Chapter One: SIXTEEN ENDINGS ONE BEGINNING
The rain started just before dusk, slow and steady like the ticking of a clock that no longer cared to be heard.
Lily stood by the tall, arched window of Saint Viremont High, watching droplets race each other down the glass. The courtyard below was empty now, soaked in greys and the soft metallic glint of street lamps. Her fingers curled around the edge of her sleeve — a habit, maybe, or a shield. No one really knew much about her. No one dared to ask.
But everyone knew she didn’t belong here.
Rich, yes. Elegant, absolutely. But she didn’t walk like the others. She moved like she’d done this before — like she’d lived a hundred lives and grown bored of each one. Even the staff looked at her with hesitation, like her name triggered something buried too deep to name.
Not that anyone knew her name.
Just Lily. No last name. No history.
Just… Lily.
And across the hall — tearing through the parking lot in a black Jaguar like he owned the apocalypse — was Nicoles Twist.
He was the kind of boy teachers warned you about in assemblies with bullet points and stern voices. Arrogant. Violent. His smile could make you forget your name, and his fists could make you forget your face. Richer than God and twice as cruel. His father ran half the city, and his mother was rumored to have vanished during a ritual in their estate's basement.
Some said he killed her.
Others said she never existed.
No one knew the truth, because Nicoles never told it. He didn’t have to.
And as he stepped out of the Jaguar — drenched in rain, leather jacket clinging to him like sin itself — Lily turned away from the window… just as if something inside her already knew he was there.
---
Alex watched them both.
From the shadows of the old library, where time didn’t move quite the same. He chewed on the end of a pencil and marked the hour in a notebook older than the school itself.
“Day 001. Timeline D-17.”
He’d tried this sixteen times already.
Sixteen timelines.
Sixteen versions of Nicoles Twist.
Sixteen funerals for Lily.
And it always ended the same way — in blood, fire, and screaming.
But not this time. This time, he’d started earlier. Before the parties, before the confession in the mirror room, before Nicoles started dreaming in red. Before Lily remembered anything at all.
This time, maybe — just maybe — he could stop it.
---
Lily didn’t believe in fate.
She believed in books, late-night tea, and the way time sometimes stuttered when she looked at old photographs. She had dreams she didn’t understand — crumbling manors, a boy whispering her name like a vow, the feeling of drowning in a river she’d never seen.
And in her dream last night… Nicoles was there.
Bleeding. Screaming her name.
And holding her dead body in his arms.
She didn’t even know him yet.
Not really.
Just whispers. Hallway noise. The smell of gasoline and recklessness.
But when they locked eyes that afternoon, in the middle of the hallway, time shivered. The lights above them flickered. The air went still. Her breath caught — not because he was beautiful (though he was), but because...
She’d seen him before.
Somewhere that didn’t exist.
And Nicoles — Nicoles felt it too.
A crack behind his eyes. A whisper in his bones. Like déjà vu carved into his ribs.
She was the girl from the mirror.
From the river.
From the grave.
---
And so it began.
The beginning of the end.
The first crack in the loop.
A boy destined to kill.
A girl destined to die.
And a time traveler playing God to save them both.
Or maybe…
Just to save himself.
To be continued............
