Leo woke up on the floor.
Cold.
That was the first thing he noticed.
Not the ceiling. Not the unfamiliar room.The cold.
It seeped through his clothes and into his bones like he'd been lying there for hours.
"…What?"
His voice came out hoarse.
For a moment, he didn't move. His mind lagged behind his body, as if waking up took more effort than it should.
Then the memories hit.
The hallway.The bell.The strange silence.The world… glitching.
And then—
Nothing.
Leo pushed himself up slowly, palms pressing against the ground. The surface wasn't carpet.
It was tile.
Smooth. Hard. Real.
He blinked and finally looked around.
It was a classroom.
But not his classroom.
The layout was wrong. The desks were arranged in perfect rows, too symmetrical. The windows were larger, stretching from halfway up the wall to the ceiling. Sunlight poured in at an angle that felt… off.
Like the sun itself had been repositioned slightly.
Leo swallowed.
"Okay… this isn't funny."
He stood up.
No one was there.
Not a single student. Not a teacher. Not even the usual background noise of a school day. No chatter. No footsteps. No distant announcements.
Just silence.
A suffocating, unnatural silence.
His heartbeat grew louder in his ears.
Thump.Thump.Thump.
Leo walked toward the nearest desk and ran his fingers across it.
Dustless.
Pristine.
Like it had never been used.
"…Did school end already?"
But that didn't make sense.
He checked his phone.
No signal.No notifications.Time: 8:17 AM.
The exact same time the bell rang earlier.
Leo's fingers tightened around the device.
"That's… not possible."
He distinctly remembered the bell ringing after class.
Didn't he?
A faint pressure built in the back of his head.
Like something was trying to surface.
Like a memory just out of reach.
He stepped toward the door.
It creaked open the moment his hand touched the handle.
The hallway outside stretched longer than it should have.
Too long.
The lockers were lined up perfectly on both sides, but the colors were muted — slightly desaturated, like someone had turned down the world's brightness.
Leo took one step out.
Then another.
His footsteps echoed.
Too loudly.
"…Hello?"
His voice traveled down the corridor and didn't come back.
No echo.
Just silence swallowing the sound whole.
A chill ran down his spine.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
He started walking faster.
Left turn.
Then right.
Then straight.
Every hallway looked the same.
Same lockers.Same lights.Same empty classrooms.
No exit signs.No windows showing the outside world anymore.
Leo stopped.
"…Was it always this big?"
His breathing grew uneven.
He turned around.
The hallway behind him was different.
Shorter.
Like it had shrunk.
"…No."
He blinked.
And the lights above him flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then—
Darkness for half a second.
When the lights came back on, someone was standing at the end of the hall.
Leo froze.
A figure.
Tall. Still. Unmoving.
Too far away to see clearly.
"…Hey!" Leo called out instinctively.
No response.
The figure didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
Didn't shift.
Just stood there.
Watching.
His instincts screamed at him to turn around.
To run.
But his feet didn't listen.
"Are you… a student?" he asked, voice quieter now.
Still no response.
The lights flickered again.
This time longer.
One second.
Two.
Darkness swallowed the hallway.
Leo's heart slammed against his ribs.
The lights snapped back on.
The figure was closer.
Way closer.
Only a few lockers away now.
Leo stumbled back.
"I didn't even hear—"
The figure's head tilted.
Slowly.
Unnaturally.
Like a puppet pulled by invisible strings.
Leo's vision blurred for a second.
And suddenly—
The floor beneath his foot felt wrong.
He stepped back without looking.
His heel slipped on something.
Air.
There was no floor behind him.
His body tipped backward.
"Wait—!"
His hand shot out, grasping for anything.
Nothing.
No railing.No wall.No ground.
Just emptiness.
For a split second, he saw the hallway stretch infinitely above him, the lights distorting like broken reflections.
And the figure at the edge—
Watching him fall.
Then—
Impact.
Leo gasped.
His eyes snapped open.
He was back in the classroom.
On the floor.
Cold tile beneath him.
Sunlight through the tall windows.
Phone in his hand.
Time: 8:17 AM.
His breath came out in sharp bursts.
"…I…"
He slowly sat up.
His body wasn't injured.
Not even a scratch.
But the memory of falling was still vivid. The fear. The weightlessness. The certainty that he was about to hit the ground and—
Die.
Leo stared at the door.
It was closed.
Exactly how it had been when he first woke up.
"…That wasn't a dream."
His voice trembled slightly.
Because everything felt the same.
Too same.
Too reset.
He looked down at his hand.
It was shaking.
Then he noticed something new.
Faint.
Barely visible.
On the inside of his wrist.
A thin, gray line.
Like a crack.
Leo rubbed it.
It didn't disappear.
"…What is this?"
Silence answered him.
Somewhere in the distance—
A bell rang.
Not loud.
Not clear.
But distorted.
Like a sound replayed from far, far away.
Leo's stomach dropped.
Because this time—
He remembered.
The slip.The fall.The darkness.
And waking up again.
At the same time.
8:17 AM.
His eyes widened slowly.
"…Don't tell me…"
He looked at the classroom door again.
Then at the clock.
Then back at his wrist.
The gray crack pulsed faintly.
Once.
Like it was alive.
Leo swallowed hard.
"If I mess up…"
The thought finished itself before he could stop it.
"…do I start over?"
The bell rang again.
Closer this time.
And the classroom door handle—
Twitched.