Stepping out of his room, Jiko felt a strange heaviness in the air, like the house was holding its breath. The bright wedding decorations from yesterday—the fairy lights, the flower arrangements, the confetti scattered everywhere—were gone. The house looked strangely bare, nothing like the festive mess he remembered. He looked around, noticing that Julie and Tito's engagement photo was missing. Instead, there was an older family picture hanging on the wall, one he hadn't seen in ages.
Even the furniture felt different—older, simpler, but somehow also very familiar. He could smell a faint hint of his mother's cooking, and it drew him towards the kitchen with a mix of curiosity and a growing sense of dread.
When he reached the kitchen doorway, he stopped dead. His mother, Fahima, was standing at the stove, humming softly to herself. Her hair was a deep, dark raven hair, with no sign of the gray hairs she'd had before. She moved quickly and easily, without the slight stiffness he was used to seeing in her.
"Morning, sweetheart," Fahima says brightly, glancing over her shoulder. "Did you sleep in again? You're going to be late for school if you don't hurry."
"School?" Jiko echoes, his voice barely above a whisper. The word feels foreign on his tongue.
Before he can say more, his father, Salam, enters the room, a spring in his step that Jiko hasn't seen in years. He's humming an old tune, one Jiko vaguely recognizes from his childhood. Salam looks younger, his hair full and dark, his face unlined. He walks up to Jiko and ruffles his hair playfully, just as he used to when Jiko was a kid.
"Morning, champ," Salam says with a grin. "Don't tell me you're still half-asleep. Big game tonight, remember?"
Jiko stares, his mind reeling. This isn't right. None of this is right.
The sound of footsteps made Jiko turn around. His elder brother Tito walked into the kitchen. Jiko's heart skipped a beat. It was Tito, but not the confident, muscular guy from the wedding. This Tito was younger, thinner, like he was just becoming an adult. He had pointy elbows and walked a little awkwardly. His hair was a bit too long, and his voice cracked when he said hello to their parents.
Jiko takes a step back, his pulse pounding. "What's going on?" he blurts. "Why do you all look… younger? Where's Julie? What happened to the wedding?"
Tito stops mid-step, raising an eyebrow before bursting into laughter. "Julie? Wedding? Are you feeling okay, little bro?" he asks, shaking his head. "What, did you hit your head or something?"
"No," Jiko says, his voice rising. "This doesn't make any sense! Yesterday, you got married. Julie was—she was right there! What is happening?"
Fahima frowns, setting down a spatula. "Jiko, are you feeling alright? Maybe you should lie down."
Jiko doesn't answer. His chest feels tight as panic wells up inside him. Without another word, he turns and bolts back to his room, his parents' concerned voices fading behind him.
Once inside, he slams the door and leans against it, breathing heavily. His room is eerily familiar, like a time capsule from years ago. The posters on the wall, the cluttered desk, the stack of old video game cases—they're all relics of a life he thought he'd left behind.
Desperate for answers, he rushes to his computer. The machine hums to life, its start-up chime a sound he hasn't heard in ages. The screen flickers, and when the desktop loads, he freezes.
The date displayed in the corner of the screen reads six years in the past.
Jiko's stomach churns as reality crashes down around him. Somehow, impossibly, he's been thrown back in time. The vortex, the strange whispers—this is what they meant.
As the weight of his situation sinks in, a knock at the door startles him. Tito's voice comes from the other side, lighthearted and teasing. "Hey, are you coming down, or are you gonna hide all morning? You're gonna miss your school entry time today.."
Jiko doesn't respond, his eyes locked on the date. He's not just stuck in the past—he's reliving a time he thought was long gone. And he has no idea how to fix it.
Jiko stood in front of the mirror, staring at his reflection with wide, disbelieving eyes. He looked at every part of the face staring back at him—it was unfamiliar, yet strangely familiar at the same time. He touched his round face, feeling the chubby cheeks he'd forgotten he had and the few pimples on his skin. It was his teenage face looking back at him, without the lines and tired look of being an adult. It was both scary and kind of funny. He let out a shaky laugh that quickly turned into a groan.
"This can't be real," he mumbled, taking a step back from the mirror, as if moving away would make the reflection disappear. But it didn't. It stayed there, a clear sign that something impossible had happened.
He turned to look around his room, and every little thing made him feel both nostalgic and completely shocked. His desk was covered in old textbooks, their spines bent from all the late-night studying he barely remembered doing. A pencil case covered in doodles sat on top of a pile of papers, and an old MP3 player was tangled up in a mess of headphones. The posters on his walls—of bands he hadn't thought about in years—seemed to be making fun of him with their youthful energy. A worn-out Paramore poster, with curled edges, hung next to a bright poster of video game characters he used to love.
He sat down heavily on his bed, the mattress creaking under him, and put his face in his hands. His heart was pounding as the truth hit him hard: he'd been sent six years into the past.
"But why?" he whispers into the empty room. "How?"
His mind reels, trying to piece together the fragments of the previous night. He recalls the swirling black hole—the vortex of darkness that had sucked him from his room, the garbled whispers, the weightless sensation of being dragged through nothingness. It had felt like a nightmare then, but now, with the evidence all around him, it feels terrifyingly real.