Chapter 1
Daniel woke up knowing that someone was going to die.
He didn’t know who.
He didn’t know when.
And the worst part was that he couldn’t remember why he knew.
He laid still beneath his blanket, staring at the ceiling while the early morning darkness filled the room. For several seconds, he listened to the quiet hum of the fan above him.
Then the memory came back.
Rain.
A classroom.
A book falling from someone’s hands.
A scream.
And a voice.
“You weren’t supposed to remember this”.
Daniel sat up.
His heart was beating faster now.
He looked around his room.
Everything was normal.
His school uniform hung from the back of his chair. His backpack was on the floor beside his desk. A half-finished mathematics assignment was still open on his table.
Nothing was wrong.
Nothing had happened.
Yet Daniel Could remember it.
Not as a dream.
A memory.
He could almost feel the cold rain against his skin. He could hear the sharp sound of the book hitting the floor. He could see the classroom room windows covered with streams of water.
But whenever he tried to remember the person’s face, his mind went blank.
Daniel rubbed his eyes.
“Just a dream”, He whispered
He got out of bed.
That was when his phone vibrated.
Maya: Have you gotten ready for school?
Daniel stared at the message
He typed
Daniel: Just woke up.
The reply came almost immediately.
Maya: Don’t forget. We’re meeting after school.
Daniel frowned.
He already knew that.
In fact, he remembered Maya saying those exact words.
But something about the memory bothered him.
He looked toward the window.
Dark clouds were gathering outside.
Daniel walked closer to the glass.
A few seconds later, the first drop of rain struck the window.
Then another.
Then another.
His stomach tightened.
Rain.
He suddenly remembered the classroom again.
The book.
The scream.
And Maya standing beside the window.
Daniel stepped away from the glass.
“No”.
He didn’t know why, but he was suddenly certain of one thing.
Something was going to happen at school today.
And somehow…
He had already lived through it.
Daniel stared at the rain tapping against the window.
He didn’t know what was going to happen.
He didn’t know when it would happen.
But somehow, he remembered it.
His heart began beating faster.
Then he looked at the clock.
7:12 a.m.
“School”.
Daniel jumped out of bed.
He quickly grabbed his uniform and rushed into the bathroom. A few minutes later, he came running back into his room, struggling to put on one of his shoes while trying to shove his mathematics book into his backpack.
He glanced at the clock again.
7:31 a.m.
“Oh, no”.
He grabbed his bag and ran downstairs.
The moment he stepped outside, he heard the familiar sound of the school bus disappearing down the road.
“Wait!”.
Daniel sprinted after it.
The bus didn’t stop.
It turned the corner and disappeared.
Daniel stopped running.
He stood there for a moment, breathing heavily.
“Great”.
He looked at his watch.
There was no point waiting for the next bus.
He started walking.
As he walked the strange memory returned.
Rain.
A classroom.
A book falling.
Someone screaming.
And that voice.
You weren’t supposed to remember this.
Daniel shook his head.
“Just a dream”.
He said it quietly almost as if saying it aloud would make it true.
But deep down, he wasn’t convinced.
By the time Daniel reached the school gates, the rain had stopped.
Student were already making their way to their classrooms.
Daniel walked through the gate and adjusted his backpack.
“Daniel!”.
He turned.
Maya was walking toward him.
She had her backpack hanging from one shoulder and an expression on her face that told Daniel she was already preparing to make fun of him.
And he has been used to it, Maya and Daniel and been close friends ever since there were little and their parents knew each other, Daniel had always supported her and be there for her. She was literally Daniel closest friend.
“You missed the school bus again, didn’t you?” said Maya.
Daniel sighed.
“Good morning to you too”.
Maya smiled.
“That wasn’t a no”.
“I woke up late”.
“You always wake up late”.
“No I don’t”.
“Name three days you didn’t”.
Daniel opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
Maya laughed.
“Exactly”.
“You are annoying”.
“And yet you still talk to me”.
“Unfortunately”.
They both laughed.
For a moment Daniel forget about the strange memory.
Almost.
Maya looked at him again.
“Seriously, though. Are you okay?”
Daniel smile faded slightly.
