Have Been There Before Novels & Stories

He let out a heavy sigh. "I know. I'm so happy to have someone like you looking out for me. But I just want to know he's fine that's all," I gently patted his back. "He's never gone to the station before and he must be scared and all alone. We both know his mother isn't one to sympathize with anyone, no matter who you are to her," I lamented.

She looked up at his face, and then he asked, “You okay?” “Yeah.” She said, “is it weird to say I have been here before, but I know I haven’t?” “What?” he asked as she looked at her. “It is one of those feelings. I have been here before, but I know I have not been.” Kristen said. “Like I can see other things along the wall, but they aren’t here now.”

“Of what?” I looked at the sigil still faintly glowing on my palm—the one I hadn’t realized was there until the creature pointed at me. “Of whatever came before us. Before memory. Before maps.” Rowan shook his head. “You’re saying we didn’t find an old gate.” “No,” I said, throat dry. “We found the first one.” Kye exhaled. “Then whatever we locked up back then—” “Wasn’t the whole story,” I finished.

She took it, barely savouring the explosion of flavours in her mouth as she stared at the conflicted emotions in his eyes. He looked like he was about to say something, stopped and then blurted out, “I couldn't stay away back then. And I find it even harder to do so now.” Athena's brow furrowed slightly as she asked, “Back then?” A sad smile touched his face as he speared another toast, then dropped it as he looked back at her. “I have been here before, Athena.” Something uncomfortable slithered through Athena even as she hedged, “Here? At the creek?”

"What did you see?" Onyx stared at the creature. "The beginning." Aren went pale. "What beginning?" Onyx looked towards Luna. "They were people." Silence descended on the chamber. Aren shook his head. "No." "They were people." "That's impossible." "You keep saying that about your own history." Onyx pressed a hand to his temple. The inherited memory continued to unfold. "They lived before the Origin. Before the Severance. Before the city." Luna felt her fire dim. "What happened to them?"

When my boyfriend, Caleb Steele, loses his family and everything he has, I walk away. After he makes a comeback, I come to see him every year. The first year, I hold my daughter, Claire Sutton, in my arms. Caleb throws fifty thousand dollars at me and tells me to stay away. The second year, I bring my late-stage cancer diagnosis, and he doesn't even look at it. Instead, he gives me a hundred thousand dollars and tells me to disappear for good. In the third and fourth years, I vanish just as he wants. Then, in the fifth year, he gets a call from Claire. "Mommy, when are you bringing me dinner? I'm hungry."

"No. You said nothing wrong." My voice came out quiet, almost reverent. Could she possibly know? Was there any way she remembered too? In that moment, something passed between us—a connection I couldn't quite name. I started walking again, falling into step beside her, but my mind was racing. This time around. The phrase wasn't common, especially not in reference to mate bonds. It implied previous iterations, previous lives. Just like mine. Just like the memories that haunted me.

I lie there in the dark, my body still humming and my mind reeling. The line we’ve so carefully drawn isn’t just blurred; it’s obliterated. Something irrevocable has happened, and I know, with a terrifying, exhilarating certainty, that we will never be the same again, no matter how much Devon Pretends.

I had been here before, and that was years ago. The place wasn’t just a familiar sight, it was a scar. It was an operation long buried, one that had nearly cost me everything. Only a handful of people had known about it, and every one of them was either dead or had disappeared. Getting summoned and fixing the rendezvous point here, of all places, wasn’t a coincidence. It was personal.

As if it had never been there to begin with. While the genius ER gods pondered the significance of all this, Richard and his wife already knew what had happened. Had been waiting for something like it. They weren’t perplexed as were the others, because it had happened before—with admittedly less impact, true. Like mother, like daughter, wasn’t that how the saying went?