The morning air felt softer than usual, the kind that kissed my skin like silk and sunlight.
We were standing outside a small rural health center where Ken's team was setting up tables, supplies, and those blue tarps they used for shade.
Laughter, chatter, and the faint metallic sound of wheelchairs being pushed filled the air.
The smell of alcohol swabs mixed with brewed coffee drifting from a nearby stall.
Ken was already halfway through unloading boxes from the van, sleeves rolled up, forehead glistening under the heat.
He looked alive here, in his space, surrounded by people who knew his quiet strength. Watching him like that sent a soft pull through me.
I wasn't part of this world at least, not in the way he was.
I didn't belong to the noise of children chasing each other near the tents, or the long lines of patients waiting patiently with numbered slips of paper.
But somehow, I was here.
Beside him.
"Ysabelle, could you hand me that bag?"
His voice snapped me out of the haze.
"Oh, yeah. This one?" I asked, reaching for the brown duffel.
He nodded, smiling that quiet smile that always managed to make my chest ache.
"Perfect. Thanks."
He brushed past me, his arm grazing mine lightly, a fleeting contact that left warmth even after he was gone.
For the next hour, I busied myself where I could: helping the old woman fill out a form, handing out water bottles, playing with a little girl whose arm was bandaged.
Everyone seemed to know Ken.
They called his name in gratitude, laughter, trust.
And me? I watched from the sidelines, like a scene from someone else's life.
It started small, that feeling.
A flicker at the edge of my awareness.
Like I'd been here before.
Like I'd lived this exact day once, maybe twice, though I couldn't remember when or how.
A nurse handed me a clipboard, asking if I could list down a few patients' names.
I smiled, nodded, did what she asked.
But as I wrote the names, my handwriting trembled.
The letters didn't look like mine.
My name, Ysabelle on the corner of the paper. It felt foreign, like a borrowed word.
By noon, the sun blazed fiercely, and we retreated under a tent to eat.
Ken passed me a sandwich, and I took it absentmindedly, eyes drifting toward a small child giggling at his mother's lap.
"You okay?" he asked, unwrapping his own food.
I nodded quickly. "Yeah, just tired."
He studied me for a second, then smiled faintly. "You're not used to this kind of crowd. You can stay inside the van if you want."
"I want to be here," I said, surprising even myself with how firm my voice sounded.
His lips curved, just a little. "Alright. But drink water."
He reached for the bottle on my side and opened it for me, the gesture so small yet intimate that I had to look away.
When I finally glanced back, his eyes were on me, soft, questioning, and somehow knowing.
Something inside me stirred.
The rest of the afternoon blurred.
I helped a boy clean his scraped knee, held the hand of a mother too anxious to speak, and handed out candies Ken had bought for the children.
Each moment felt too familiar.
Like echoes.
Ken would say something, a phrase, a laugh and a memory would flash: the same tone, the same words, only… different.
A different place.
Different clothes.
Was I imagining this?
At one point, I looked down at my hands, smeared with antiseptic, and for a heartbeat they didn't feel like mine.
They looked thinner, paler, trembling faintly as if reacting to something deeper than exhaustion.
The world around me felt both real and unreal, like I was dreaming someone else's life but couldn't wake up.
"Ysabelle?"
Ken's voice cut through again, grounding me.
"Yeah?"
He was kneeling by a small child, looking up at me with that same gentle expression he always wore when he sensed something was wrong.
"Can you pass me the gauze?"
"Of course," I said quickly, handing it over.
But he didn't take it right away.
He kept looking at me, searching, as if my face held an answer he couldn't quite name.
"You sure you're alright?"
I forced a smile. "I'm fine, Ken. Just… thinking."
He nodded slowly, not fully convinced, but didn't push.
When he turned back to the child, I exhaled.
My reflection caught in the side mirror of a parked tricycle nearby, hair tied messily, eyes distant.
I looked like me.
But at the same time, not.
Like there was someone else beneath the skin, whispering from behind the glass.
Later that afternoon, as the sun began to sink, painting everything in gold and tangerine, we started packing up.
Ken walked beside me, his arm brushing mine occasionally, the air between us quiet but charged.
"Did you enjoy today?" he asked softly.
I looked up at the fading sky, then at him. "I did. It felt… right."
He smiled, the kind that reached his eyes. "I'm glad."
But as I said it, a strange weight settled in my chest.
It felt right, yet something deep inside whispered that it wasn't real.
The faces around me, the people, the noise, even the way the wind moved through the trees, all of it began to flicker at the edges of my awareness.
I blinked, and for a split second, everything went silent.
No laughter.
No sound.
Just stillness.
Then it was back again, the world returning like a film reel that had skipped a frame.
I looked at Ken.
He didn't notice.
He was still walking, hands in pockets, humming softly.
I swallowed hard. "Ken?"
He glanced at me. "Yeah?"
I wanted to ask him, Do you ever feel like this isn't real?
But the words stuck in my throat.
Instead, I just smiled and said, "Nothing."
He tilted his head slightly but didn't press.
"Come on," he said gently. "Let's grab some ice cream before we head back."
I nodded, following his lead, though the ground beneath my feet felt lighter, like gravity itself was beginning to loosen its hold on me.
And as we walked side by side into the orange glow of the sunset, a thought whispered at the back of my mind,
What if this world isn't mine?