The Beginning Before Tomorrow

Chapter 1

The night ended quietly, like it always did.

Eloise and I stepped out of the café just as the staff turned off half the lights behind us, leaving the inside dim and distant. The air outside was warmer than I expected, thick with the smell of pavement and the faint sweetness of roasted coffee that clung stubbornly to my clothes.

I pulled my sleeves down over my hands. It was a habit I never noticed until someone pointed it out.We walked side by side, our shoulders brushing occasionally, neither of us speaking for a while. The street wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t crowded either. Just enough people to remind me the world was still moving, even when I felt like I wasn’t.

“You’re quiet tonight,” Eloise said.

I glanced at her.

“I’m always quiet.”

She gave me a look. “No. This is different.”

I didn’t ask how she knew. Eloise had always known things about me I never said out loud.

We reached the intersection where we usually parted ways. The streetlamp above us flickered faintly, casting uneven light across the road. Beyond it, the road stretched farther into darkness—the direction of the old town.

My eyes lingered there longer than they should have.

Eloise noticed.

“You’re thinking about it again,” she said softly.

I didn’t answer.

Because I was.

The old town.

We hadn’t been there in years.

Not since—

I stopped the thought before it could finish itself.

“We could go on Friday” Eloise said suddenly.

I turned to her. “Friday?”

She shrugged, but her voice was gentle. “We’ve been talking about it forever.”

She wasn’t wrong.

It had started as a joke weeks ago. A passing comment. A memory we brushed against without meaning to. But lately, it didn’t feel like a joke anymore.

It felt inevitable. I looked back down the road.

Even from here, it felt distant. Untouched. Waiting.

“Okay,” I heard myself say.

Eloise blinked. “Okay?”

“We’ll go on Friday.”

The words left my mouth before I could take them back. Something inside me shifted the moment I said it.

Not relief. Not fear. Something else. Something I didn’t have a name for.

Eloise smiled, but it wasn’t the excited kind. It was careful. Like she was watching me, making sure I wouldn’t disappear.

“On Friday," she repeated.

On Friday.

Three more days.

The word stayed with me the entire walk home.

I didn’t sleep well that night.

I never did.

Sleep came in fragments, thin and fragile, breaking apart the moment my mind wandered somewhere it wasn’t supposed to go. I stared at the ceiling longer than I should have, listening to the quiet hum of the fan above me.

There was a time when nights didn’t feel like this. When they didn’t feel so heavy. When I didn’t wake up feeling like I had forgotten something important.

I must have fallen asleep eventually, because the next thing I knew, my phone was ringing. The sound cut sharply through the silence. My eyes opened slowly.

For a moment, I didn’t move.The screen lit up beside my bed, illuminating the darkness in soft blue light.

My heart began to beat faster. I didn’t know why. But I did.

I reached for the phone.

Unknown Number.

The words stared back at me. My chest tightened.

It could be anyone. A wrong number. A delivery.A mistake.

But my fingers hesitated over the screen. Because a small, quiet part of me already knew who I wanted it to be.

Him.

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until my lungs started to ache.

The phone kept ringing.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

I answered.

“…Hello?”

My voice sounded smaller than I expected.

There was nothing on the other end.

No voice.

No breathing.

Just silence.

I frowned. “Hello?”

Still nothing.

The call ended. I stared at the screen long after it went dark.

My reflection stared back at me—tired eyes, unmoving, uncertain.

I didn’t know why it mattered. But it did. It mattered more than it should have.

I stayed in bed longer than I should have. The phone rested in my hand, its screen dark now, lifeless. If I pressed it, it would wake again. It would show me the same thing. The same unknown number. The same unanswered question.

I didn’t call back. I told myself it was because it didn’t matter. But the truth was, I was afraid it might.

Eventually, the morning light crept through the thin gap between my curtains, stretching across the wall, across the floor, until it reached my bed. It touched my arm like a quiet reminder that time was moving whether I was ready or not.

I exhaled slowly and forced myself to sit up. My apartment was small. Just enough space for everything I needed and nothing more. The walls were plain, undecorated except for a single frame near the window. I didn’t look at it. I never did in the mornings. I moved through my routine mechanically. Shower. Clothes. Hair. Bag. Everything felt distant, like I was watching myself instead of living inside my own body.

