Avery and Mira didn't move for several seconds.
The bell still echoed through the courtyard—deep, metallic, too heavy for a modern school. The kind of bell that belonged to another building, another decade… maybe another reality.
Mira swallowed hard. "Avery… Lockridge doesn't have that bell anymore. They removed it before we even enrolled."
"I know." Avery kept staring at the paper. "But we both heard it."
Students began walking across the courtyard, chatting about homework and weekend plans, completely oblivious that the air had just split open around them. It felt wrong — like Avery and Mira were trapped in a moment no one else could see.
Mira finally crouched down and lifted the page from the grass.
"'They've noticed you,'" she read under her breath. "Who's 'they'? And why us?"
Avery didn't have an answer — only a rising sense of being watched. Their gaze drifted toward the classroom windows. One of them—Room A3—had its blinds drawn tight, though Avery was certain they had been open that morning.
Someone… or something… was behind them now.
Before either of them could speak, Coach Haddon shouted from the walkway.
"You two! Move it. You're about to be late."
Late?
Avery checked their phone.
7:14 a.m.
That was impossible. They had arrived at school at 7:54. They remembered the time exactly — the sun's position, the morning announcements already playing in the hall.
Mira checked her phone. Her face drained of color.
"Mine says the same," she whispered. "Avery… it's like the last forty minutes never happened."
Avery's heart thudded painfully.
Lockridge had done something again.
They started walking toward the building, though every step felt unsteady, as if the ground remembered the timeline they'd lost but their bodies did not.
As they reached the doors, Avery glanced back one last time.
The page from Elias's notebook—which Mira had been holding seconds ago—
was gone.
Completely gone.
No wind. No hands. No sign of where it had gone.
Just absence, quiet and absolute.
"Come on," Mira said, trying to sound steady. "We can deal with this after class."
But Avery wasn't listening anymore.
The reflection in the door's glass caught their eye.
It was them standing there.
But their reflection wasn't turning to follow Mira.
It was staring directly at Avery.
Expressionless.
Unblinking.
And as Avery froze, the reflection lifted a hand—
not to wave, but to warn.
A single word formed on its lips.
"Run."