There wasn't a single sound in the room, except for the hum of the ceiling fan and the slow tick of the wall clock—two sounds that had become the soundtrack of his life.
The note was already written. Not poetic, not dramatic. Just... final.
"I tried. I really did."
He stood at the edge of the terrace, thirteen floors above a world that hadn't made space for him. His fingers trembled as the wind bit at his skin. It was cold—not from the air, but from the inside out, the kind of cold that no blanket or body could fix.
And then, he stepped forward.
---
Darkness.
But not peace.
It wasn't immediate, like stories say. No lights. No tunnels. Just a quiet hum… like static.
Then came the fall. Not of a body, but of being. Through layers of fading thoughts and broken pieces of memory—flashes of bandaged wrists, unread books, muffled cries behind bathroom doors.
Until he hit the ground.
But it wasn't pavement.
It was... gravel?
---
"Wake up. You'll miss assembly."
A voice. Human. Young. Annoyed.
He opened his eyes.
The face hovering above him looked barely older than twelve. A blurry badge on a school uniform caught his eye. And when he sat up, the world snapped into horrifying clarity.
Dormitory 3B – Orienhill Boarding School.
He hadn't seen this place in three years.
He hadn't thought about it in just as long.
But there it was. The same cracked window, the smell of soap and sweat, the stupid green bedsheets.
"No way..." he whispered. His voice was thinner. Higher.
He stumbled to the bathroom mirror.
A 13-year-old stared back at him.
---
The day was déjà vu in high-definition. First day at Orienhill. The teachers still too polished. The seniors too arrogant. The air held that smug silence before storm clouds.
He remembered none of what was to come. Not the bullying. Not the loneness. Not the books that would save him. Only the strange nausea of wrongness brewing deep in his gut.
And yet, for a whole year, he lived the days again—like a passenger in his own body. A quieter, bookish boy reading Kafka while others played cricket. He felt... empty, but whole. At peace, even without memory.
Until one evening in his second year, walking through the forbidden eastern corridor, he saw it.
A crack in the air. Like a broken glass pane mid-shatter—rippling, glowing faintly. Pulsing like a wound.
He reached out.
And touched it.
---
Every memory came flooding back like a collapsed dam.
The pain. The pills. The jump. The note.
The fall.
But also... the now. The past he was reliving. The school. The friends he hadn't yet made. The acceptance he had started to earn.
And then—somewhere far away—a heartbeat spiked on a monitor. A nurse paused, eyes narrowing.
In the real world, in a hospital room he didn't know existed, his brain lit up for the first time in days.
But he was still inside.
Still thirteen.
And the crack was just the beginning.