It was 7:15 AM when I first opened my eyes, greeted by the soft orange glow of the morning light filtering through the blinds. I didn't feel rested. My head ached, not from the usual weight of a long night's sleep, but from something… unfamiliar. The kind of headache that feels like it belongs to someone else. My body was still tangled in the sheets, my limbs heavy with a sense of déjà vu I couldn't shake.
I sat up slowly, pushing a strand of hair behind my ear. My gaze instinctively landed on my phone—7:17 AM. I took a breath, steadying myself. It was the perfect time to dismiss the odd feeling that clung to me, chalk it up to an overactive imagination. But I couldn't. There was something in the air today, something that whispered at the edges of my thoughts. Something I knew, yet couldn't fully remember.
It wasn't until I stepped into the kitchen that I realized why I felt so unsettled.
The coffee pot was already brewing.
I hadn't turned it on. I hadn't even been in the kitchen yet. I frowned, a chill creeping over me. Could I have done it in my sleep? I laughed at myself, trying to rationalize it. But it didn't make sense. The motion of pouring the water, the comforting hiss of the grounds… I had seen it happen before. In a dream.
I couldn't stop myself from recalling it, the image burning bright in my mind as if it had happened just moments ago: walking down a narrow hallway, past the same dark wooden furniture and photos I'd grown accustomed to seeing in the house. But the hall was empty, and the air felt strange—too still, too quiet, like I was walking in a memory not fully mine.
Then, the door. It had stood at the end of the hall, cracked open just enough for me to see the light inside, soft and yellow. I reached out instinctively, turning the doorknob with the pressure of a thought, and stepped in.
It was a room I didn't recognize, but I knew it. I knew the walls, the floor, the small plant sitting on the windowsill. I knew the chair by the window, the one that faced toward the street. And I knew the man sitting in it, his eyes fixed on me with an intensity that cut through the fog of my dream.
"You're awake," he said, his voice calm, like he'd been waiting for me. I wanted to speak, but my voice caught in my throat. "You've seen this before," he continued, though I didn't understand how. "Tomorrow, this will happen again."
The last thing I remembered was his eyes—the certainty in them—before I was suddenly awake.
I shook my head, trying to clear the images. The dream had felt so real, so vivid. It wasn't the kind of dream you forget when you wake up. It lingered, clinging to my mind like the weight of an unfinished sentence.
I grabbed a cup, trying to shake the thoughts from my head, but the coffee—the smell, the warmth—was too familiar. It was as if the dream had somehow bled into my waking world. And then the sudden realization hit me with the force of a tidal wave:
The dream I had… wasn't a dream at all.
It was tomorrow.
"Lena," a voice interrupted my thoughts. I turned, startled, to see my brother standing in the doorway. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "You okay?"
I nodded quickly, swallowing the confusion. "Yeah. Just didn't sleep well."
He didn't buy it, but he didn't press. Instead, he walked over to the counter, poured himself a cup of coffee, and leaned against it, his arms crossed. "I was gonna head out to the bookstore later. You wanna come?"
I hesitated, my mind still trapped somewhere between dream and reality. "Sure," I said, even though I didn't know if I could. The thought of leaving felt strange, as though stepping outside would pull me further from whatever it was that had started inside me.
"Great. I'll pick you up around noon," he said, his casual tone betraying no sense of urgency.
I nodded absently, still trying to piece things together in my mind. But no matter how much I tried to focus on the mundane, the sensation of living tomorrow—and having already lived it—was too strong. The dream felt like a warning, like I was supposed to do something, like I was supposed to meet that man in the chair again.
I didn't even know where that room was. But I knew I would find it.
The day unfolded in front of me like a slow-moving river, pulling me along in its current. The hours felt stretched and broken, disconnected from the reality I had known before. Every conversation I had felt like a scene I had rehearsed, every step I took felt scripted. Even my reflection in the mirror seemed distant, as though it wasn't really me.
At noon, I got in the car with my brother, still lost in thought. He didn't seem to notice my distraction as we drove to the bookstore, chattering about nothing in particular. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I was already elsewhere, already living a day I couldn't fully remember.
The bookstore was quiet, the air heavy with the scent of old paper and dust. We wandered through the aisles, but every corner I turned, I felt like I was walking toward something inevitable.
And then I saw him. The man from the dream. He stood at the far end of an aisle, his back slightly turned, his dark eyes scanning the shelves as if he were waiting for me.
My breath caught in my throat.
I didn't know how, but I knew exactly what would happen next. It was as if every moment from that dream had already been played out, like I was walking through a memory that hadn't fully arrived yet.
Slowly, I took a step toward him.
"Lena," he said, his voice calm and sure. "It's time."