"I thought I had mapped your world. I thought I had followed the margins of your story.
But now the pages have been replaced.
Must I continue, even when my own lines no longer exist?" — E
The Monday hallways vanished without ceremony.
The city—traffic, neon, the low hum of human life—collapsed like a paragraph struck through. In its place stretched a meadow, wide and impossible, swaying beneath a breeze scented with pine and wet earth. Dew clung to the tips of grass, glinting like fractured glass.
I blinked.
The words I had been thinking a moment ago were gone. Not forgotten—rearranged. As if someone had taken the draft of reality and quietly loaded a different version.
Sunlight fractured strangely here, splitting into clean angles across the field. Even the air felt… structured. Not natural, not artificial—edited. Like the world had been rewritten for clarity.
The heavens had once watched eras rise and fall, marks carved into time itself. But now, one era had exhaled its last, leaving only a residue—a faint chill that bit at my lungs, sweet with moss and distant rain. The kind of cold that made warmth feel borrowed.
A voice cut through the sensation.
"Hey, what course do we have after this one?"
The meadow folded.
Lockers slammed. Shoes scraped tile. The familiar static of human existence flooded back in, loud and unearned. My head throbbed. The taste of stale coffee lingered on my tongue like a memory I didn't consent to.
"Robert, wake up! Were you gaming all night again?"
Tori.
She had a talent for breaking into my thoughts like sunlight through a cracked window.
"Let me be… too noisy," I muttered, burying my face in my arms.
"Up!" she said, grabbing my sleeve. I stumbled upright, hoodie half over my head, light burning through the windows like an accusation. She dragged me into the current of students.
"We have economics next. We can't be late! Finals are coming! Are you even listening?!"
Her black hair whipped across my face. Her hazel eyes scanned the hallway with practiced charm, greeting people I barely knew. Having a childhood friend was manageable. Having a popular one felt like living inside someone else's social gravity.
"Look! He's already there!" she said, pointing. Then she broke into a sprint and hauled me along.
And the scene folded again.
No transition. No warning.
The hallway unraveled like a sentence mid-thought.
Green returned. Wind returned. Pine returned.
The meadow stood before us, more vivid than before—grass bending in slow waves, sunlight resting on the field like careful punctuation. The air threaded through my hoodie, raised goosebumps along my arms.
Tori froze beside me.
"...Rob?" she whispered.
"Yeah," I said. "I know."
We were no longer pretending.
"Goodness, and who might you two be?"
A woman stood at the edge of the field, eyes warm and gold like early sunlight. Her dress was old-fashioned—green sleeves, white apron, gloves on her hands. Not out of place. Not in place either.
Somehow, I knew she already understood.
"Good morning, Ma'am, we—" Tori started, then stopped. Language felt fragile here. Like saying the wrong thing might lock it in permanently.
The woman smiled.
"Why don't we go inside first? Conversations are kinder over a meal."
No threat. No urgency. Just inevitability.
Sheep grazed in the distance. No fence. No shepherd.
The house shouldn't have existed. Brick walls in the middle of an open field, windows catching the sun at impossible angles.
Inside, warmth rolled over me like tea poured into frozen hands. A fireplace crackled. The air smelled of wood smoke and something faintly sweet—bread, maybe honey.
The woman moved easily through the kitchen.
"Robert," Tori whispered, gripping my sleeve. "What do we do?"
"I don't know," I said. And for once, it wasn't an excuse. "I really don't."
The calm felt manufactured. Not fake—curated.
"Mom!"
Footsteps on the stairs.
A girl our age appeared—red hair like autumn leaves, green eyes sharp with alert curiosity.
"...Mom?" I echoed, glancing between them.
Tori blinked. "Wait. Blonde, red eyes… and then strawberry-blonde with green eyes…?"
"Who are you two?" the girl asked.
Silence stretched. The world seemed to wait for the next line.
"Hi," Tori said softly. "I'm Victoria."
Her eyes turned to me.
"...and this is Robin."
The girl studied us, then shrugged lightly. "Nice to meet you."
The fireplace crackled.
Outside, the meadow pressed green and gold against the windows. The scent of pine threaded through the air. The city, the hallway, Monday itself—all of it felt like a previous draft.
And somewhere beneath the surface of the world, I felt it again.
Not a voice.
Not a god.
Not even a presence.
Just the quiet pressure of correction.
As if the story itself had been revised—and we were now living in the edited version.
"A story can be rewritten.
But a sentence, once formed, always leaves a trace." — L