“Yeah. Why?”
“You look tired”.
“I didn’t sleep well”.
“Bad dream?” she asked.
Daniel stopped walking.
Maya noticed.
“What?”
Daniel looked at her.
“I don’t know”.
“You don’t know if you had a bad dream?” Maya asked looking confused.
“it’s difficult to explain”.
Maya studied his face.
“Try me”.
Daniel hesitated.
He wanted to tell her.
He wanted to explain the rain, the classroom, the falling book and the voice.
But how could he?
I had a dream about something that hasn’t happened yet.
She would probably laugh.
Or worse, she might actually believe him.
“Never mind”, Daniel said.
Maya raised an eyebrow.
“Okay. Secretive Daniel”.
“I’m not secretive”.
“You literally just said` never mind””
“That doesn’t make me secretive”.
“That’s what exactly a secretive person would say”.
Daniel smiled.
“Come on. We’re going to be late”.
They continued toward the classroom.
Daniel tried to forget about the memory.
But the closer they got to the classroom, the stronger the strange feeling became.
He couldn’t explain it.
Something felt familiar.
Not just familiar.
Remembered.
He stopped outside the classroom door.
Maya looked back.
“Why did you stop?”
Daniel stared into the room.
The desks where exactly where he remembered them.
The teacher’s table was near the board.
The windows were slightly open.
Even the small crack in the corner of the whiteboard-
He remembered that too.
Daniel’s breathing slowed.
I’ve seen this.
He stepped inside.
Maya followed him.
“Daniel, are you sure you are ok?”
“I’m fine”.
He walked towards his seat.
Then he heard a chair scrape against the floor.
Daniel turned.
A boy near the back of the classroom reached for a book sitting on his desk.
Daniel’s eyes widened.
He knew what was coming.
The boy picked up the book.
His fingers slipped.
The book fell.
Thud.
Daniel froze.
Exactly.
The same sound.
The same movement.
The same book.
His stomach tightened.
Maya looked at him.
“What’s wrong?”
Daniel didn’t answer.
He was staring at the book on the floor.
He had remembered this.
Before it happened.
And suddenly, he wasn’t sure it had been a dream at all.
Daniel continued staring at the book lying on the floor.
For a few seconds, he forgot where he was.
The classroom noise faded into the background as he tried to understand what had just happened. He had seen it before-the boy reaching for the book, his fingers slipping, the dull sound as it hit the floor.
Every detail had been exactly the same.
It wasn’t a similar event. It wasn’t something he had guessed.
He had remembered it.
Before it happened.
“Daniel?”
Maya’s voice pulled him back to reality.
He turned towards her.
“what’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing”.
“Nothing?” She glanced at the book, then back at him. “You’ve been staring at that thing like it owes you money”.
Normally, Daniel would have laughed. This time he couldn’t.
Maya leaned closer.
“Seriously. Are you feeling sick?”
“No. I just…” he hesitated. “Did you see that?”
“See what? The book falling?”
Daniel nodded.
“Yes. What about it?”
He studied her face, searching for any sign that she had noticed something strange too.
“Didn’t it seem familiar to you?” Daniel asked looking worried.
Maya stared at him.
“It’s a book, Daniel. Book falls. That’s what happens when people don’t know how to hold them”.
“That’s not what I mean”.
“Then what do you mean?”
He opened his mouth, but no words came out.
How could he explain something he didn’t understand himself?.
I saw it before it happened.
It sounded ridiculous even inside his own head.
Before Maya could ask another question, their teacher walked into the classroom carrying a pile of exercise books.
“Everyone, settle down. Take out your notebooks. We have a lot to cover today”.
The students slowly returned to their seats.
Daniel sat down and opened his notebook, but he couldn’t concentrate on the lesson. His eyes kept drifting towards the window.
He was trying to remember what came next.
There had been rain.
A scream.
And that strange voice.
But what happened between the falling book and the scream?
He couldn’t remember.
It was as though someone had taken a pair of scissors to his memory, cutting out the most important pieces and leaving him with scattered fragments.
He closed his eyes and tried to picture the classroom from his earlier memory.
The windows.
The desks.
The teacher standing near the board.
