Chapter 1 Last Days Of Normal
The alarm on my phone is supposed to be birdsong. Instead, it’s some kind of mutant jungle crow screeching in my ear.
I swipe at it until silence drops back over my room.
For a moment I just lie there, staring at the ceiling, wondering why I ever thought “Wake up gently” was a thing that could happen at seven a.m.
And then I remember the dream.
Not a dream. The dream. Again.
It’s never the same place twice. Sometimes it’s a forest, sometimes a street lit only by flickering lamplight, sometimes it’s, last night at train station, the kind that smells like rain on metal. Always empty. Always quiet. And always, somewhere in the corner of my eye, him.
I never see his face properly. Just the outline, the shape of him standing still while the world moves around us. Sometimes closer. Sometimes so far away I think I imagined him. But I know, with the kind of certainty you don’t argue with, that he’s looking at me.
And worse: I know he’s meant for me.
The alarm goes off again. I forgot I set a backup. I groan, roll out of bed, and plant both feet into the mess of clothes and schoolwork I’ve been pretending doesn’t exist for the past week.
Shower. Teeth. Hair. The usual. By “hair” I mean wrestling my stubborn brown waves into something that says I tried, which in reality is more I surrendered. Mascara because I have a math test first period and looking half alive makes the teacher less likely to pity-mark my paper.
Downstairs, Mum’s left me a slice of toast and a note stuck to it with jam. Literally. She’s an artist in the medium of chaos. Don’t forget, dentist after school. Love you.
I eat the toast in the car on the way to school. Yes, the car is mine. No, it is not impressive. It’s a tin can with wheels and a heater that makes death noises, but it gets me to the one place I’m not sure I actually want to be.
---
School, Day One of the Weird Countdown“Mara! You owe me twenty!” Zoe’s voice cuts across the car park as soon as I slam the door shut. She’s in my maths class and in my business as always. She jogs over, grinning, holding her phone out like evidence. “Mr. Greaves wore the tie today. The one with the ducks.”
I hand over the money. We have an ongoing bet about our teachers’ questionable fashion choices. “Fine. But if he wears the one with the pineapples tomorrow, I’m taking it back.”
Classes blur into each other. History is a war between my attention span and the urge to draw little swords on the corners of my notes. Science smells like burnt sugar because someone forgot to turn off a Bunsen burner. In English, my ex-boyfriend sits two rows ahead, laughing at something the girl next to him says.
Ex-boyfriend number three in the grand list of Mara’s Romantic Failures. The first cheated, the second ghosted, and this one… this one told me I was “too much” after three months, which is rich coming from someone whose entire personality is TikTok filters.
I tell myself I don’t care. I almost believe it.
---
Lunch is loud and mostly unremarkable, except for the moment I glance toward the far table by the windows. A boy I’ve never seen before is sitting there. Black hair that falls into his face. Not school uniform, just dark clothes, like shadows stitched together. He’s not looking at anyone, just staring at something on the table.
For half a second, something shifts in my chest, that same thread from the dream tightening.
I blink, and when I look again, the table’s empty.
---
Day Two:
Weird dreams again. This time, I’m standing in a restaurant. Empty tables. Outside, rain lashes the windows. And there he is, same shape, same stillness. I can’t move toward him. My feet won’t work. But I know he’s watching.
At school, nothing unusual happens except I nearly trip over a stray football in the corridor and catch myself on a locker, someone’s locker door slams shut from the inside. Everyone laughs. I pretend to.
---
Day Three:
It’s Friday, which means surviving today equals a weekend of no alarms. The dream was worse last night as he was closer this time. I could almost hear his voice, though I couldn’t make out the words.
By lunch, I’m distracted enough that I don’t notice someone watching me until Zoe elbows me and nods toward the far end of the cafeteria.
Dark hair. Shadows. The boy from before.
This time, he is looking right at me.
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