I stared at the text until my eyes burned.
She did die. You're just the only one who remembers.
Here's what I should have done: deleted it, blocked the number, maybe called campus security. Here's what I actually did: got up off my closet floor and made coffee like this was a normal Sunday morning and not the worst night of my life.
My roommate Jennifer was gone for the weekend—sister's engagement party or something—so the apartment was quiet. Just me and my shaking hands trying to measure coffee grounds, fucking it up twice before getting it right.
In for four, out for six.
The coffee maker made its normal sounds. Sunlight came through the kitchen window weak and October-gold. Outside, campus was waking up slow. Hungover students, empty quads, the world on pause.
Someone wanted to meet me. Room 304. A room that didn't exist.
I googled it anyway. The philosophy building directory came up—Perkins Hall, three floors, faculty offices, seminar rooms. No room 304. I'd been in that building a hundred times. Had classes there. Spent hours in Professor Chen's office arguing about determinism. The third floor was all faculty offices with brass nameplates and worn carpet.
No room 304.
My phone buzzed.
You're still deciding. Good. Means you're not completely untethered yet. But you need to come. The longer you wait, the harder this gets.
I typed back: Who are you?
Instant response: Someone who knows what you are. Someone who can help.
What if I don't come?
The three dots took longer this time.
Then you'll keep Witnessing without understanding what you're seeing. You'll intervene because you won't know better. People will die because of your ignorance. Eventually you'll dissolve so completely that no one will remember you existed. Not even your mother.
My coffee mug hit the counter hard enough that some sloshed over.
Is that a threat?
It's a description. I'm offering you a choice. Most people don't get one.
I set my phone down. Picked it up. Set it down again.
This was insane. Meeting a stranger who sent cryptic messages about death and dissolution was exactly how people ended up on true crime podcasts. I knew this. I wasn't stupid.
But.
She did die.
I'd held Maya's hand while her pulse stopped. Felt the exact moment when her skin was just skin.
And now she was alive, texting me about coffee, asking if I was good.
Everyone else thought I was crazy. This person said I wasn't.
7:23 AM. Hour and a half until the meeting.
I should tell someone. Except "someone texted me about witnessing deaths in alternate timelines" sounded exactly as batshit as everything else.
I drank my coffee standing at the sink, watching students emerge from dorms. Normal people with normal problems—hangovers, homework, heartbreak. Comprehensible suffering.
God, I wanted to be them.
Instead I showered. Let the water run too hot because I needed to feel something real. Dried my hair, pushed it back from my face. The scar on my eyebrow caught the light—eight years old, convinced I could fly if I jumped at exactly the right angle. Twelve stitches and a physics lesson.
I wondered if there was a timeline where I'd been right.
I dressed in my usual armor: black jeans, white button-down, the charcoal blazer. Checked my reflection. Pale, severe, uncertain. My eyes looked the same—blue-gray, sharp—but there was something new underneath.
Fear. The real kind, the kind that lives in your chest and counts your heartbeats.
I left at 8:40, walking slowly, giving myself time to turn back, pretending I had any control.
Campus looked like a college brochure. Golden leaves, brick buildings, students moving through their Sunday routines. I walked through it all like I was already dissolving.
Perkins Hall was at the edge of campus, Gothic and pretentious in exactly the way philosophy buildings should be. I climbed the steps at 8:57. The lobby was empty except for heating system sounds and the smell of old coffee.
Third floor. I took the stairs slow, gripping the railing. In for four, out for six. Solid ground. Real steps.
The hallway was exactly how I remembered. Worn carpet, brass nameplates, that specific smell of old books and older coffee. Professor Chen's office. Professor Aldridge's office. The copy room. Seminar room at the end.
No room 304.
I walked the length checking every door. 301, 302, 303, 305. The numbers jumped.
I stood there with my phone ready to text back: This is bullshit. There is no room 304.
Then I saw it.
Not a door exactly. More like a space between doors. A shadow where my eyes kept sliding off, refusing to focus, insisting nothing was there.
I moved closer. The shadow resolved into a door—dark wood, brass handle, unmarked. My brain kept trying to convince me I wasn't seeing it, that it was just wall, just nothing, look away.
Room 304.
9:00 AM exactly.
I reached for the handle before deciding to. It turned easy, unlocked, waiting.
The room was wrong. Too big for where it should be. High ceilings, tall windows, bookshelves floor to ceiling. A desk covered in papers. Two leather chairs near a fireplace that definitely violated building codes.
A man sat in one of the chairs reading like he had all the time in the world.
I'd seen him before. Somewhere. In halls maybe, at faculty events, places where he'd registered but not stuck. Professor-shaped but nameless.
He looked up.
"Close the door," he said. Not asking. "And lock it."
I should have run. Instead I stepped inside and the lock clicked behind me with this awful finality.
"Iris Vega." He set his book down—Being and Time, because of course. "Thank you for coming. I know you're frightened. That's good. Fear means your survival instincts still work."
He stood. Tall, lean, late thirties maybe. Biracial with light brown skin and these gray eyes that should've been cold but somehow weren't. He dressed like every philosophy professor ever—dark pants, button-down with rolled sleeves, blazer that had seen better days. A scar ran down his left forearm.
"Sit," he said, gesturing to the empty chair. "We have a lot to discuss and not much time."
I didn't sit. "Who are you?"
