Lina didn't sleep.
Not really.
She drifted. Sank. Surfaced. Drowned again. But never truly let go.
The apartment held its breath with her. No traffic noise. No neighbor's dog. No distant sirens. Just the quiet hum of her own uncertainty.
At 6:02, her eyes opened on their own.
No alarm.
No sound.
Just... a pull. Like the moment before a thunderclap.
She lay frozen in her bed. The sky outside still held the softness of pre-dawn, that moment when shadows felt heavier than they should, longer than the buildings that cast them.
Her phone buzzed.
One notification.
A video.
No name. No sender.
Just a timestamp.
6:03
She didn't tap it. Not right away.
Instead, she sat up slowly, each movement a negotiation with fear. The air felt colder than it should have. Not winter cold. Just... inside-the-bones cold.
She opened the message.
The video played automatically.
A grainy clip, static-laced.
Shot from behind her building. Somewhere low, like a trash bin or a shoe. The alley. Dim. Wet. Pale yellow light flickering overhead.
In the frame: her window. The back one. The one she never opened.
She watched as the footage pulsed slightly, like breath.
And then — him.
Not walking. Just... there. As if the night had blinked, and he'd appeared.
He didn't look up. He didn't move.
The video ended.
6:03. Duration: 6 seconds.
She dropped the phone. Didn't even register the sound of it hitting the floor.
Her heart beat too loudly.
Too loudly for such silence.
In the kitchen, the coffee machine blinked. 6:06.
She hadn't turned it on.
But it blinked.
Steam curled from the pot like a breath.
At the store that night, she worked without music.
The cameras recorded.
She checked them. Twice.
Then again.
At 12:17 AM, she watched herself on the screen — live.
Same register. Same hoodie. Same silence.
And behind her, where no one should be —A can of iced tea rolled slowly across the floor.
No one pushed it.
It stopped at the base of the shelf. Perfectly centered in frame.
She turned around in real life. Nothing there.
She turned back to the screen.
The can was gone.
At 2:09 AM, someone left a receipt on the counter.
Folded in half. Blank on one side.
She opened it.
Two words, written in pen.
"Keep watching."
No one in the store.
She reviewed the tape.
Her, standing alone.
No one entered. No door chime. No blur on the footage.
But there was the receipt. Appearing frame by frame, as if it had always been there.
She stayed until sunrise.
Didn't clock out.
Didn't speak.
Only watched.
Every monitor.
Every angle.
As if watching would hold the story in place.
But nothing held.
Nothing ever held.
At 6:03 AM, a shadow passed behind her on the screen.
She turned.
Nothing.
On the counter:
A fresh can of lemon iced tea.
Still cold.
Still unopened.
A post-it stuck to the side, written in the same quiet hand.
"You're not just watching anymore."
She didn't go home.
She walked to the park.
The one from the dream.
But now, it was real.
Exactly as it had been. The same trees. The same bench. The same light that flickered but cast no shadows.
She sat.
Didn't cry.
Didn't move.
Just whispered the words to no one, like a spell:
"I'm not."
Lina didn't notice the man on the bench until she stood to leave.
He was already there.
Not reading.
Not sleeping.
Just sitting.
Like the bench had grown around him while she wasn't looking.
She froze mid-step.
Same hoodie. Same jawline tilted forward, like he was listening to something only he could hear.
But it wasn't him.
Not exactly.
His face was just… wrong. The features were too soft. As if someone had sculpted him from memory, and missed the edges.
He didn't look at her.
Didn't blink.
Didn't move.
She walked past him. Slowly. Her hand curled in her jacket pocket, gripping the edges of the last note he left. Not the newest one. The first.
Mine.
It felt heavier now. The paper. The word.
Like it had grown since she first touched it.
Back at the apartment, she checked her door.
Still locked.
Chain still in place.
But something had changed.
A picture frame was tilted just slightly to the left.
The couch cushion had a crease that wasn't hers.
The sugar jar sat one centimeter further right.
Insignificant things.
But Lina noticed.
She noticed everything now.
She didn't sleep.
Again.
At 3:12 AM, she stood in the hallway between her bedroom and kitchen.
The air there always felt... stiller. More weighted.
Tonight, it smelled faintly of metal.
She pressed her ear to the wall.
Silence.
But not the kind that was empty.
The kind that waited.
She whispered, "What do you want from me?"
Nothing answered.
But her breath came back to her — warmer than it should have been.
Like it had passed through someone else before reaching her lips.
At 6:03 AM, a message appeared on her phone.
Just one line.
No sender.
No title.
Just this:
"Tomorrow, you'll remember."
The city didn't wake up.
It just shifted.
From stillness to movement.
From shadows to noise.
Lina sat by the window with a mug of tea she hadn't made. The tag on the string had no brand. No name. Just a number.
Four.
She didn't remember opening the box where the teabags were.
Didn't remember buying that brand.
Didn't remember putting water to boil.
And yet, the mug was warm.
At 6:04 AM, she opened the front door and stepped into the hallway.
Empty.
Always empty.
But something was different.
Not what she saw. What she felt.
The air moved differently.
It carried a rhythm.
Like someone breathing just out of sync with her own lungs.
She walked down the corridor barefoot. The lights overhead buzzed — not flickering, just... murmuring.
Almost like the sound had been lowered. Not to be softer. But to make her lean in.
To listen harder.
On her doormat, folded with surgical precision, sat her old lanyard from a part-time job she'd quit three years ago.
Same frayed edges.
Same cracked photo ID.
Except the photo wasn't her.
Not exactly.
It was a version of her.
Hair shorter.
Eyes a little too wide.
Mouth not smiling, but not neutral either.
Frozen mid-thought.
She picked it up with two fingers, like it might burn.
On the back, scribbled in faint pencil:
"This isn't how you wore it."
She didn't know what that meant.
Not yet.
But her pulse answered before her brain did.
Back inside, she searched everything.
The drawers. The closet. Under the sink.
She told herself she was looking for cameras.
Or fingerprints.
But what she was really searching for was a boundary.
A sign that the space still belonged to her.
She found neither.
At 6:37 AM, her phone vibrated once.
One message.
No number.
No preview.
Just a single word on the lock screen:
"Look."
When she unlocked it, the screen was empty.
No message.
No app.
Just the home screen — rearranged.
Her folders were renamed.
"Routine""Other""Echo"
She hadn't created those.
She didn't dare open them.
Outside, someone walked past her building.
Same hoodie.
Same stride.
Same can in hand.
But it wasn't him.
Or maybe it was.
And she was the one out of place.