in the pinkish sky. Skyscrapers adorned with bright colors loomed in the distance.
"Cyberpunk city?" she gasped in confusion. She knew only China had such advanced cyberpunk-themed cities like Chongqing.
"Am I… Am I in China?" she wondered, her heart calming as she considered the possibility.
But then she realized that China didn't use Latin honorifics like 'tita' and 'tito,' and the lady had spoken English without a Chinese accent. If this was China, had she been kidnapped?
The arrangement of houses, pathways, and even the tall firewall opposite the townhouses were all too familiar—it was just like her neighborhood.
Unable to connect the dots, Sage decided to focus on disposing of the sacks first.
"Let's take care of these things first," she murmured to herself.
She had only taken two steps when her eyes caught sight of an iconic building with a hole in its center and shining bold letters spelling "EVES PE∆K."
Sage admired its architecture but soon moved on without a second glance at her surroundings.
As dawn approached, painting the sky with pastel hues, Sage sat on a small hill and stretched out her legs. A meteor shower graced the sky above her.
"How I wish I had a phone to record this," she thought as her attention was captured by a particularly bright meteor heading straight for her.
"Am I sleepy, or am I hallucinating?" Sage mumbled as she rubbed her eyes. Her head began to tilt; she felt herself losing consciousness. Her mouth opened wide in a yawn so big it seemed she could swallow the moon whole.
When she opened her eyes again, everything seemed to move in slow motion. An unidentified object was hurtling towards her, and in an instant, she felt her body flung backward for a few seconds before darkness overtook her consciousness.
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