The phone stayed on the table. Silent. I glanced at it more than once.

Nothing. No new calls. No messages. I told myself I didn’t care. I picked it up anyway and slipped it into my bag.

⊙

The streets were already alive when I stepped outside. Cars passed. People moved. Conversations overlapped and dissolved into meaningless noise. The sky was pale, undecided, suspended somewhere between clear and overcast. I walked the same route I always did.

Left at the corner. Across the narrow crosswalk. Past the convenience store with the broken sign that never got fixed. Everything was familiar.

Predictable.

Safe.

But something felt different.I couldn’t explain it. It was just a feeling.

The kind that sat quietly beneath everything else. I adjusted the strap of my bag on my shoulder and kept walking.

And then I saw him.

He stood across the street.

Still.

Unmoving.

Everyone else moved around him, past him, through him, like he was just another stranger waiting for the light to change. But he wasn’t.

He wasn’t.

My steps slowed.

My heart reacted before my mind did.

There was nothing unusual about him.

Just a man.

Average height. Dark clothing. His face partially turned away. But something inside me recognized him. Not his face. Not clearly. Just the feeling.

My chest tightened.

It was him.

It had to be.

I didn’t realize I had stopped walking until someone brushed past my shoulder.

“Sorry,” they muttered.

I barely heard them. The man started moving again. Away from me.

Without thinking, I followed. I crossed the street, ignoring the faint sound of a car horn somewhere behind me. My eyes stayed fixed on his back, on the way he walked like he knew exactly where he was going. My pulse grew louder in my ears.

He turned the corner and I followed. Closer now. Closer than I had been in years. My hands felt cold.

I didn’t call out. I didn’t know what I would say if I did.

His steps slowed. My breath were caught.

He turned.

And everything inside me stopped.

It wasn’t him.

The realization came quietly. Gently. Like something being taken from me without resistance.

He was a stranger.

Completely.

His eyes passed over me without recognition, without hesitation. There was no pause. No reaction. Nothing.

Just emptiness.

He looked away and continued walking.

And I stood there.

Frozen.

My heart didn’t break.It didn’t shatter.

It just… sank.

Slowly.

Like it already knew this would happen. I don’t know how long I stood there.

Long enough for the moment to fade into something distant and unimportant.

Long enough for reality to settle back into place. I forced myself to move again.

To breathe again.

It was stupid. I didn’t even know what I was expecting. People looked like other people all the time. Memories played tricks like that.

I told myself that was all it was.

A mistake. Nothing more. But the feeling stayed.

Quiet.

Unfinished.

⊙

Work was the same as always.

Predictable.

Manageable.

Safe.

I stepped inside and was greeted by the familiar scent of paper and air conditioning.

“Morning, Cionnee,” Maris said from behind the front desk.

I nodded slightly. “Morning.”

“You look tired.”

“I slept late.”

It wasn’t a lie.

She studied me for a moment longer than necessary, like she wanted to ask something else, but didn’t.

I was grateful for that. I moved to my desk and sat down.

The chair creaked softly beneath me. Everything was exactly where I left it yesterday. Nothing had changed. And yet, everything felt different.

I reached into my bag and felt my phone.

Still there. Still silent.

I didn’t take it out. I didn’t want to see it.

Time passed the way it always did at work—quietly, unnoticed, slipping through my fingers without resistance.

Conversations happened around me.

Laughter.

Footsteps.

Voices.

I participated when I had to. Smiled when expected. Answered when spoken to. But part of me wasn’t there. Part of me was still standing on that street. Still watching a stranger walk away. Still wondering why it mattered.

By the time the day ended, the sky had changed.

I noticed it the moment I stepped outside. The air was heavier now.

Darker.

The clouds stretched across the sky in thick layers, swallowing what little light remained. People moved faster. Purposefully. Like they knew something was coming. I stood there for a moment longer than everyone else.

Looking up.

Waiting.

The first drop of rain fell against my skin. Cold.Gentle.

And with it came something else.

A memory. Not fully formed. Just a fragment.

A feeling.

Rain.

Laughter.

A voice—

I blinked.

And it was gone.

I didn’t chase it.