BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
The sound hits me like a punch I should've seen coming.
I don't even jump this time. I just lie there, staring at the ceiling, listening to the alarm and to my own heartbeat trying to match it.
Ba-dump. BEEP. Ba-dump. BEEP.
It takes a few seconds before I can uncurl my fingers from the sheet.
The last thing I remember is falling.
Bodies and concrete and smoke and that… other heartbeat under everything, amused. The crack in my leg. The pain in my back. The way my memories started coming apart at the edges before everything went black.
And now—
I reach over and slap the alarm off.
Silence drops into the room.
Same dim light through the curtains. Same clock. Same posters.
Same Tuesday.
I drag myself upright, every muscle trembling even though nothing actually hurts.
The clock reads:
7:00 a.m.
TUE 17
"Okay," I whisper, voice raw. "Okay. So this is… real."
Once, you can write off as a dream.
Twice, you start to wonder.
Three times? That's a rule.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
What did I lose?
It's the first thought that surfaces, clear and cold.
Last time, it was small. A snack. I'd reached for the taste of my favorite thing from the corner store and found a blank.
Now…
I take a slow breath and start testing myself.
"My name is Satoru Ishikawa," I murmur. "I'm seventeen. Second year, Class 2‑B at Hoshimi Municipal. My mom's name is Aya. Dad is…"
My throat tightens for a different reason.
Dad is gone. Has been for years. Divorce, not death. That memory is still there—the shouting, the slammed door, Mom's forced smile afterward.
I push past it.
"Homeroom teacher: Takeda. Best friend: Yuta Morita. The girl behind me is…" I falter, then continue. "Miyu Tanaka."
Faces line up in my mind. Some are sharp. Some are blurrier, like someone smeared a thumb over them.
I reach for older ones. Elementary school. Middle school. Teachers' names. Classmates I wrote dumb notes with. The old neighbor who used to give me candy on New Year's.
Bits are missing.
Not everything. Just pieces.
There was a park near our old apartment. With a jungle gym that always hurt my hands, and a slide that got too hot in summer. We went there all the time when I was little.
I can see it. Sort of.
But when I try to remember who I played with there—what their faces looked like, what we said—my brain hits a wall of static.
I know they existed. I know I wasn't alone.
I just… can't reach them.
It's like trying to remember a dream you woke up from hours ago. You know it was vivid, but all that's left is the shape of it.
Cold sweat crawls down my back.
"Okay," I say again, because if I don't keep talking, I'm going to start screaming. "So that's… new rule number one."
I glance at my desk. There's a cheap notebook there, half‑filled with math problems and doodles.
I snatch it up and flip through the pages.
All the notes are as they were. No messages from "past me." No scrawled warnings.
Of course not. Anything physical gets wiped. Only my head comes back.
I grab a pen and turn to a blank page.
At the top, in big letters, I write:
TUESDAY RULES
Beneath it, I force my shaking hand to make a list.
When I die, I go back to Tuesday 7:00 a.m. in my bed.The date is always TUE 17.Only I remember what happened.If I try to tell anyone the truth, something invisible crushes my heart and goes after them too.The school disaster still happens, even if I change things.Every time I die, I lose a memory.
I stare at the last line until the letters blur.
The hole where my favorite snack used to be. The missing kids in the park. Maybe more I haven't even tried to look for yet.
"Every time I die, I come back less," I whisper.
My hand twitches and I add, almost as an afterthought:
There is… something else there when I die.
(Heartbeat. Voice?)
The moment I write "voice," my chest gives a little stab, like a warning.
I scratch a messy line through it and just leave heartbeat.
Whatever's on the other side of death doesn't want to be talked about.
Fine. Join the club.
"Three loops," I murmur, tapping the pen against the page. "First: fire in the classroom. Second: gas leak found, then fall in the stairs. Both end with a lot of people dead."
Both times, Miyu died.
The thought twists something deep inside.
I grip the pen harder.
"I tried fixing the problem last time," I tell the empty room. "I told a teacher. I did the responsible, adult‑approved thing."
It still killed me.
"So this time…"
I flip to a new page.
At the top, I write:
LOOP 3 PLAN
DON'T GO TO SCHOOL.
That's it.
Simple.
If Hoshimi High is the stage where Tuesday always ends in blood, then the answer is obvious: don't be on the stage.
If I'm not inside when it happens, I can't die there.
