BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
"Five more minutes."
Arin pulled a pillow over his head.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
"Three minutes."
The alarm continued.
"Whoever invented mornings deserves—"
He stopped.
Something was wrong.
His voice sounded different.
Higher. Younger.
Arin opened his eyes.
A ceiling fan turned lazily above him. Pale sunlight slipped through faded blue curtains. On the wall hung a calendar featuring a landscape he had never liked.
He sat up.
His room.
Not his apartment.
His old bedroom.
The wooden desk stood beneath the window. His schoolbag rested against a cupboard with a broken handle. A stack of comic books occupied the corner of his shelf.
He knew every scratch on that desk.
He had spent countless evenings sitting there, promising himself that he would become a better student tomorrow.
His gaze fell on the calendar.
April 14, 2016.
He read it once.
Twice.
A third time.
"No."
He grabbed his phone.
The screen lit up.
April 14, 2016.
He checked the date again.
Then the year.
Then the phone's wallpaper, which featured a photograph he hadn't seen in a decade.
His hands began to tremble.
"No, no, no. This isn't possible."
He scrambled out of bed and ran to the mirror.
A seventeen-year-old boy stared back.
Messy black hair. Sleepy brown eyes. Round cheeks. A school uniform hanging from the cupboard door.
Arin touched his face.
The boy in the mirror did the same.
He pinched his cheek.
"Ouch!"
He stared.
Then he pinched it again.
"OW! All right! Real enough!"
He stumbled backwards and landed on the bed.
His mind raced through every possibility.
A dream?
A hallucination?
Some elaborate prank?
But the details were too precise. He remembered the crack in the mirror, the stain on the curtain, the loose floorboard beside his desk.
He remembered this room.
He remembered this life.
And if the date was correct—
He leapt to his feet.
April 14.
His school examinations were three weeks away.
The mathematics examination was first.
He remembered failing it.
He remembered his father's disappointed silence, the awkward conversation with his teacher, and the classmates who had laughed when the results were announced.
He remembered everything.
Arin slowly sat down.
For ten years, he had wished for another chance.
Now he had one.
A strange feeling rose inside him.
It wasn't happiness.
It wasn't exactly fear, either.
It was the sensation of standing before a door he had spent years believing was permanently locked.
He could open it.
He could change things.
He could—
His stomach growled.
Arin stared down at it.
"Seriously?"
Another growl.
He sighed.
"Fine. Apparently, even second chances require breakfast."
For the first time in ten years, he laughed without forcing himself to.
Then he looked at the calendar again.
His smile faded.
There was something else about April 14, 2016.
Something important.
Something he had forgotten.
He knew that day had been the beginning of a chain of events that changed his entire school life.
But what exactly had happened?
He closed his eyes and searched his memories.
A classroom.
A mathematics test.
A boy standing beside the blackboard.
A girl crying in the corridor.
And a sentence.
A sentence he had spoken.
Arin opened his eyes.
"Oh, no."
He remembered now.
Today was the day he had betrayed his best friend.
And if his memory was correct, he had only four hours to stop himself.