Then-
“Daniel Adeyemi”.
His eyes snapped open.
The teacher was looking directly at him.
“Since you seem to have more interesting things on your mind than my lesson, perhaps you can answer the question”.
A few students chuckled.
Daniel glanced at the board.
He had no idea what the question was.
“Sir, could you repeat it?”
The teacher raised an eyebrow.
“I asked you to simplify the expression on the board”.
Daniel looked at the equation.
For once, even mathematics couldn’t save him.
“Anyone?” the teacher asked knowing fully well that Daniel didn’t understand a single thing on the board.
A hand went up near the front.
“Yes , Maya?”
Maya gave the answer correctly.
The teacher nodded and continued the lesson.
Daniel leaned toward her.
“Thanks”.
Maya didn’t look at him.
“You are welcome”.
A moment passed.
Then she whispered, You are telling me what’s going on during break”.
Daniel frowned.
“What’s going on?”
“Exactly”.
She turned back to the board.
“And don’t try telling me it’s nothing again”.
Despite everything, Daniel almost smiled.
Almost.
Because just then, something happened that made his blood run cold.
The teacher picked up a piece of chalk.
Daniel’s mind flashed.
He remembered the chalk snapping in half.
He remembered the teacher sighing.
He remembered the words that followed.
Someone needs to open the windows. It’s getting stuffy in here.
Daniel looked at the teacher’s hand.
The chalk bent slightly between his fingers.
Snap.
It broke into two.
The teacher sighed.
“Someone needs to open the windows. It’s getting stuffy here”.
Daniel stopped breathing for a moment.
There it was again, he thought.
Another memory.
Another event that had happened exactly as he remembered it.
He slowly looked around the classroom.
Nobody else seem surprised.
To them, it was just a broken piece of chalk.
But Daniel knew something they didn’t.
Whatever was happening to him it wasn’t a coincidence.
And it wasn’t the first time anymore.
It was happening again.
Daniel spent the next twenty minutes trying not to look at the teacher.
It wasn’t easy.
Every time the man moved, Daniel found himself watching his hands, his face, even the way he walked between the desks. He was waiting for something else to happen. Anything that might prove his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him.
But nothing did.
The lesson continued normally. Students copied notes, whispered to one another, and complained whenever the teacher gave them another example to solve.
Eventually, Daniel began to wonder if he had imagined the whole thing.
Perhaps the falling book had been a coincidence.
Perhaps the broken chalk had been a coincidence too.
Maybe he was simply tired.
That explanation made sense.
It had to.
Daniel opened his notebook and tried to concentrate.
Then an idea came to him.
If he really could remember things before they happened, there should be a way to test it.
He looked around the classroom.
A boys two rows ahead was tapping his pen against his desk. Someone near the window was drawing in the corner of a notebook. Maya was writing down the teacher’s notes, occasionally pausing to underline important words.
Everything looked ordinary.
Daniel waited.
After a minute or two, He decided he wouldn’t try to predict anything. He would simply pay attention and see whether another memory came to him.
For almost a minute, nothing happened.
Then a strange feeling settled over him.
It wasn’t a picture this time.
It was a sentence.
The teacher will ask someone to close the window.
Daniel lifted his head.
He looked toward the teacher, who was still explaining the lesson.
The window beside the last row was open, letting a gentle breeze move the curtains.
Daniel waited.
Five seconds passed.
Ten.
Twenty.
Thirty.
A minute.
The teacher continued writing on the bored.
Daniel felt foolish.
Then the man turned around.
“Joshua, would you mind closing that window? The breeze is disturbing the papers”.
A boy at the back stood up.
Daniel’s pen slipped from his fingers.
He stared at the teacher like he just seen a ghost.
That was three.
Three things he had remembered before they happened.
He bent down to retrieve his pen, mostly because he needed a moment when nobody was looking at his face.
His hands were trembling slightly.
He wasn’t imagining it.
Something was happening to him.
And he had no idea why.
“Daniel”
Maya’s whisper came from beside him.
He looked up.
She was watching him carefully.
“What?” he whispered back.
“Stop doing that”.
“Doing what?”
