Sunlight spilled through the window in a way that made it impossible to pretend the storm had happened. The world outside was too calm. The streets gleamed. The sky was a spotless kind of blue that felt fake, like it was painted. Even the sea shimmered gently, waves rolling in neat little rhythms, as if last night hadn't happened.
No thunder.
No whispers.
No warnings carved in puddles.
Just a normal morning. I sat on the edge of my bed, scrolling through my phone like muscle memory. My latest post—"Stormy days, calm hearts "—was already exploding. Thousands of likes. Dozens of comments.
"How do you look flawless in every lighting??"
"You're actually living in a movie, girl!"
"Storm aesthetic? You're the main character for real."
The usual noise. The kind that used to make me feel seen before. Now it just felt boring. My fingers hovered over the keypad. I wanted to write something real. Something that didn't sound like robot Hope Starling. But instead, I forced my lips into a smile and typed:
"Storms remind us to breathe."
Effortless yet untrue. I set the phone down and stared at the reflection in my mirror.
Perfect posture.
Soft hair.
Glossed lips.
The same reflection everyone wanted to see. Seraphina, my roommate and now first real friend, leaned against the doorway, a math textbook in one hand and an energy drink in the other. "You know," she said, grinning, "you're ridiculous. You even look good after nearly being struck by lightning." I gave her my signature half-laugh. The one that sounded casual but never reached my eyes.
"Skill," I said,
pretending to adjust a strand of hair. She laughed. "You're unreal, Hope," she said and walked off down the hall. Unreal. That word stuck. Because lately, that's exactly how I'd felt—like I wasn't fully here. Like I was one filter away from cracking.
Classes went by in a flash. Words turned to noise. People smiled too widely, talked too fast, and the hum of phones and whispers buzzed under everything. When I walked through the courtyard, heads turned. They always did.
"Hope Starling's even prettier up close."
"Do you think she edits her eyes to look that blue?" "She's, like, famous-famous, right?"
Each voice felt boring, planned, robotic. Nobody actually saw the real me, just the fake one, the one who spoke with confidence.
Answered all the right questions.
Laughed when expected.
Inside, I felt like I was slowly melting away, like something inside me was cracking and breaking into little shards of glass, all poking me.
At lunch, I sat by the big windows overlooking the sea. The light reflected off the water so sharply that it almost hurt to look. I pushed my salad around the plate, appetite gone.
Something caught my eye. Movement. Far out, near the cliffs. I blinked, leaning closer. There—something was in the water. Not swimming. Not floating. Just… there. Watching. A ripple passed across the waves, and the shape was gone. I forced out a laugh, shaking my head.
"Sleep deprivation," I muttered under my breath. But a cold thread of fear unspooled in my chest. No one else seemed to notice.
The students around me were too busy scrolling, talking, and existing in their small digital worlds. I stared at their reflections in the glass—bright, clear, happy—and mine among them. Except mine flickered. For a single second, my reflection looked wrong. Paler. Blurrier. Like it wasn't reflecting me at all—but something behind me. I whipped around. Nothing. Just sunlight and the tasty scent of food.
Looks like this day isn't going to be normal at all.
By the time the final bell rang, my nerves were raw. I smiled at people on my way out. Said goodbye, waved, looked exactly how I was supposed to. But every time I blinked, I saw it again—the glimmer in the waves. The way Xylan had looked at the sea yesterday. The way the sea had looked back. The world was perfect again. Too perfect. The air too still. The sky too blue.
I decided to go to the library, just to explore, and maybe I would find something related to the storm yesterday. When I opened the library door, something chimed.
I jumped, startled.
"Relax, Hope, it's just the wind chime," I muttered to myself.
I went to the weather section, and something fell from the shelf… A file of a storm dated 12th of September, 2010, 16 years ago. I touched the file gently, dusting dirt off it, and it glowed. Suddenly, the file flew open, sending dust everywhere. I started reading and… no. No, it can't be, the file describes exactly a storm like the one that happened last night, and it says a person went missing, but then the file ends abruptly after that. No more. But then I see it. Something written in the margins. Written by someone, and strangely, it looked a lot like my handwriting, loopy, bold cursive. The "rs"s were exactly how I wrote them. It's definitely a coincidence.
Is it though?
I can't stay here any longer.
I rushed out of the library onto the street. It was dark already. What time was it? 8:54 pm! But it seemed not so long ago it was 4:00 pm.
The walk back was quieter than it should've been.
No cars.
No laughter.
Even the wind felt paused, like it was waiting for permission to move.
My shoes clicked against the pavement too loudly, every step echoing as if the town were empty. I stopped. The sea stretched out below me—flat, endless, wrong. It didn't sparkle the way it usually did. It didn't crash against the rocks. It just watched. I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly cold, and wondered when calm had started feeling more dangerous than chaos. And beneath it all, I could still hear the faintest echo, so soft I almost believed I imagined it:
"Hope…"
Just one word.
Barely a whisper.
But enough to make my heart trip over itself. Because the storm might have passed— but I could feel it, waiting. Right beneath the surface. Waiting for the next time to strike.
And sometimes, I feel like something's always waiting, or I am waiting for something.
Something that really changes my life.