Elior woke up gasping.
His body jerked upright before his mind caught up, lungs dragging air in as if he had been underwater too long. His hands clawed at the sheets, fingers trembling, skin slick with sweat. For several seconds he could not tell where he was or when he was or whether the world still existed beyond the room.
Then the ceiling came into focus.
White. Uncracked. Familiar.
The hum of the fan filled the silence, steady and unbroken. Morning light slipped through the curtains, pale and ordinary. No green glow. No pressure. No heat.
He was alive.
The realization did not bring relief. It brought terror.
Elior reached for his phone with shaking hands, nearly dropping it as he unlocked the screen. His vision blurred as he checked the date. He checked it again, slower this time, forcing himself to read every number.
Seven days earlier.
Exactly.
He pressed the phone to his chest and let out a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. His heart continued to hammer like it had not gotten the message that the danger had passed.
It had not passed. It had reset.
Aria shifted beside him, stirring slightly. Her hair fell across her face as she turned, her breathing deep and slow. She was asleep. Alive. Unaware.
Elior watched her for a long moment, memorizing the rise and fall of her chest, the way her brow smoothed when she relaxed. She had been standing next to him when the world ended. Again.
And now she was here, safe, as if nothing had happened.
That terrified him more than the destruction itself.
He carefully swung his legs off the bed and stood, moving slowly so he would not wake her. His knees felt weak, his balance unsteady, like he had just recovered from a long illness.
The apartment looked exactly the same. Every object was where it belonged. Nothing was burned. Nothing was broken.
He walked to the desk and sat down heavily, staring at the blank surface in front of him.
This time, he did not waste a single second.
He grabbed a notebook from the drawer and flipped it open. His hands still shook, but his mind was sharp now, painfully so. Panic had burned itself out, leaving behind something colder and more focused.
He wrote the date at the top of the page.
Then the time he had woken up.
Then the location of the second end.
Downtown. Records office intersection. Same curb. Same crack in the pavement.
He paused, pen hovering.
His chest tightened as he wrote the next line.
Aria was with me.
He stared at the words until they blurred, then forced himself to continue.
He wrote everything he could remember. The pressure returning before the sky changed. The reflection in the glass. The moment of certainty when he recognized the place.
He did not skip the parts that scared him the most.
I tried to leave.
I tried to stop walking.
I still went.
He circled the sentence hard enough that the pen tore slightly into the page.
When he finally stopped writing, his wrist ached and his breathing had slowed. The act of recording it made the experience feel anchored, like it could not slip away or be dismissed as imagination.
This was proof.
Not for anyone else. For him.
A soft sound came from the bed. Aria stirred again, this time more fully. Elior froze, then relaxed when she only rolled onto her side.
He was not ready to talk yet. He did not know how to explain something he barely understood himself.
Later, he told himself. After he thought.
He spent the rest of the morning in silence, sitting at the desk and staring at the notebook. Occasionally he added a detail he remembered, a sensation or a timing nuance that felt important.
By the time Aria woke fully, he had filled several pages.
She sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes. "You're up early."
Elior turned toward her. "Did you sleep okay?"
She nodded, then frowned. "Did you?"
He hesitated. "Not really."
She studied him, concern returning to her face. "You look exhausted."
"I feel like I ran a marathon," he said truthfully.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stretched. "You were restless again. You kept tensing up."
Elior swallowed. "Did I say anything?"
"No," she replied. "You just kept breathing like you were bracing for something."
He looked away.
Aria stood and walked toward him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Elior, talk to me. Please."
He covered her hand with his own. "I will. Just not yet."
She searched his face, then nodded reluctantly. "Okay. But I'm here."
After she left the room, Elior exhaled slowly.
He waited until she went to work before doing the next thing he knew he had to do.
He tested reality.
He left the apartment and stood in the hallway, heart racing as he half expected the walls to dissolve or the pressure to return immediately.
Nothing happened.
He went downstairs. Outside. Onto the street.
The city was alive. Loud. Messy. Real.
Elior walked aimlessly for hours, watching people, listening to conversations, absorbing normality. He checked his phone obsessively, confirming the date every few minutes like it might change if he did not look.
Everything stayed the same.
By afternoon, exhaustion caught up to him. He sat on a bench in a small park and pulled the notebook from his bag, flipping back through what he had written.
One sentence stood out more than the rest.
I do not remember choosing to go there.
Elior stared at it, then shook his head.
That was not entirely true.
He had chosen. Every step had felt justified. Necessary. Reasonable.
He had gone because Aria needed him. Because leaving felt worse than staying. Because it made sense at the time.
That was the problem.
The loop did not drag him. It convinced him.
The thought sent a chill through him that had nothing to do with fear of death.
When Aria came home that evening, Elior was waiting for her.
She set her bag down and immediately noticed the notebook on the table. "What's that?"
"Something I'm working on," he said.
She crossed her arms lightly. "You've been distant all day."
"I know," he replied. "I'm sorry."
She waited.
He took a breath. "I need you to listen. Not to believe me. Just to listen."
Her expression softened. "Okay."
He told her some of it. Not everything. Not the end of the world in full detail. Just enough to explain his behavior.
He talked about the feeling of wrongness. About déjà vu that refused to fade. About knowing things before they happened.
She listened without interrupting, her face unreadable.
When he finished, silence filled the room.
"You're saying you think something bad is coming," she said carefully.
"Yes."
"And that you've already experienced it."
"Yes."
She sat down slowly. "Elior… do you think you might be under too much stress?"
He nodded. "I've asked myself that. A lot."
"And?"
"And stress does not explain consistency," he said. "It does not explain repetition."
She looked at the notebook. "Is that what that is?"
He pushed it toward her. "I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget."
She flipped through a few pages, her brow furrowing.
"This is very detailed," she said quietly.
"I know."
She closed it and looked at him. "I don't know what to think. But I know you're scared."
He nodded. "I am."
She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. "Then we'll take this one day at a time."
Elior squeezed back, grateful and terrified in equal measure.
That night, he lay awake staring at the ceiling again, but this time his thoughts were steadier.
The world would end in seven days.
Again.
And if he did nothing, he would be standing in that same place.
The only question now was whether he could prove it to himself beyond doubt.
And whether he could stop trusting his own instincts long enough to break the pattern.
As sleep finally took him, one thought settled heavily in his mind.
The danger was not the sky.
It was him.