"Dominic Kael. I'm a professor—"
"No you're not." The words came out sharp. "I've been in this building for three years. You're not on any door. You're not in the directory. You don't exist."
Something flickered in his face that might've been approval. "Good. You notice things. That'll help."
"Help with what?"
"Surviving what you are." He studied me with those unsettling eyes. "Sit down, Iris. Please. You've been standing for thirteen hours if you count the time you lost."
My legs were shaking. The chair looked solid in a way nothing else did right now.
I sat.
"Tell me about last night," he said. "Everything. Don't leave anything out."
"I already told the police—"
"They didn't believe you. I will." He leaned forward slightly. "What happened to Maya Torres?"
The name hit me like a fist. I'd been holding it in my chest all night, this impossible weight, and hearing someone else say it broke something open.
"She died." My voice came out rough, unfamiliar. "I watched her die."
"How?"
So I told him. The parking lot, the sedan, the soft sound of impact. Her eyes staying open and empty. Calling 911 with someone else's voice. The fifteen minutes that just—disappeared. The moment when she was just gone and I was kneeling on dry concrete screaming about nothing.
Dominic listened without interrupting. His face gave nothing away—no shock, no disbelief, just this focused attention like I was describing weather patterns.
When I finished, he was quiet for a long moment.
"Did anyone else see it happen?"
"I don't know. The lot was empty."
"Good." He nodded once. "Iris, what you experienced wasn't a hallucination. Maya Torres died exactly the way you described. You watched it happen and you remember every detail because it was real."
Relief flooded through me so intense I got dizzy.
"Then why—"
"Because it happened in a different timeline," he said. "A probability that collapsed. A reality that was real until it wasn't. You perceived both—the death that happened and the life that continued. You're what we call a Witness."
I stared at him. "That's not possible."
"You're sitting in a room that didn't exist five minutes ago, talking to a professor you've never heard of, after watching your best friend die and come back to life." His voice went dry, almost amused. "Which part of this suggests 'possible' is useful?"
Fair point.
"What's a Witness?"
"Someone who can perceive probability collapses. Timeline splits. Moments where reality chooses one path over another." He picked up his tea—I hadn't seen him pour it—but didn't drink. "Most people experience reality as singular, linear, consistent. You experience it as it actually is: multiple, simultaneous, constantly collapsing into single events. You see the paths not taken."
My hands were shaking against my thighs. "Why me?"
"No one knows. There's no pattern—not genetic, not environmental, no trauma trigger. Some people just Witness. Usually starts early twenties." Those gray eyes stayed steady on mine. "You're not the first. Won't be the last."
"How many are there?"
"Active Witnesses? Globally, maybe a few hundred. Most don't survive long enough to be counted."
The casual way he said it made my stomach drop. "Survive?"
"Witnessing has a cost. The more you see, the less anchored you become to this timeline. You start bleeding through—existing partially in multiple realities. People stop remembering you. You become translucent. Eventually you dissolve completely. Like fading from a photograph while you're still alive."
"How long—" I couldn't finish.
"Depends. Some Witnesses last years if they're careful. Others burn out in months." He paused. "That's why I'm here. I'm a Shepherd—someone tasked with guiding new Witnesses. Teaching them the rules. Helping them survive."
"Rules?"
"Most important one: never interfere. You'll Witness deaths, tragedies, disasters across timelines, but you cannot try to prevent them. Intervention destabilizes reality. Creates debts that must be paid. Save one person, someone else suffers. The more you interfere, the faster you dissolve."
I thought about those fifteen missing minutes. "What if I already did?"
His expression shifted. "Did you?"
"I don't know. I can't remember."
He swore softly, turning to the window. "Missing time is common during first events. You probably didn't interfere. But—" He looked back at me. "If you had, there'd be signs already."
I thought about waking up in my closet. About my reflection looking wrong this morning.
"No other signs," I lied.
He knew I was lying. I could see it. But he didn't push.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"Now I teach you to control it. To Witness without losing yourself. To observe without interfering." He moved back to his chair with this weariness that looked old. "It's not easy. Most Witnesses can't accept it. They try to save people. They interfere. And they pay."
"And if I refuse?"
"You don't get to choose." His voice went quiet. "You already are one. The only choice is whether you learn to survive it or burn yourself out trying to change things you can't control."
"Why should I trust you?"
"You shouldn't." Simple. Direct. "But you don't have better options. And—" He hesitated. "I don't want to watch another Witness destroy themselves. I've seen enough of that."
There was a story there. Pain barely buried.
"So what do I do?"
"Go home. Process. Try to be normal. I'll contact you in a few days." He handed me a card—just a phone number. "If you Witness again, call immediately. Don't try to help. Just observe."
I took the card. Our fingers brushed and something electric passed between us. He felt it too—stepped back like he'd touched fire.
"One more thing," he said, voice careful again. "Don't tell anyone about this. Not Maya, not your mother, no one. The moment you try to explain Witnessing, you'll sound insane. And the more you talk about it, the faster you fade."
"That's lonely."
"Yes," he said simply. "It is."
I left. Stood in the hallway counting breaths. When I looked back, the door was gone. Just wall between 303 and 305.
I was halfway across campus before I realized I was still holding his card.
I knew I'd be calling.
Because as terrifying as everything was, it was also the only thing that made sense.
I was a Witness.
And nothing would ever be normal again.