Kai Ishida woke to the buzz of his alarm, a flash of sunlight slicing through the curtain like a blade. Groggy, he reached for his phone.
May 12.Saturday.His birthday.
Only… it wasn't.
It couldn't be.
His birthday was May 12, yes—but it was supposed to be a Tuesday.He'd gone to sleep after a Friday. May 11. Class quiz. Rain. He remembered everything. Clearly.
And yet—
Every calendar in his house read next year.2026.
Downstairs, his mom greeted him with a tired smile.
"Happy 18th, sweetheart."
Kai blinked. "Eighteenth?"
She laughed. "You're legal now. How does it feel?"
He stared at her. "I'm seventeen."
"Kai," she said gently, "you turned seventeen last year."
She showed him a framed photo on the wall: his "17th birthday." Candles. A cake. Smiling. Surrounded by people he barely remembered meeting.
"I… don't remember this," he whispered.
His dad chuckled from the kitchen. "Teenage brain. You always forget birthdays."
He stumbled back upstairs. Opened his desk drawer.
His notebook—dated yesterday—was missing.
In its place: a newer one, untouched.
The school gate felt… taller.
His classroom: rearranged.
A few classmates were gone. A few were new.
He sat at his desk, breathing slowly, eyes on the chalkboard. Trying to find something—anything—that felt familiar.
"Yo, Kai," said a voice.
It was Ren, his closest friend.
"Kai?" he said again, uncertain.
Ren's expression twisted. "You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Kai swallowed. "Ren… do you remember what we did yesterday?"
Ren blinked. "Yesterday? Oh, uh… we had gym. You tripped over Aoki's bag again. Classic."
That didn't happen.
Kai clenched his fists. "What about the quiz in history?"
Ren looked confused. "Quiz was last week."
In the school library, Kai hacked into the student database using the backdoor he discovered two chapters ago.
His name popped up.
Ishida, Kai. DOB: May 12, 2008.Current age: 18.Graduating class: 3-A.
Graduating?
He searched older class rosters.
In 2-B, 2025—he was there.
In 2-B, 2024—he wasn't.
The records skipped a year.
Erased. Overwritten.
Time moved for everyone else.
But not for him.
In the boys' bathroom, Kai gripped the sink, staring at his reflection.
He looked the same.
Same face. Same height. Same voice.
Then the fluorescent lights above flickered.
And in the mirror, for a fraction of a second, his reflection didn't copy him.
He turned his head left—
The reflection turned right.
His breath hitched.
He stepped back.
The reflection corrected itself, suddenly in sync again.
But the damage was done.
Something was wrong.
Something was watching.
A note was slipped into his shoe locker.
Neat handwriting. Mira's.
"Happy 18th.I told you they'd change the timeline.Meet me where the clocks don't work."
He knew where that was.
The abandoned wing's old hallway.
Every clock there was cracked and dead.
Every second, unmeasured.
The hallway reeked of dust and something older. Forgotten.
Mira was already waiting.
Her eyes flicked up when she saw him.
"You're still Kai," she said, relieved.
"Everyone else thinks I'm eighteen."
She nodded. "They rolled the timeline forward. Sloppy. You weren't supposed to notice."
"Why do I remember?" he asked.
"Because you're the variable. They can't overwrite the anchor."
Kai stared at her.
"What are they doing to me?"
Mira looked away. "They're rewriting you."
Mira led him to a back room, behind a cracked mirror door.
Inside: shelves full of labeled VHS tapes and dusty notebooks.
She handed him one.
"KAI ISHIDA – v3.4"
He opened it.
Inside: lists of his daily routines, behaviors, triggers, and "adjustments."
The notes read like a psychologist's report.
Or a lab log.
"I'm… a subject," he said quietly.
Mira's voice was soft. "No. You're the
"You can play along," she said, pulling something from her bag—a small device, like an old cassette player. "Forget. Pretend to be eighteen. Pass your exams. Graduate. Be their success story."
Kai stared.
"Or?"
"Or you can break it."
"Break what?"
She looked up at him.
"The loop. The layer. The simulation. Whatever this place really is."
Kai held the device.
It vibrated softly, like a heartbeat.
Mira whispered:
"Just know—once you start waking up, they'll try to shut you down."
subject that's still awake."
That night, Kai sat at his desk.
He stared at the birthday cake his mom had bought. Chocolate. Seven candles. Three unlit.
He didn't remember blowing out the seventeen-year candles last year.
Because maybe he never had.
Maybe they had.
Kai opened his notebook.
He wrote one sentence:
"Today, I turned eighteen—but I don't remember seventeen."
Then below it:
"This isn't my life. It's someone's version of me."
The device from Mira ticked once.
Then the lights in his room dimmed.
And somewhere—outside his window—a camera lens silently adjusted its focus.