The alarm rang at 6:57 again.
Same chime. Same cold buzz filling the room like static.
Arin didn't move at first. His eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling — a pale grey blankness — until he finally reached out to silence the alarm. The phone screen blinked awake, showing the same wallpaper, same battery percentage, same tiny crack at the corner.
Everything was… identical.
He sat up, his heartbeat too steady. The cup on his desk — the one that had slipped from his hand yesterday and shattered — was sitting there, whole again, a faint ring of coffee dried around its lip. He stared at it long enough for the world to blur. Then he laughed once, quietly. "Must've been a dream," he muttered. But even his voice sounded too rehearsed, like he had said it before.
Outside, the morning light slid through the curtains in that same sharp angle, painting half his desk gold. "Paradox of Time" still lay open, the corner of the page slightly curled. He tried to remember how far he had read, but his mind felt like a scratched record — skipping, stuttering, replaying.
He got ready in silence. Each step felt like he was walking through a script he'd already memorized. When he tied his shoes, he remembered tying them yesterday — the same knot, the same tug.
The street outside was washed in early haze. The same vendor arranged newspapers on his cart. The same woman walked her dog. The same half-asleep student crossed the road without looking.
Arin looked both ways before stepping forward, though he didn't know why. Somewhere deep inside, he was waiting — waiting for something to happen, something small, something to prove he wasn't stuck inside someone else's yesterday.
At college, everything matched his memory too perfectly. The teacher's words, the scrape of chalk, the flicker of the old projector. Then his friend Sam leaned over and whispered, "Bro, you ever feel like you've lived this day before?"
Arin froze.
He turned his head slowly. "What?"
Sam grinned. "Déjà vu, man. Like when your brain glitches or something."
Arin tried to smile, but his throat tightened. Glitch. The word lingered.
Later, as he was leaving class, he dropped his pen. It rolled under the desk and hit the floor. Once. Then again — a faint, delayed click like an echo chasing itself. He bent down, but there was only one pen, still rolling in a lazy half-circle.
His hands trembled slightly.
Evening fell like a long exhale. He walked the same road home, through the same muted city hum. Somewhere between the rows of flickering streetlights, he saw her again — Elara. Standing by the bus stop, red scarf, headphones. But this time, for the briefest moment, she looked at him. Her eyes were distant but knowing — like she had seen him before too.
He stopped walking. The air between them held still. Then she turned away, boarding the bus that disappeared into the city haze.
That night, Arin couldn't sleep. The clock on his wall ticked, steady at first, then irregular. Tick. Tick. …ticktick. …tick.
He pressed his palms against his ears, but the sound crawled back into his head. He could almost feel time bending, folding into itself, playing the same seconds again and again.
He whispered into the dark, "Maybe tomorrow already happened."
Then silence.