Night settled quietly over the city, weaving silver threads through wet streets and window glass.
Elara sat cross-legged on her small bed, sketchbook balanced on her knees. The hum of the rain outside was softer now, as if the world itself had grown tired.
She flipped through pages she had drawn over months — maybe years. Faces blurred by memory, streets she had never walked, scenes she could never quite explain. And again, always him.
Not perfectly drawn, never quite the same face: sometimes older, sometimes younger, sometimes his eyes softer, sometimes shadowed with sadness. But always recognizably him.
Ciel.
A name that now had weight and shape. A name she had spoken aloud just hours before.
She traced the newest sketch with her fingertip: the way his hair fell across his forehead, the faint crease between his brows when he was focused.
When she closed her eyes, fragments of the parallel worlds fluttered in the dark:
His laughter echoing in a sunlit kitchen.
The cold feel of a hospital blanket against her arm as she held his hand.
The quiet sorrow of missing him on a crowded train.
Each vision was like glass pressed against her skin: clear, sharp, and impossibly fragile.
Elara had never told anyone about the blackouts. Who could she tell? That every Tuesday at exactly 3:33 PM, she slipped out of her own life into someone else's? That in every life, there was always him?
She had convinced herself it was coincidence, a trick of the mind. Until today — when he walked into the café at the exact minute the visions always began. Real. Breathing. Smiling at her as if he had been waiting.
What if this is the same Ciel? What if he's the constant across every world?
The thought frightened her more than she wanted to admit. Because in every glimpse she had ever seen, love had never been enough to hold onto him.
She touched the page, whispering to the empty room:
"Will it be different this time?"
No answer came — only the soft rhythm of rain and the ticking of the small clock on her nightstand. She watched the second hand move past 3:33 AM, felt something twist inside her chest, and exhaled slowly.
Elara closed the sketchbook, holding it to her heart. In the quiet darkness, she made a silent promise:
Even if it breaks me, I will choose to know him again.
Outside, the rain continued — gentle, endless, and familiar.Inside, sleep finally came, carrying her toward another Tuesday yet to come.