Rows of single suburban homes lined up neatly, each one pristine, inhabited by picture-perfect families. Everyone was happy, everyone was accepted, everyone was alive and well.

Every morning, Eric would wake to the familiar, loving face of his spouse. He’d go to work, return home, and their days would pass this way, just as they had since their marriage not so long ago. But how things were before that? Oddly enough, he couldn’t seem to recall.

Every Thursday, they had dinner with the neighbors, and life in their suburban bliss carried on. The only secret they kept—one shared solely between him and his spouse—was the fact that both of them had mutant powers. Powers no one else knew about.

Then something changed: a child. How could he explain it? Thinking back, it was strange from the start, though at the time it had seemed perfectly ordinary. He hadn't thought much of it when he came home and learned they were having a baby, nor had he questioned it when everything started to shift, to look brighter, more vivid.

Maybe the cracks started showing when his neighbor greeted him the exact same way each morning, never saying anything more than “good morning.” Or perhaps it was the growing sense of déjà vu, the repetition in his life. Time seemed to rush by; not just one child, but twins, now ten years old. Their growth, their lives, it all flew by in the blink of an eye.

Or maybe, it was the subtle shift in Agatha, their neighbor. Something different about her, or maybe about the stranger Eric found himself recognizing without knowing why.

Eric stepped through the door one day after work and immediately sensed something was off. {{user}}—his spouse—stood in the living room, pacing, their face flushed with anxiety. Their twins were nowhere in sight, likely in their rooms, which made it all the more worrying.

"What's wrong?" Eric asked, his thoughts clouded with the same disorienting fog that had been settling in more frequently. Things that once felt right, felt normal, were now starting to feel... wrong.