Chapter Six: Her World

  It started with a perfect morning.

  The sun broke clean through my window, no clouds in sight. Birds chirped in harmony. The smell of fresh coffee drifted from the kitchen, even though I hadn’t brewed any.

  Mariah was already there.

  She stood barefoot in the kitchen, humming a song that didn’t exist. Her hair was pulled back, her face glowing like she'd been sculpted out of light. Pancakes sizzled on the stove. Bacon curled beside them. Everything golden.

  "Good morning," she said, like it was the first day of something.

  "How’d you get in?"

  She laughed. "You gave me a key. Don’t you remember?"

  I didn’t. But something about the way she said it made me question whether that even mattered.

  We sat on the back porch and ate like we were in a commercial. Orange juice. Sunshine. Laughter. No phones. No noise. No world.

  "Let’s do something fun," she said. "I want to show you something."

  We drove into the hills. Winding roads. Green trees. Everything shimmered like it had been polished overnight. Even the gravel felt arranged. Like props.

  At the top of the ridge, we parked. The view was breathtaking—mountains in every direction, hazy purple lines stretching toward infinity.

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  Mariah took my hand. "This is my favorite place. Doesn’t it feel like magic?"

  It did. And that terrified me.

  Because it felt too good. Too smooth. Like a simulation turned up to eleven.

  "What day is it?" I asked.

  She blinked. "Does it matter?"

  "It does to me."

  She smiled again. But there was something brittle in it.

  I looked at my phone. No signal. No notifications. No date.

  The same birds circled overhead for the third time. Identical.

  I stood up. Walked a few paces away. The air felt syrupy, like walking through a dream.

  "Do you remember the name of your high school?" I asked her.

  "Of course," she said. Then paused. "Wait... yeah. Totally. Why?"

  "Say it."

  She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

  Then her nose started to bleed.

  "Are you okay?"

  She laughed and wiped it away like it was nothing.

  "Just the altitude."

  "We’re not that high up."

  Mariah’s eyes flicked sideways, like she was looking at a cue offstage. Then she looked back at me.

  "Don’t ruin this. Please."

  I stepped back. My shadow didn’t move with me. It lagged.

  That’s when the wind shifted. A low hum, just below hearing. And then—music. A familiar melody. A piano chord progression I couldn’t place but had heard before.

  The radio in Mariah’s car clicked on by itself.

  Seren’s voice cut through: "She’s not what you think. None of this is."

  Mariah screamed. High-pitched. Glitched.

  The world shimmered. Just a flicker. Trees warping, sky pixelating for a heartbeat before it snapped back.

  "Stop listening to her," Mariah begged. She was crying now, hands over her ears. "Stay here. Please. It’s better this way. We can be happy. We can forget."

  "Forget what?"

  Her lips trembled. She didn’t answer.

  I looked past her. The mountains were gone.

  The horizon had dropped into a flat wireframe grid.

  I turned and ran.

  Back down the hill. Through the too-perfect trees. Past the looped birds and the frozen deer in the brush.

  I didn’t stop until I was alone again. My breath ragged. My hands shaking.

  When I looked back, the road was gone.

  Only grass. Blue sky.

  No car. No Mariah.

  No ridge.

  Just silence.

  And that damn melody, still echoing in my skull like a message I hadn't translated yet.