"Can you roll up the window please, sweetie?"
These were his last words to her, and all that she could remember after that was Alexander hitting the brakes, followed by a loud screech, both their screams and then darkness.
But somehow, most mystically, Alison ended up in a bed, not a hospital bed like she'd have guessed, but the soft spring mattress in a bedroom. The room had a familiar smell, so nostalgic that it felt like travelling back in time and revisiting her room as a single lady.
She gazed at the ceiling; those patterns were not the ones she remembered. Even the stain that Alexander had left on the ceiling while tossing around a bottle of ketchup was missing.
"Huh?" She sat up, rolling down the bedsheet, her eyes scanning the bedroom and her mind reeling with curiosity.
Alison looked to the right, the bedside drawer still holding the alarm clock that she vividly remembered throwing in the trash can, and the perfume she had quit using because Alex didn't like its fragrance.
"How did all this get back here?" She pondered, pushing the car accident aside with the idea that it was just a nightmare. One that felt so real she could have sworn that her spine snapped in half.
But because she woke up, it had to be a dream, right?
"Alex?" She called, slowly getting out of bed. It all seemed suspicious, like someone playing a prank on her and they had done so well to recreate her bedroom from seven years ago without missing a detail.
"Alex, is this supposed to be a prank?" Her voice was even louder this time. Convinced that it was all part of a stunt, Alison twisted the doorknob and pulled it open, only to be greeted by the same living room she used to know at twenty-two.
She frowned,
"What the hell?"
In a fit of rage, Alison walked into the living room and started to search every corner, she opened every door and cabinet while yelling out his name like he was in trouble.
"Alex, don't mess with me! You know I don't like pranks like this... this has gone too far!"
She was convinced that he was somewhat listening. Alexander was wealthy, so she believed pulling off this stunt was nothing. She searched around for hidden cameras anything to prove that she was right. Unfortunately, there was nothing.
"Well, at least this has taken my mind off that terrible nightmare I had." She scoffed.
"Alex, if you can hear me, just know that I'm not impressed by this prank, and that I will surely kill you when I find you!" She yelled followed by a slight chuckle.
Alison sighed heavily as she proceeded toward the door leading outside the house.
"They may have gotten the house right, but they can't fake the outside," she thought, but as soon as she opened the door, those thoughts flew out the window.
"What the hell?"
A shiver ran down Allison's spine, not because she saw something terrifying, but because this wasn't just an ordinary prank. It was her real house from seven years ago, the same neighbourhood and the ten-year-old boy running into the school bus while his mother waved goodbye.
The last time she saw this boy, he was at a restaurant with his girlfriend, and he sure wasn't a ten-year-old anymore. She could have assumed that it was acting, but it was all too real, not even the best movie directors can recreate the past with such accuracy.
"Good morning Alison!" The boy's mother waved, snapping the young lady back to reality. But instead of responding, Alison ran back into the house, slamming the door behind her and leaving the mother with a visible question mark on her face.
"Her voice is exactly the same," Alison uttered, and this time her heart started to race because it no longer seemed normal.
"Time travel is not real, time travel is not real," she continued to whisper these words to herself, until she returned to the bedroom in search of her phone.
She didn't have to look too far because it was right there on the bed, only it was not the phone she used to have. She remembers dumping this phone ages ago when Alexander gifted her a brand new one on their second date, so how did it end up in her hand once again and where did the other one go?
She paused,
"Something is wrong."
Alison pinched her cheek and slapped them lightly to ensure that it wasn't another nightmare. Then she picked up the phone, unlocked it with her face ID because she couldn't even remember the password.
Instinctively, she scrolled through her contact list looking for Alexander's phone number. She remembered saving it with two hearts and a ring emoji, but she didn't see anything like that.
She proceeded to search for it by clicking the search icon and typing out the last four digits of his phone number. Alison remembered that because she once joked about those last four digits to him.
"6969," she muttered while typing them down, but there wasn't a single number with those last four digits on her phone.
It was at this point that her body went cold, and she started to hear the sound of her own heartbeat so audibly in her ears.
Whatever it was that happened to her didn't make any sense yet. It felt like she knew what had happened but could not accept it because no one truly believed in time travel, not even the scientists.
Alison remained in the same position until the phone in her hand buzzed with a notification. She looked at the message coming from a name that she never thought she'd see again, one that she had ruled out of her life and swore to never forgive.
"Dylan." It was too heavy for her to say, but it opened her eyes to the truth about her reality; she had gone back in time, and it wasn't a dream.
Hesitantly, she opened the message and it read,
"Babe, once again I'm sorry that I couldn't come by to see you last night, but I'm in the office now so we can see at work. I sent my driver to pick you up, don't rush, take your time, he can wait until you are ready... and put on that lipstick I like lol. See you at work."