Maybe the loop will break. Maybe not. But I need to know.
I close the notebook and shove it back onto the desk.
My hands only tremble a little.
From the kitchen, right on cue:
"Satoru! You're going to be late again! Get up already!"
I swallow the familiar answer that wants to come out.
"I'm up," I call. My voice sounds distant in my own ears. "I… don't think I'm going to school today."
There's a pause.
Then: "What?" Her voice gets sharper. "Did you catch something? You were fine yesterday."
Yesterday.
If I say "I died yesterday," the shadow will rip my heart out.
"I just… feel weird," I hedge. "Dizzy. I think I should stay home."
Another pause. I can picture the crease appearing between her eyebrows.
"Your tests are next week," Mom says. "You can't just skip because you 'feel weird.' At least go in the morning and see how you feel."
"I think I'm going to throw up," I say quickly, leaning into the lie. "Head's killing me."
That part isn't even a lie.
She sighs, long and tired. "Fine. I'll take your temperature before I leave."
I close my eyes.
One small victory.
She doesn't push too hard once she sees my face. I look like garbage without trying—pale, sweaty, a little wild around the edges. I didn't even have to fake that part.
The thermometer beeps. She frowns at it, then at me.
"No fever," she says. "But you do look awful. Maybe you're coming down with something. I'll call the school."
"Sorry," I mumble.
"Don't be sorry, just get better. And don't spend all day on your phone. Rest."
"Yes, ma'am."
She ruffles my hair, then catches herself and makes a face, like she remembered I'm "too old" for that. The gesture punches a hole straight through my chest.
I watch her put on her shoes. Pick up her bag. Check her phone for messages. It's the same as every loop, but this time, the thought that this might be the last time I ever see her like this sneaks up on me.
Because if I keep dying and forgetting, there'll be a point where I won't remember this kitchen. Or her voice. Or her.
"Hey, Mom?" I blurt.
She pauses with her hand on the door. "What?"
I want to ask her something important. Something that will anchor her in my head.
"What's… my favorite snack?" slips out instead.
She blinks. "What kind of question is that?"
"Just… humor me."
She snorts. "Those stupid spicy seaweed chips you're always wasting your allowance on. The ones from the vending machine on the corner. Why?"
I try to see them.
The shape. The bag. The color.
Nothing.
"I just… forgot for a second," I say.
Her expression softens, just a little. "Maybe you do need to rest. I'm going."
"Yeah. See you."
The door clicks shut behind her.
I stand in the silence for a long moment, listening to the apartment breathe.
Then I go to the sink and splash cold water on my face.
In the mirror above, my reflection looks back. Same eyes. Same hair. Same dark circles, only deeper now.
"You're not a hero," I tell him quietly. "You're not smart. You're not brave. You're just the idiot who happened to get picked for this."
He doesn't argue.
"But if you keep dying for nothing, there's not going to be anything left of you to crawl back."
I grab my phone and my wallet.
Time to test the "run away" option.
I wait until I'm sure Mom is gone, then head downstairs and out into the street.
The morning looks exactly the same as always: commuters rushing, kids in uniforms, the old man sweeping by the tobacco shop. The alley cat glares at me from under the vending machine.
Normally, I'd cut left and head toward the school.
Today, I turn right.
It feels illicit. Like I'm walking against gravity.
Technically, I'm just a kid skipping class. People do it all the time. But my skin prickles like the universe is watching.
I walk without thinking at first. Through streets I know less well. Past apartment blocks I've never bothered looking at closely before. The city shifts from school‑zone busy to work‑day busy to a quieter, older set of shops that probably won't last another ten years.
Every few minutes, I check my phone.
8:15. 9:03. 9:47.
No explosion. No fire engines. No frantic texts.
Class is in session. Math. Japanese. English. My body wants to be there, in that desk, half‑asleep.
Instead, I'm in a tiny park between two buildings, sitting on a rusted swing that creaks every time I move.
"What if I broke it already?" I mutter. "What if not going in was enough and now I'm just… freeloading on a fixed Tuesday forever?"
It's not a comforting thought.
If the loop never advances past this day, even when I survive, that's not really winning. That's a different kind of prison.
I spin the swing's chain around my finger, watch it twist and untwist.
The world goes on around me. A mother pushes a stroller. A man in a suit curses at his phone. A dog empties its bladder on a tree with great concentration.
