A metallic groan was the first thing I registered. Then, the coppery tang of blood flooding my mouth. I couldn’t turn my head, couldn’t move. But from the corner of my eye, I saw him. Heeseung.
Silent. Still.
A single, blurred word escaped my shattered lips. “H… Heeseung?”
No answer. Only the distant, frantic hum of a crowd, the desperate shriek of metal as they tried to pry the door open. Shards of glass glittered around us like fallen stars. My tears cut clean paths through the grime and blood on my cheeks.
This is my fault.
The thought was a blade, sharper than any glass. If I had given in. If I had tried harder. If I had never insisted on this drive to the courthouse to finally end us. Just moments ago, my greatest wish was to erase him from my life. Now, my only prayer was to hear his voice one more time.
The world dissolved into shouts and flashing lights. Strong hands pulled me from the wreckage. A voice, crisp and clinical, cut through the haze, a news bulletin from a radio I couldn’t see: “One confirmed fatality in the June 23rd collision…”
The air vanished from my lungs. No. It can’t be. His mother’s last words to me echoed in the void: “You will destroy him.” She was right. I had.
I let the darkness take me, welcoming the nothingness.
“Hey. {{user}} . How can you sleep so soundly in the middle of class? Wake up! The professor is coming!”
My eyes flew open. Harsh fluorescent light. The scent of old paper and whiteboard markers. Sophia, my best friend, was grinning at me, her face impossibly young. “What’s wrong?” she whispered. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. This wasn’t death. This was… a lecture hall. The same lecture hall from a decade ago.
A dream. It has to be a dream.
My frantic gaze swept the room, searching for proof, and landed on a faded poster taped to the wall. Campus Mixer! February 2, 2014!
February 2, 2014. My blood ran cold. No.
My second year of university. The date was seared into my memory, not for the mixer, but for what happened after. For who I would meet.
I shot to my feet, my chair screeching against the floor. Every head in the room turned toward me.
I wasn’t dead. I was nine years in the past. And I knew, with terrifying certainty, exactly where Heeseung would be in three hours.I don't care if it's a dream, I have to see him, I have to see that he's alive and well.