Ch. 1 Coffee Shops and Subway Rides

I don’t know when this feeling happened. This overwhelming sense of dread for what’s to come next. I don’t know if it was when I lost my family. Or my best friend. Or myself. I find myself in the worst place possible now, and the only person that can help me is him. He, who tore my whole life apart in a matter of seconds. He, who played with the strings of my fate and has now trapped me in a life with only one path left. He, who must also die. And he will take me with him. ~On my walk to work is the best coffee shop in the city. It’s cute and quaint, and just out of the way enough that tourists don’t find themselves there very often. The shop is decorated with mismatched furniture and eclectic décor, and lots of mirrors that help brighten the place up when the sun shines. It’s my favorite place to be away from home. “Same as always. El?” asks Lucy, the owner and morning barista. “You know me well enough by now to know I don’t deviate,

Last Updated : 2025-06-02

Ch. 2 Beta Fish and Confessions

“Hello?” My voice echoes slightly as I look around the car.What was once full of people and noisy is now barren and eerily silent. The small child with the fishbowl is gone too, but his fish is still in my hand. I begin to move from where I’ve been glued in place, as I do to my left appears the fishbowl full of water. “What on earth?” I walk to the fishbowl and gently place the Beta back in the water. Thankfully, it seems to resume swimming like it was never out of water. I stare at the fish while it swims around the small bowl. Its beautiful blue and purple fins float around so elegantly like they’re made of organza.“Beautiful creatures aren’t they,” says a man’s voice from behind me. I spin to see who spoke and there he sits. The man from the coffee shop. He’s no longer in the green sweater I saw he was wearing earlier; he’s since changed into a well-tailored navy suit. He looks just as comfortable sitting in this empty subway car as he did in the coffee shop. Like he belongs

Last Updated : 2025-06-02

Ch. 3 The Break In

I pour myself a glass of wine as soon as I get home. It’s raining now, and the sound is pouring through my open windows. Kicking off my shoes I go to sit in my window seat. I’m absolutely exasperated. Normally I have my lights come on automatically, as to not seem like I’m a single woman living alone in the city but today they didn’t come on. I ask my home system to turn the lights on, but nothing happens. Looking around I ask again, but when they still don’t come on, I set my glass down and get up from my seat. I reach the nearest lamp and attempt to turn it on. It doesn’t. “Hmmm. Weird,” I pull my phone from my bag and turn on the flashlight. Looking around my apartment I don’t notice anything out of the ordinary, so I head to the laundry room to check the breaker. I flip the switch but again nothing happens, so I chalk it up to a neighborhood outage from the storm. No big deal. I have some candles around here somewhere. I rummage around in the cabinets for the candles I know I ha

Last Updated : 2025-06-03

Ch. 4 A Place Between

Just like in the subway, the coffee shop is empty. It’s just me and Jensen.I can hear my heart beating out of my chest. My lungs are working double time.He’s looking at me with a mix of concern and something sharper—anger maybe.“We’re alone again,” I say“We are,” he replies, nodding.He stays crouched in front of me, emerald eyes clouded over with emotion, a kind of restrained fury.“Where’d you go?” he asks. “Just now, before I brought you here?”My brow furrows. “I was gone?”“Not physically. You and I never left the coffee shop. But your mind—your mind clouded over with darkness. The last thing I saw was you covering your face, a flash of the beach, then a room I didn’t recognize. So, I’ll ask again, Eloise. Where were you?”I flinch when he says my name. The sound of it brings back the memory—his voice, the wrong one, dragging it across a smile that wasn’t really a smile.I tear my eyes away from Jensen, scanning the illusion around us: Lucy’s coffee shop, perfect and still. T

Last Updated : 2025-06-08

Ch. 5 Dream of him

It’s early afternoon when I settle beneath a beautiful tree at the park. In spring, this place is breathtaking—full of blooming flowers and a few imported Japanese cherry trees. They’re my favorite. Cherry blossoms have always felt like a symbol of life and new beginnings. Something I needed to see after last night... and this morning’s terrifying—Dream?Is that what it was? A dream? Or a vision of what would’ve happened if I’d waited to call the police?Not Jensen’s face still haunts me. Just as Jensen’s actions after that still scare me, I can’t stop thinking about them. How does he pull my consciousness into those replica spaces? Are they even replicas—or is he somehow manipulating the very space we’re in, making it seem like another place? Who the hell is Jensen Parker?Feeling the dread from this morning still clawing at the edges of my mind, I crack open the book I brought with me—a good romantic comedy. Something light, a little funny, and a whole lot of sexy. Just what I need

Last Updated : 2025-06-14

Ch. 6 Is It All A Dream?

I’m not sure when I finally drift off—maybe sometime after midnight. Sleep came in fits, each time breaking apart into tangled knots of memory and worry. I tried reading again, tried meditating. Eventually I must have passed out, sitting up in Lucy’s guest bed with my hair still damp from a late shower and my phone face down on the side table.The morning is soft. Light seeps in around the curtain edges, and for a moment I pretend I’m not still unraveling.I don’t talk much during breakfast. Lucy makes toast and coffee and gently avoids asking questions. I appreciate it. After last night, I’m already back in my head. The more I replay it, the more I feel unsteady—like I’m living in two versions of the same timeline. In one, Jensen left the shop. In the other, he sat in the green settee and looked at me like he could see through the walls I keep up.I don’t know which version is real.Later, I find myself wandering. I don’t even plan where I’m going—I just step off the subway three st

Last Updated : 2025-06-15