Normal, normal, normal.
My stomach knots tighter with each passing minute.
At 11:20, I give up on pretending I'm relaxed and start walking toward the school.
Not all the way there. Just close enough.
Just to see.
By the time Hoshimi High comes into view, my palms are sweaty.
I stop across the street, half‑hidden behind a vending machine.
From here, I can see the front gate. The courtyard past it. The windows of the classrooms on the third floor.
Everything looks… fine.
Students move behind the glass. Tiny silhouettes. Cars rumble past on the road. Heat shimmers over the asphalt.
I check the time.
11:46.
If the pattern holds, homeroom is over, morning classes are ending, lunch is starting. The smell of cafeteria curry should be filling the halls.
I don't smell anything from here except exhaust and summer.
A teacher wanders out toward the gate with a cigarette he's pretending not to smoke. A group of girls in gym clothes jogs by.
It's too normal.
Part of me hoped something would jump me as soon as I came into visual range—a bus veering off the road, a piece of satellite falling from the sky, God dropping a piano.
Instead, the universe is just… quiet.
"Maybe it only cares about inside," I say under my breath. "Stage boundaries. Audience seats."
A truck rattles past, ignoring me.
I cross the street and walk a little closer, staying on the opposite sidewalk, just far enough away that a teacher won't yell at me for loitering.
Every instinct screams at me to go in. To check the gas pipes. To find Miyu. To stand in the hallway and wait for the fire so I can… what, exactly? Catch the falling ceiling with my bare hands?
I dig my nails into my palms until it hurts.
"Not this time," I tell myself. "We're testing something."
If the disaster still happens when I'm not there, then it isn't about me. If it doesn't happen, then maybe—
My phone buzzes.
A message from Yuta flashes on the screen.
Yuta: OI TRUANT. WHERE ARE YOU
Yuta: Takeda-sensei said you're sick lol
Yuta: You dying?
I stare at the little bubbles.
My fingers hover over the keyboard.
For a reckless moment, I type: I died twice already.
My chest tightens instantly, a phantom fist closing around my heart.
I delete the words so fast I nearly drop the phone.
I settle for: Satoru: Don't jinx it. Just a headache.
Three dots appear.
Yuta: LAME
Yuta: bring notes tomorrow
Tomorrow.
The word feels like blasphemy.
If this works, maybe there will be a tomorrow.
I lean against the vending machine and wait.
Time crawls.
12:30. 1:10. 2:00.
Students who left early for club activities trickle out. A couple of parents drop off forgotten lunches. Nothing explodes.
With each minute that passes without smoke pouring out of the windows, my heart creeps a little higher out of my shoes.
"Maybe shutting the gas did it," I murmur. "Maybe… that was the only trigger. Maybe last loop fixed it and I just…"
Didn't live long enough to see.
The thought sends a weird mix of relief and anger through me.
I died in a pile of broken bodies to buy a day where nothing happens.
I'd take that deal.
I check the time again.
3:10.
School's out.
Students begin to stream through the front gate, laughing, jostling, complaining. The regular tidal wave of youth and noise.
I push off the vending machine, legs suddenly wobbly.
It worked.
I wasn't there. I didn't die. The building didn't erupt. Maybe the heartbeat was just—
A distant siren wails.
I freeze.
One siren, then another, overlapping, heading this direction fast.
They're not the lazy, half‑hearted whoops of a patrol car. They're the full‑throated scream of an ambulance, followed by the deeper bellow of a fire truck.
My skin goes cold.
The sirens grow louder.
They're not stopping at the school. They're passing it.
I turn in slow motion and look down the street.
Two blocks away, a column of dark smoke is starting to rise into the sky.
Not from the school.
From the other side.
My feet move before my brain catches up.
The closer I get, the thicker the smoke.
People spill out onto the sidewalks, craning their necks. Phones are out. Some are filming. The smell of burning plastic and something worse rolls over us like a wave.
My stomach lurches.
"Is it a gas explosion?"
"Some apartment caught fire—"
"I heard it was the convenience store—"
Voices blur.
I push past elbows and shoulders, heart slamming.
It's not the school.
It's the block next to it.
The same corner store where I buy snacks. The laundry. The hair salon. Three stories of cheap apartments stacked above them.
Flames lick out of broken windows on the second floor. Glass litters the street. A car parked too close has its paint blistering.
