I always wake up just before the world opens its eyes.
Today, it's raining.
Not metaphorical rain. Not trauma or sorrow. Just actual, wet, gray rain falling like static from a glitching sky.
And I'm under a blue umbrella.
The strange part?
I've never owned one.
I stare at the fabric stretched above me, watching droplets slide off its surface like little liquid ghosts, running from something. I can hear the city breathing — a synthetic hum beneath layers of concrete, plasma signs, and chrome streets slick with water.
Everything feels… borrowed.
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❖ Name: Eli Voss
❖ Age: Still 17
❖ Today's life: Student in a high-class tech district
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This is Life #12. I think.
Or maybe #13.
I've stopped counting with numbers.
Now I count by feelings.
In Life #4, I remember laughing.
In Life #8, I had blood on my hands.
In Life #10, I watched my mother die — though I've never had one.
In this life, I feel something strange:
Peace.
Which is why it terrifies me.
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I walk down the glowing corridor of a learning dome, blue uniform pressed, ID chip blinking on my collar. Everyone here walks like they've never known fear. Like they belong.
I don't.
Not just because I know tomorrow I'll wake up in a different bed, a different life, a different version of me —
But because this version of Eli Voss is too perfect.
Top of the class. Parents in politics. Neural sync rate: 98%.
People wave. Smile. A girl with silver streaks in her hair calls out, "See you in history, Eli!"
Her eyes shine like she's known me forever.
She hasn't.
They never do.
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⌁ Memory spike detected.
⌁ Emotion index: 74% curiosity, 19% fear.
⌁ Fragment emerging...
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There's a flash.
Not outside. Inside.
Something not from this life.
I see a hand.
Bloodied.
Reaching for mine.
A voice. My voice.
But colder. Older.
"Kill it before it remembers you."
Then — nothing.
I blink, still holding the umbrella as if nothing happened.
But my heart is racing like it knows something my brain won't admit.
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I think I'm not the only me.
There's someone — maybe many — versions of me trapped in this cycle.
And not all of them want me to find out why.
Some want me dead.
Some… may already be dead.
And one of them, I think, started all of this.
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Tonight, when I close my eyes…
This life will end.
And tomorrow, I'll wake up again.
Somewhere new.
Someone else.
Still me.
Still Eli Voss.
Until the final version of me decides:
Which one of us gets to stay.
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✦ END OF CHAPTER 1 ✦
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