[Evelina's POV—Somewhere]
"...Miss… Open your… eyes."
Rowan's voice drifted through the dark—muffled, bending like sound under deep water.
I tried to grasp it—but my fingers slipped through the echo.
My lungs burned. My vision dimmed. And then—silence.
The river faded. The cold vanished. And a different world unfolded.
Not Evelina's.
Mine.
Reina Tanaka's.
A classroom materialized through fog—sunlight filtering through dusty windows, desks arranged in uneven rows, and students whispering like gnats.
There I was.
Plain uniform. Round glasses slipping. Back hunched, trying to shrink into invisibility. Hands cold from gripping my notebook too tightly.
I watched myself… the way someone watches a stranger.
"Hey," a boy laughed from across the room. "Seriously—doesn't she look like a ghost? Being near her feels cursed."
More laughter erupted.
A girl leaned over my desk, wrinkling her nose.
"Banana milk again? Ew. Why do you drink that? That's so creepy."
