“There was an accident,” he continued, his voice careful and distant.
“One of your classmates…
Noa…”
Her name struck me before the sentence was finished.
“…passed away.”
For a moment, the words didn’t register.
They hung in the air—
Flat.
Hollow.
Passed away.
The classroom reacted around me.
Gasps.
Whispers.
The scrape of a chair as someone stood too quickly.
I didn’t move.
My ears rang.
No.
That didn’t make sense.
Just a few days ago, everything had still been normal.
Noa had smiled.
She’d laughed.
She’d told me she was glad I was there.
People don’t just disappear like that.
“She was involved in a traffic accident,” the teacher said quietly.
“Please take a moment.”
I couldn’t breathe.
The world felt distant, as if it had stepped back and left me behind.
My vision blurred—not with tears yet, but with disbelief.
This is wrong.
My hand slipped into my pocket before I even realized it.
The pen was there.
I gripped it tightly.
“…This isn’t right,” I whispered, barely aware that I’d spoken aloud.
Inside my mind, panic surged—sharp and uncontrolled.
Did we miss something?
Did you see this coming?
How could this happen?
For a moment…
Nothing answered.
No calculations.
No certainty.
Only silence.
A heavy, unnatural stillness settled inside my head, as though everything had gone cold at once.
I felt it—
Their presence tightening.
Recoiling the same way mine did.
Shock.
Confusion.
The kind that doesn’t allow words to exist.
Then, slowly—
The event…
One voice began, only to stop halfway through.
She didn’t finish.
When she spoke again, her voice was quieter than I’d ever heard it.
The event was not within our observation range.
Another presence followed.
Not calm.
Not analytical.
Restrained.
Shaken.
Probability deviation occurred…
outside your immediate influence.
Their voices didn’t steady me.
Because they weren’t steady themselves.
They understood what this meant.
My chest tightened painfully.
Noa was gone.
Not frozen.
Not delayed.
Not somewhere else.
Gone.
The classroom dissolved into meaningless noise around me, but I couldn’t hear any of it properly.
All I could see was the empty seat by the window.
The place where she should have been.
For the first time since everything began, something inside me cracked.
Not fear.
Not confusion.
Regret.
If I hadn’t believed everything was normal…
If I hadn’t stopped watching…
If I hadn’t allowed myself to pretend…
My fingers trembled around the pen.
And in that moment, I understood something I’d been trying to avoid since the very beginning.
Power doesn’t need to act to fail.
Sometimes…
All it needs is for you to believe the world is safe.
And that belief…
Had just taken Noa from me.
I don’t remember leaving the classroom.
I remember the sound of chairs moving.
I remember someone calling my name.
After that…
Everything blurred.
The walk home felt unreal.
Every step pulled another memory with it.
Noa’s smile.
The way her voice always sounded just a little brighter than the room around her.
How her cheerfulness never felt forced.
It was simply who she was.
I kept seeing her beside me…
Even when she wasn’t there.
At the crossing, I stopped.
The traffic light was red.
Cars streamed past in front of me in an endless line.
I stood still, my school bag hanging from one shoulder, my fingers clenched tightly around its strap.
Then—
Movement.
A truck.
Too fast.
Too close.
For a single instant…
My eyes met the windshield.
There was no sound.
No fear.
Only darkness.
Warmth.
That was the first thing I felt when I woke up.
Arms wrapped around me.
Familiar breathing.
A presence on both sides that didn’t feel strange.
Only real.
I opened my eyes slowly.
Clone 1 was pressed against my back, her arms wrapped tightly around me as though she had been afraid I would disappear if she let go.
In front of me, Clone 2 clung to my sleeve, her forehead resting lightly against my shoulder.
Alive.
Both of them.
I swallowed hard.
Before I could stop myself, I turned and pulled them both closer, wrapping my arms around them at once.
They froze for a brief second.
Then they hugged me back.
Not carefully.
Not hesitantly.
As though they needed it just as much as I did.
“I’m here,” I whispered, my voice breaking despite my efforts to keep it steady.
“I’m really here.”
Neither of them answered.
They didn’t need to.
I remained like that for a long moment, breathing in their warmth and grounding myself in the simple truth that they existed.
Then—
Something felt wrong.
Not the warmth.
Not the room.
The number of breaths.
Slowly, I lifted my head.
My gaze drifted past them…
And downward.
Someone was lying on the floor.
My entire body stiffened.
She wore the same clothes I had been wearing when I died.
The same folds in the fabric.
The same lifeless stillness I remembered all too well.
Another version of me.
Above her head, faintly hovering in the air, was a single number.
3
My heart skipped a beat.
“…Three?” I whispered.
For one brief second, panic surged through my chest.
But it didn’t last.
Because the memory returned almost immediately.
The crossing.
The truck.
The darkness.
I knew exactly who she was.
She wasn’t a mistake.
She was me.
The version that had died.
Understanding spread through my chest—
Slow.
Heavy.
Unavoidable.
“So that’s it…” I murmured.
Every time I die…
I don’t overwrite myself.
I add myself.
One more body.
One more presence.
Clone 1 tightened her grip around me slightly.
I looked at the girl lying on the floor.
Not with fear.
With understanding.
“…So that’s how many times I’ve crossed that line,” I whispered.
The room remained silent.
But this time, the silence didn’t feel empty.
It felt like an answer.
I took a slow breath.
“Wake up.”
Clone 1 stirred first, her eyes opening almost immediately.
Clone 2 followed a moment later.
The third body was the last to move.
Slowly.
Heavily.
As though she were climbing back from somewhere far away.
All three of us sat in silence.
Then Clone 1 looked at me.
“…We were with you.”
“Inside the pen,” Clone 2 finished quietly.
“I remember lunch,” she continued.
“Noa noticed the pen.”
My throat tightened.
“You remember…”
Both of them nodded.
“She died,” Clone 1 said.
“After school,” Clone 2 added softly.
My gaze shifted to the third clone.
She was staring at her hands.
“…I remember the crossing.”
My breath caught.
“The truck.”
She slowly raised her eyes.
“And then I died.”
Silence settled between us.
Not confusion.
Understanding.
I closed my eyes.
The pieces finally fit together.
No one needed to explain them anymore.
“…I see.”
When I opened my eyes again, all three of us already understood.
Noa’s death still existed.
Nothing had been erased.
Clone 2 lowered her head.
“It still happened.”
“But it doesn’t have to happen again,” Clone 1 replied.
I slowly clenched my fists.
“Then we won’t waste this chance.”
Clone 3 met my gaze.
“I died once so you could be here.”
Her words weren’t emotional.
They were simply true.
I nodded.
“This time…”
“…we save her.”
My eyes drifted toward the calendar.
The date settled into my mind.
“…The day after the robbery.”
Recognition settled over the room.
I closed my eyes, replaying the days ahead.
One ordinary week.
Classes.
Lunch together.
Noa smiling beside me.
Then…
She stopped coming to school.
“Three days,” Clone 2 murmured.
I nodded.
“And after that…”
The classroom.
The teacher.
The announcement.
“Noa died.”
Silence settled over the room once again.
“We’re still early,” I said.
“Not yet,” Clone 1 agreed.
“But our time is limited,” Clone 3 added.
I looked at each of them.
One ordinary week.
Three days of silence.
Then…
Everything changed.
I clenched my fist.
“This time…”
“…we don’t wait until her seat is empty.”
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