“Looking like you just discovered the world is ending”
Despite himself, Daniel almost laughed.
“Maybe it is”.
Maya stared at him.
“That isn’t funny”.
“I know”.
For once, he meant it.
She lowered her voice even further.
“Listen. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you’ve been acting strange all morning. You keep staring at random things for a long time and when something happens to it, you look like you have seen a ghost”.
Daniel stomach tightened.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked sounding nervous.
Maya gave him a look.
“Don’t do that”.
“Do what?”
“Act like you don’t now what I’m talking about”.
Daniel looked toward the board.
The teacher was still busy writing on the board to notice them.
He wanted to tell her.
He really did.
Maya was his closest friend, they’ve known each other for so long. She knew when he was joking, when he was upset, and when he was pretending to be fine.
Keeping this from her was going to be difficult.
But what if he told her and she didn’t believe him?
What if she did believe him?
Somehow, that possibility frightened him just as much.
“I’ll will explain later”, he whispered.
Maya studied him for another moment.
“Promise?”
Daniel hesitated.
Then he nodded.
“Promise”.
She turned back to her notebook, although he could tell she wasn’t satisfied.
Daniel tried to return to the lesson.
He lasted approximately thirty seconds.
Then another memory arrived.
This one was different.
He saw the classroom form an angle that made no sense, as though he were standing near the doorway. The students were talking over one another. A chair scraped across the floor.
Then Maya stood up.
She turned toward him.
And she said-
“Daniel, get down!”
The memory vanished.
Daniel sat perfectly still.
His heart hammered against his chest.
He glanced at Maya.
She was sitting beside him, writing in her notebook.
Nothing was wrong.
Yet he could still her voice in his head.
Daniel, get down!
He looked around the classroom, searching for anything that might explain the warning.
The teacher was at his board, still writing. Joshua had returned to his seat. Two students near the back were whispering.
Everything seemed normal.
Daniel swallowed.
Maybe this memory was different.
Maybe it hadn’t happened yet.
For the first time that morning, he wished he could forget what he had seen.
Because whatever was coming next Maya seemed to know about it.
Daniel glanced at the classroom clock.
He had no idea why the time mattered, but something about it felt familiar.
He looked back at Maya. She was still writing, completely unaware of the strange memory that had just passed through his mind.
Then the classroom door opened.
Their teacher stopped speaking as another staff member stepped inside. The two adults exchanged a few quiet words before the visitor left.
“Everyone, settle down”, the teacher said, turning back to the class.
Daniel tried to focus.
He really did.
But a strange pressure was building behind his eyes, and the classroom suddenly felt too quiet. Even the unusual whispers and shuffling seemed to fade into the background.
Then he heard it.
A sharp crack.
Daniel’s head snapped toward the windows.
One of the metal supports holding the classroom noticeboard had come loose. The board tilted forward, pulling several papers with it.
Everything happened quickly.
A student near the front stood up to retrieve a dropped pen. Someone laughed at the back. The teacher turned toward the noise.
And Daniel remembered.
The strange angle of the room.
The scraping chair.
Maya standing beside him.
Daniel, get down!
His heart lurched.
“Maya!”, he shouted.
She turned toward him.
“Get down!”.
Daniel grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the desk just as the noticeboard crashed to the floor nearby.
CRASH!
It slammed against the desks with a deafening bang, sending sheets of paper scattering across the classroom.
Several students screamed. One boy jumped out of his seat so quickly that his chair toppled backwards. A girl near the windows shouted, “What was that?”
For a moment, the entire classroom erupted into noise.
“Everybody stay where you are!” their teacher, Mr. Bennett called, hurrying towards the fallen board. “Nobody move until I check it’s safe”.
He stepped around a desk and looked at the students nearest the impact.
“Is anyone hurt?”, he asked.
“I’m fine, Sir!” a girl answered, still clutching her chest.
“That thing nearly landed on my head!” another student exclaimed.
A few nervous laughs broke out, but most of the class remained shaken. Two students helped move a desk away from the broken support while Mr. Bennett examined the noticeboard and the damaged section of wall.
“Everyone, move away from this side of the room”, he Instructed. “And please don’t touch anything until I’ve checked it properly”.
