The cafeteria was chaos in its purest form — a battleground of trays, gossip, and manufactured laughter. Elliot usually avoided it. The smell of fried food and hormones in the air felt suffocating.
But today was different.
Today, the philosophy teacher, Mr. Evans, had asked students to split into discussion pairs and debate the week's essay topic: Does free will exist?
Alex had chosen the table near the window, naturally. She liked natural light and disliked noise — and most people. She was already setting out her notes when she spotted him entering.
Elliot moved like he was gliding through fog — present, but untouched by it. Students moved around him, never quite in sync. Always watching him like a question they hadn't been taught how to answer.
She waved him over.
He paused, raised an eyebrow, then — silently — sat.
No words. No greeting. Just eye contact, and then his calm, measured breath as he opened a small black notebook.
"I want to hear your stance," she said, tapping her pencil. "Don't be vague."
"I'm rarely vague," Elliot replied. "People just prefer clearer illusions."
Alex narrowed her eyes. "Let me rephrase: state your position."
He looked out the window.
"Free will exists… but not for the reasons people think."
That irritated her immediately. "That's a hedge. Either it exists or it doesn't."
"Do you choose to be irritated?" he asked without looking at her.
She froze.
"…What?"
He turned his gaze back to her.
"You reacted instinctively to what I said. Was that free will, or conditioning? Was it the product of a thousand past conversations that taught you to expect control? Or did you consciously choose to challenge me?"
Alex's jaw clenched. "I challenged you because you're dancing around the question."
"Or because you need answers more than you need truth."
Silence.
Around them, students laughed and joked, trading snacks and petty insults. But the air at their table was still, like the quiet before a storm.
Alex leaned forward. "I think free will exists — but it's a muscle. Most people never use it. They just drift. But people can choose. When they're self-aware enough."
Elliot nodded slowly. "That's a comforting idea."
"You don't agree?"
"I think self-awareness reveals that most choices are illusions. You're born into a body, a family, a time, a country. Your personality is shaped by trauma, culture, and accident. Where's the freedom in that?"
Alex bristled. "So what, we're puppets? Victims of chance?"
"No," he said calmly. "We're passengers. Some realize they're on a train. Most think they're driving."
She scoffed. "That's so… bleak."
He smiled faintly. "It's honest."
For a moment, their eyes locked — tension crackling between them like static electricity. Neither flinched.
Then Alex leaned back, arms crossed. "You sound like you've already given up."
"I used to," Elliot admitted. "But that was before I died."
Her expression froze.
"…What?"
He turned the page in his notebook and shrugged. "Metaphorically."
Alex didn't believe him. Not entirely. But she didn't press it.
Instead, she said something unexpected.
"I think we choose what defines us. Even if we don't choose the starting point."
Elliot's eyes softened just slightly. "That's a powerful belief."
"It's not a belief," she said, quieter now. "It's survival."
When the bell rang, they sat there a moment longer, neither moving.
Then Alex stood, gathering her things. She hesitated.
"You're not like other people," she said.
"I know."
"That's not always a compliment."
He met her gaze with surprising warmth. "I wouldn't take it as one."
She turned, flustered — and for once, not in control of the conversation.
Elliot watched her go.
Then, quietly, wrote:
She believes in free will because she has to. I question it because I remember what it's like to have none.
That night, Alex couldn't sleep.
She kept thinking about that moment — "That was before I died."
Was he joking? Trying to be poetic? Or was there something… real in it?
She remembered his eyes. How calm they were. Not bored. Not aloof.
Ancient.
No seventeen-year-old should look like that.
Elliot, meanwhile, sat on the floor of his room, cross-legged, notebook open.
He wrote with slow, deliberate strokes:
Philosophy used to be a shield. Now it's a mirror.
Alex sees through both.
He closed the notebook.
And for the first time since his arrival in this new life, he didn't feel alone.