I woke up slowly, feeling like I was swimming through a thick fog. My limbs were heavy as I pushed the covers aside and sat up. The familiar creak of the floorboards beneath my feet should have comforted me, but something felt... wrong. I couldn't shake the strange heaviness in my chest, like a stone lodged itself where my heart should be. The room was dark, early morning light barely filtering through the curtains.
Groggily, I stumbled toward the bathroom, my body moving on autopilot. My hands reached for the sink's cold handle, splashing water over my face in a desperate attempt to shake off the confusion weighing me down. As the water trickled down my skin, I stared at the mirror.
My reflection looked tired, and yet... different. The dark circles under my eyes weren't as prominent as they had been, and my face looked smoother, younger. I leaned closer, squinting at the mirror. The face staring back at me was familiar, but not the one I'd grown accustomed to over the years. What the hell is this?
I felt a strange sense of dread settle into my stomach. Something was off. My head throbbed slightly, memories flashing in fragments—letters, blood, pain. I couldn't grasp them fully, like they were slipping through my fingers every time I tried to focus. I shook my head, hoping it was just the remnants of a weird dream.
When I shuffled back into my room, I stopped dead in my tracks.
My eyes landed on my old schoolbag, sitting neatly on the floor next to my desk, looking exactly the way it had back in high school. My heart skipped a beat. That bag—I'd thrown it away years ago. And next to it, my guitar, broken and abandoned after I'd decided music wasn't worth my time. The wood was polished, the strings intact, not a scratch on it. I blinked, half-expecting them to disappear if I looked away, but they remained stubbornly in place.
I felt my pulse quicken as I scanned the room. Everything felt… wrong. Posters I hadn't seen in over a decade hung on the walls—bands I hadn't listened to in years. My desk, once cluttered with the chaos of adulthood—bills, work papers, notebooks—was now covered with textbooks and homework. It was like stepping into a time capsule, a snapshot of a version of me that no longer existed.
"What the hell..." I muttered under my breath. I took a few cautious steps toward the bed, half-expecting to wake up at any moment. This couldn't be real. It didn't make sense.
Panic fluttered in my chest, and I turned abruptly, making my way toward the living room—the living room, I corrected myself, trying to keep a hold of what was real. Maybe Mom could explain this. Or maybe I'd just wake up.
But as I stepped into the living room, I froze.
There, by the stove, was my mother—just as I remembered her from my teenage years. She was humming softly to herself, flipping pancakes like she always did when I was still in school. She looked younger, her hair not yet streaked with the gray that had appeared over the years. The sight of her, so familiar and yet so different from what I remembered, sent a sharp pang through my chest.
Sitting at the dining table, my stepfather, looking exactly as he did back then, sipped his coffee and read the morning paper. He looked calm, content, like the last ten years had never happened.
For a moment, I couldn't move. My feet were glued to the floor, and I stared, my mind racing to catch up with what my eyes were seeing. It was as though someone had pressed rewind on my life, pulling me back to a time that should have been long gone.
"Seth?" My mother's voice snapped me out of my stupor. She turned around, smiling like she always did. "Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to join us?" Her voice was so familiar, so warm, it made my chest ache. She sounded like she had before everything went wrong.
I couldn't speak. My throat tightened, and I swallowed hard, trying to keep it together. I glanced at my stepfather, who lowered the paper and gave me a look, amusement dancing in his eyes. "Come on, don't be late for school," he said with a grin, taking another sip of his coffee like nothing was out of the ordinary.
I felt a lump form in my throat, and before I could stop myself, tears welled up in my eyes. The sight of them, so alive, so real, overwhelmed me. I rushed forward, wrapping my arms around both of them, burying my face in my mom's shoulder. I didn't care how it looked, or if they thought I was acting strange. I just needed to hold them, to make sure they were really there.
"Hey, what's this about?" my mom chuckled, patting my back gently. "What's got into you, huh?"
I couldn't answer. The tears spilled
over, my grip tightening. I hadn't hugged them like this in years. I hadn't had the chance.
My stepfather laughed, a deep, familiar sound that made my chest ache even more. "Guess someone's feeling sentimental today."
Eventually, I pulled away, wiping my face quickly, hoping they wouldn't ask too many questions. I sat down at the table, but I couldn't focus on breakfast. The taste of pancakes felt distant, like I was eating in a dream. My mind raced, trying to piece together what was happening.
When I finished, I returned to my room to get dressed for school—school, of all things—but I couldn't stop thinking about how wrong everything was. The bag, the guitar, the house, my parents… even me.
I stopped in front of the mirror, and my breath caught in my throat. The person staring back at me wasn't the man I had seen for years. This version of me was younger—no lines on my face, no tired eyes from the stress of adult life. My hair, dark brown and slightly messy, framed a face that looked untouched by time. My eyes, a familiar shade of blue, stared back at me with the kind of youthful brightness that I hadn't seen in years.
I looked… eighteen.
I reached up, touching my cheek, half-expecting my reflection to warp or disappear. But it didn't. This was me—young, like I'd gone back in time.
My eyes darted to the calendar on my desk. My stomach twisted as I read the date: 39 days before graduation. It was the exact day I had been eighteen.
I swallowed hard, my pulse pounding in my ears. What the hell was happening? Was this real? Had I really been sent back in time? Or was this some kind of elaborate dream?
The letter. The letter had told me to save my parents. To stop everything. But was it really true? Could I look really change the past?
I stood there, staring at the calendar, my mind spinning with questions I didn't have answers to. None of this made sense, but there was one thing I knew for certain.
I was eighteen again.