Daniel barely heard him.
He was staring at the spot where the board had fallen.
It had happened exactly as he remembered.
Not almost. Not something similar.
Exactly.
The same sudden crash. The same scattered papers. The same terrified voices.
His heart pounded against his ribs.
How could he have known?
“Daniel?”
Maya’s voice pulled him back to the present.
She was standing beside him, brushing dust from her sleeve. Her ponytail had slipped slightly out of place, and her usual playful expression had disappeared.
“Are you okay?” She asked.
Daniel nodded, though he wasn’t sure he believed himself.
“You?”, he asked.
“Am fine”.
Maya glanced at the fallen noticeboard, then back at him.
“You told me to get down before it fell”.
“I know”.
“No, Daniel. You told me before anything even happened”. Her voice dropped. “How did you know?”
He opened his mouth, but no explanation came.
Around them, the other students were still talking about how close the board had come to hitting someone. Mr. Bennett was asking the class monitor to fetch the school cleaner to help deal With the damage and tidy up the place.
Nobody seemed to have noticed anything unusual about Daniel.
Nobody except Maya.
“Maybe I noticed the support coming loose”, Daniel said quietly.
Maya looked at the damaged wall.
“Did you?”
Daniel hesitated.
“No”.
Her eyebrows rose, “So you just guessed?”
“I didn’t say that”.
“You didn’t have to”.
Despite everything, a tiny smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. It disappeared almost immediately.
“Daniel,I’m serious”.
“So am I”.
For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.
Then Maya leaned closer to his face.
“You’re hiding something from me”.
He looked away.
He wanted to tell her. More than anything, he wanted to explain what was happening inside his head. But how could he tell her that he’d seen the noticeboard fall before it happened?, That sometimes he remembered things that hadn’t happened yet?
It sounded impossible even to him.
“I’ll explain”, he finally said.
“When?”
“Soon”.
Maya studied his face as if deciding whether to believe him.
“You’d better”, she said. “Because if you keep acting like you know things before they happen, I’m going to start asking questions you won’t like”.
Before Daniel could answer, Mr. Bennett called for everyone’s attention and instructed them to return to their seats , keeping clear of the damaged wall.
The lesson eventually resumed, but Daniel couldn’t concentrate on a single word.
His kind kept returning to the noticeboard.
He had remembered it falling.
He had warned Maya.
And he had been right.
For the first time, he could no longer convince himself that the strange images in his head were merely dreams.
Then, without warning, another memory struck.
The classroom vanished.
Daniel stood in a corridor he recognized immediately, but something was terribly wrong. The walls were dusty. Papers lay scattered across the floor. Classroom doors stood open, revealing overturned desks and empty rooms.
There was no students.
No teachers.
No voices.
The entire school was deserted.
Daniel tried to move, but the scene seemed to stretch endlessly before him. Pale sunlight filtered through the dirty windows, illuminating a corridor that looked as though nobody had walked through it in years.
Then he heard a voice behind him.
“You weren’t supposed to remember this”.
Daniel spun around.
He couldn’t see the speaker’s face.
The memory shattered.
He was back in the classroom, gripping the edge of his desk so tightly that his fingers hurt. The teacher was still talking, and the students were settling down as if nothing had happened.
But Daniel could barely breathe normally.
That memory had felt different from the others. Clearer. Heavier. As though it carried a warning he was supposed to understand.
He glanced at the classroom clock.
10:17 a.m.
For some reason, the time felt familiar.
Daniel pulled his notebook towards him and wrote the date he saw in his vision, January 11, 2027, and today was October 13, 2026. Then he counted forward ninety days, checking the calendar carefully to make sure he hadn’t made a mistake.
Beneath the date, he wrote:
THE SCHOOL WILL BE EMPTY.
He stared at the sentence for a long time before underlining it twice.
Ninety days.
He had no idea what would happen when the deadline arrived, or who had spoken to him in that strange memory.
But he knew one thing.
Whatever was happening to him, he needed to understand it before those ninety days were over.
Because for the first time, Daniel wasn’t simply remembering tomorrow.
He was remembering something he desperately hoped would never happen.
