Chapter 1: The Silver Sky
The sky turned silver the morning I met the boy who already knew how our story would end.
At first I thought it was just the light playing tricks, but the color was too sharp, too metallic, like the world had cracked open for a second. No one else seemed to notice. They walked past me as if everything were normal.
I noticed because I was late again, running across the old stone bridge near the school, the one everyone avoided after sunset because of the strange rumors. In the morning it usually looked harmless.
That day it wasn’t empty.
A boy stood in the middle of the bridge, wearing a dark coat, completely still, as if he had been waiting there for a very long time. For a strange second, I had the unsettling feeling that he was waiting for me.
I slowed down. “Excuse me?”
He looked up, and I forgot how to breathe. His eyes weren’t exactly grey; they looked like liquid silver, almost the same color as the sky.
“Finally,” he said quietly.
My stomach tightened. “Do I know you?”
A small, distant smile appeared on his face. “You will.”
I forced a nervous laugh. “That’s not really how knowing people works.”
“We’ve already met,” he said calmly.
“Okay… when?”
He paused, studying me like I was something fragile. “Not yet.”
I frowned. “That makes no sense.”
“It will,” he replied softly. “In three months, that will be the day you fall in love with me.”
My heart skipped. “And for you?”
Something fragile passed across his expression. “For me, it will be the day I lose you.”
The school bell rang in the distance, pulling me back.
“This is weird,” I muttered, stepping back. “I have to go.”
“I know,” he said. “You always say that the first time.”
I froze. “The first time? How many times have we met?”
His jaw tightened slightly. “Every timeline.”
I should have left, but instead I felt a strange pull in my chest, like an invisible thread keeping me there.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
He hesitated. “Arin.”
The name felt oddly familiar, like a word I had once known.
“And you?” he asked gently.
“You don’t know my name?”
“I know it,” he said quietly. “I just like hearing you say it.”
Suddenly the wind stopped. The traffic noise disappeared, and for a brief moment the world went completely silent.
Arin stepped closer, and I noticed tiny silver sparks moving inside his eyes.
“You came back sooner this time,” he murmured.
“I never left,” I whispered, even though I didn’t know why.
Then he said something that made my heart start pounding—he told me he remembered every life we had ever lived, and that I was the only person he had ever loved in all of them.
A flash of memory hit me that didn’t belong to me: rain, his hand in mine, the feeling of a goodbye I couldn’t hear.
I gasped and said his name without thinking.
His eyes widened. “You remembered?”
“I don’t understand—”
Above us, the silver sky flickered for a second. Arin suddenly grabbed my hand. His touch was warm and terrifyingly familiar.
“We’re out of time,” he said.
Before I could ask what he meant, the world snapped back. The noise returned, the wind started again, and everything looked normal.
Arin slowly let go of my hand.
“I’ll see you again,” he said.
“When?” I asked.
He glanced at the strange silver sky. “Sooner than we’re supposed to.”
Then he was gone, leaving the bridge empty and a certainty growing inside me that this was not the first time I had lost him.
