She woke up to the sound of eggs frying.
The scent hit her first—salt, oil, a bit of soy sauce—and then the warmth of sunlight filtering through cream-colored curtains. Not the harsh electric buzz of her apartment. Not the stale quiet of her mattress on a bare cement floor.
This was different.
Too clean. Too warm. Too… early.
She sat up slowly, limbs sluggish, her head thick and dull like cotton had been stuffed behind her eyes.
The first thing she saw was her desk. Her old desk.
The surface was scratched where her elbow used to rest when she'd do homework half-asleep. There were sticker remnants on the drawer handle.
Her bookshelf still had that crooked Leaning Tower of Manila look to it, full of Sweet Valley books, secondhand manga, and old test papers folded into paper cranes. Her school bag was hanging neatly on the doorknob. Saint Marie Catholic School, stitched in awkward pink letters.
She was back. Not just in her childhood home—back in her twelve-year-old body.
She reached up to her face, touched her cheeks, her nose, her chin. No eye bags. No acne scars. No weight of twenty-six years of mistakes pressing down on her bones.
Downstairs, she could hear the clink of plates. A woman's voice muttering something under her breath. A bottle rattled on the counter.
She knew that sound.
Her mother had stopped drinking only years later—after the screaming matches, after the glass breaking, after her father finally left.
But back then? Back then her mother drank every morning. Like coffee.
She stood up too fast and had to grab the wall to steady herself.
Her legs were thinner. Her body lighter. Her pajamas had cartoon pandas on them.
No pills. No static hum of a dying life.
Just the ghost of oil in the air and the clatter of a family already splintering.
She moved slowly through the hallway, past old photos. Her brother's smile. Her father's graduation. Her own awkward picture, holding a silver medal from a spelling bee she barely remembered.
The kitchen came into view.
Her mother was standing in front of the stove, still in her duster, hair tied sloppily, bottle of gin tucked discreetly beside the rice cooker.
She hadn't noticed her yet.
The memory rushed back—not just of her mother's alcoholism, but of the shame, the quiet resentment, the way the neighbors whispered.
She wanted to speak. But her mouth wouldn't open. It felt like watching an old TV rerun of a life she'd tried to forget.
"I made egg," her mother said flatly, finally noticing her. "Eat before it gets cold."
No hug. No questions. Just routine. Even here, in this unreal moment, her mother's voice was weary and automatic.
She sat down at the small dining table. A plate of egg and rice waited for her. Ketchup on the side. Just like when she was little.
She picked up the spoon.
So this is it, she thought. I'm really back.
Later that morning, when her mother went upstairs to lie down—and maybe cry, or maybe drink—she stepped outside into the sunlight. The neighborhood looked exactly the same. Tricycles clattered down the road. Laundry waved on rusted wires. The sky was its usual hazy blue-gray.
She felt no grand revelation. No booming voice from the heavens. No glowing staff or magical animal companion leaping from the bushes.
But something shimmered.
Out of the corner of her eye, just beyond the narrow alley by the sari-sari store[1], she saw something flicker—a ripple in the air, like heat on pavement, only glowing faintly blue.
She turned.
It was gone.
Back inside her room, she lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling. A familiar ceiling now. One that had once held dreams drawn in glow-in-the-dark stars.
She whispered to herself, voice small and steady:
"I died. I know I did."
And somewhere deep within her chest, something pulsed.
A spark. Quiet. Not painful. Not frightening. Just… waiting.
By 6:30 AM, she was in uniform—stiff, too tight at the shoulders, the cloth itchy. Her shoes were the same pair she remembered from that year. Worn. Frayed. Scuffed at the toes.
She hadn't noticed them much when she was a child. Now, as a soul who had lived through two and a half decades of adult judgment and shame, they felt loud.
Loud enough that when she stepped off the tricycle at school, she could already feel eyes turning.
The school looked exactly the same. Brown-painted gates. Overgrown bougainvillea curling around the fences. Girls in plaid skirts and over-sized backpacks chattering in little circles.
Class started like a memory someone had folded and kept in a drawer too long.
Her seat was near the window. A row too far back to disappear, but just close enough to catch the whispers of girls who still smelled like baby cologne and early ambition.
She hadn't even set her bag down when she heard it.
"Her shoes look old," someone murmured behind her, voice laced with sugar and spite.
Another snorted. "Like they came from her aunt's closet in the eighties."
She didn't turn around. But her chest went tight. Her fingers curled around the strap of her bag until her knuckles whitened.
At twenty-six, she would have laughed. Or sighed. Or just walked away.
But at twelve—even with the burden of adult memory—it still stung.
Because shame doesn't disappear when you grow older. It only learns how to sit deeper in the bones.
Recess came.
She sat alone.
The canteen's tables were packed with voices louder than hunger. Plastic trays clattered, someone spilled juice, and laughter erupted over a phone screen she couldn't see.
Nobody looked at her.
She unwrapped her sandwich slowly—two slices of white bread, a smear of mayonnaise, and a single piece of lettuce that had already wilted at the edges. It wasn't much, but it was all her mother had packed. No rice meal. No meat. No warmth.
She chewed without tasting. Swallowed without feeling full.
Across the table, someone opened a foil lunchbox—steaming rice, golden fried chicken, slices of mango. She looked away before envy could take shape.
A chalky breeze stirred through the hallway.
In the corner of her vision, something moved—soft at first. A moth, drifting just past the window's edge.
But it wasn't like any moth she'd ever seen.
Its wings shimmered—not gray or brown, but iridescent blue, like fractured glass catching morning light. It hovered midair for a second too long, unnaturally still, as if it had noticed her.
She blinked.
And it vanished.
No one else saw it.
The world moved on around her—careless and loud. But inside her, something shifted.
Something was watching.
Something had started.
She left class early when the bell rang, feigning stomach cramps. She walked home, uniform damp with sweat, shoes aching at the soles.
Halfway down the narrow road past the sari-sari store, the air shifted.
A warmth in her chest. A tug behind her ribs. Something ancient and soft and bright.
She paused.
It was like being looked at, but not with eyes. Like the world was holding its breath, waiting.
Back in her room, she removes her uniform and collapsed onto her bed.
Tears threatened—but didn't fall.
She whispered, bitterly:
"This was my second chance?"
No answer.
But under her bed, something pulsed.
Like light. Like a heartbeat. Like a secret waiting to wake.
[1] Like a convenience store.