Paramedics rush past with a stretcher. A woman sits on the curb hugging a child, both coughing, faces black with soot.
Someone grabs my arm, yanking me back before I walk straight into the path of a fire hose.
"Hey, kid! Stay behind the tape!"
I blink.
At some point, firemen set up a line and I didn't even see it.
I stumble back, breathing hard, eyes burning. Partly from the smoke. Mostly from the realization clawing its way up my throat.
I didn't die at school.
So something else burned instead.
The universe doesn't care where the fire is, as long as there is one.
As long as Tuesday ends with sirens and smoke.
As long as I see it.
My hands start to shake.
On the balcony of the second floor, a figure appears behind the flames. Coughing, disoriented, silhouetted.
For a second, I swear I see Miyu's outline in that doorway.
It's not her. It can't be. Different building. Different lives.
It doesn't matter.
Because my body is already moving.
One second I'm behind the tape.
The next I'm ducking under it, ignoring the shouts.
"Satoru, what the hell are you doing," I mutter to myself, but my legs keep going.
Heat slaps me full in the face as I get close. The air is alive with cinders. A fireman curses and yanks on my sleeve.
"Get back! Are you insane?"
"There's someone up there!" I shout, pointing. My throat scrapes on the words. "On the second floor!"
He follows my finger. Swears again.
Into his radio: "We've got a visual second floor, south side! Ladder three, now!"
I'm pushed back, back, back, herded with the rest of the useless onlookers. My heart refuses to slow.
I did something. Again.
Not much. Maybe enough to matter to one person.
The ladder truck extends its metal spine. Firemen go up in heavy gear. The figure on the balcony stumbles, half‑collapsing.
For a moment, I dare to think:
Maybe I can just be here. Not die. Just… push things. Nudge people. Fix what I can reach.
The building's front glass shatters outward with a boom.
The shockwave knocks me off my feet.
I hit the pavement hard, ears ringing.
People scream. A wave of hot air rolls over the crowd. The world tilts.
Somewhere above me, something big and fast is coming down.
I look up.
A chunk of the building's facade—concrete, metal, torn pipe—is breaking free, tumbling end over end in slow, awful grace.
It's heading straight for me.
Move.
My body doesn't.
Too slow.
As the shadow falls over me, time stretches.
I think of Mom in the kitchen.
Of Yuta's dumb memes.
Of Miyu's almost‑smile.
Of the park with the jungle gym and the faceless kids.
Of the taste of a snack I'll never remember.
Not here, I think, hysterical. Not in the street like an idiot—
The chunk hits.
There's no elegant way to say it.
Pain.
A white, crushing wall of it that shoves every thought out of my head.
Something in my chest caves. Air whooshes out and doesn't come back. My vision fills with sparks—all the little burning flecks floating in the smoke—then narrows to a dark tunnel.
Sound becomes muffled. Sirens. Shouts. The deep, hungry roar of the fire.
And under it, clear as a metronome:
Ba-dump.
That other heartbeat, impossibly loud inside my skull.
As the world slides away, I feel it—
A hand, fingers long and cold, slipping into my mind, rifling through drawers.
Looking for something to take.
No, I try to say. Don't—
It doesn't care.
A memory peels loose.
Not a snack this time. Not faceless kids.
It's the sound of Mom laughing. Really laughing. Not the tired chuckle she gives me when I make a joke at breakfast, but the full, unguarded laugh from some old day I can't see properly now. Maybe a festival. Maybe a movie.
I reach for it.
My hand closes on smoke.
The laugh fades.
The space it leaves aches more than my crushed ribs.
The heartbeat slows.
Ba… dump…
Between one blink and the next, the burning world dissolves.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
The alarm drills into my chest like it's coming from inside.
I bolt upright, gasping.
My ribs don't hurt.
My skin isn't burned.
The room is dark and familiar and wrong.
The clock says:
7:00 a.m.
TUE 17
My vision swims.
From the kitchen, right on schedule:
"Satoru! You're going to be late again! Get up already!"
Her voice hits me sideways.
I clutch at it, desperate, trying to attach it to that deep, real laugh that used to live somewhere in my head.
There's nothing there.
Just a vague sense that once, long ago, she laughed like something pure sunlight.
The shape of it is all I have left.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes until stars burst.
"New rule," I whisper into the dark.
"Running away doesn't save anyone."
The clock ticks.
Tuesday waits.