Lira arrived at school fifteen minutes early. The sky above was colorless, washed out in that strange space between blue and gray. Cold without rain. Bright without warmth.
She passed through the gate, eyes low, fingers clenched in the sleeves of her jacket. She wasn't sure why her chest felt so tight. Maybe it was the silence. Maybe it was the quiet pressure of something watching, just beyond the edge of attention.
When she reached the classroom door, she paused.
The attendance screen was glowing just outside. A soft digital blue. Names scrolled automatically, students listed in alphabetical order.
Reva.
Rafi.
Nadia.
Ben.
But not Lira.
She waited. Watched the names cycle again. Slower this time.
Still not there.
Her finger hovered above the scanner pad. The system should have registered her fingerprint already. She had signed in.
Hadn't she?
She stepped into the classroom anyway. It was empty except for dust caught in the morning light.
She walked to her desk her desk, she was certain of that and sat down. She opened her notebook, half-expecting something to be missing. Or added. Or shifted slightly out of place.
Everything looked normal.
Until Reva walked in.
She didn't say anything at first. Just glanced over, gave a polite smile, and moved on.
But then she didn't stop at the usual seat beside Lira.
She went further back.
Sat alone.
Unbothered.
Lira turned. "Reva?"
Reva looked up from her bag. "Yeah?"
"Why are you sitting there?"
Reva blinked at her. "Why wouldn't I?"
"You always sit next to me."
Reva tilted her head, uncertain. Then she chuckled. "Wait... what? No I don't. Isn't that where Nadia sits?"
Lira's stomach tightened.
She turned to look at the empty seat beside her.
She remembered vividly, Reva sitting there just yesterday. Laughing. Doodling on the corner of her worksheet. Sharing half a sandwich.
And now… Reva didn't remember it at all.
Worse, she remembered someone else in her place.
---
The bell rang.
Students filled the classroom, their voices rising and falling like ocean waves.
Lira didn't move. She sat frozen, watching them take their seats. Talking. Laughing.
Nadia walked in and glanced her way.
No smile.
Just a pause.
Then she walked past, like Lira was no more than a shadow against the wall.
Lira stared down at her open notebook.
The first page was marked with handwriting that wasn't hers.
Curved, casual strokes. Lighter pen pressure.
She recognized it.
Reva's handwriting.
"Don't forget the project sketch for Monday. I'll print it for you if you want. -R"
Her fingers touched the ink like it might fade beneath her skin.
It didn't.
The note was real.
But the person who wrote it... no longer remembered writing it.
---
Her phone buzzed.
No. Not buzzed.
It hummed... low and alive.
Lira slowly pulled the flip phone from her pocket.
The screen lit up.
No message at first.
Then, a single block of text appeared:
DATA MERGE FAILED
LIRA_T PRIMARY PROFILE NOT FOUND
STATUS: SEMI-ANONYMOUS ENTITY
RECOGNITION: FLAGGED AS NARRATIVE DISRUPTION
Lira stared at it, barely breathing.
She hadn't been deleted.
She had been displaced.
And now... the system didn't consider her part of the main story anymore.
***
She walked home in silence.
No music. No daydreams. No thoughts she could hold long enough to trust.
The air felt strange, like the atmosphere itself couldn't decide whether to welcome her or push her out. The pavement beneath her shoes seemed slightly off, like a copy of the sidewalk she had walked a thousand times, just… off by a few inches.
When she reached the front gate, it was open.
Unlocked.
Her father always locked it from the inside before leaving for work. Always.
She pushed it gently, the hinges creaking like a warning.
The house looked the same. The curtains drawn. A faint smell of lavender from the diffuser in the hallway. A slipper left under the coffee table.
But something inside her twisted the moment she stepped over the threshold.
It didn't feel like her house.
It felt like a replica. Familiar in layout, but hollow in presence.
"Mom?" she called, cautiously.
No answer.
She dropped her bag beside the couch and moved toward the kitchen. There, by the sink, stood her mother, rinsing out a teacup, humming softly to herself.
Lira paused in the doorway.
"Mom?"
The woman turned around slowly. Her face was calm. Kind. The same face Lira had known her whole life.
But her expression didn't match the moment.
There was no relief. No surprise.
Just… mild curiosity.
"Oh," she said. "You're back already?"
Something in her voice was off. Like she was trying to sound casual while masking uncertainty.
Lira's throat tightened. "It's me," she said quietly. "It's Lira."
Her mother smiled... soft, confused. "Of course. Sorry, I just... had a strange nap. Everything feels a little fuzzy."
She turned back to the dishes.
Lira didn't move.
Because she saw it now.
The way her mother's eyes had searched her face, not out of recognition, but in search of it.
She hadn't remembered her.
Not at first.
Maybe not at all.
---
That night, Lira sat in the dark with her laptop on. The soft blue glow washed over her face as she scrolled through old photos.
Birthday parties. Field trips. Candid shots from school. There she was, in every one of them. Smiling. Laughing. Holding hands with Reva, pulling silly faces with Nadia and Rafi. Proof that she existed.
Then she stopped.
One photo blinked back at her.
Reva at a sleepover. Arm slung over someone's shoulders.
Lira clicked to zoom in.
Same height. Same uniform. Same hair.
But it wasn't her.
Her smile was too wide. Her eyes were wrong. She looked confident, relaxed in a way Lira never had in front of a camera.
Below the photo was a caption:
"Me and Lira (the real one, I swear!)"
Her blood ran cold.
She opened more.
More photos.
More captions.
More versions of her in photos she didn't remember taking.
Some slightly different.
Some not her at all.
Every single one labeled Lira.
But none of them… were her.
---
The flip phone buzzed to life again.
She didn't touch it... just watched the screen flicker from black to white.
A message blinked into view:
DATA CONFLICT DETECTED
EXTERNAL VERSIONS NOW OCCUPYING HOST ENVIRONMENTS
PRIMARY USER: NON-INDEXED
---
She closed the laptop.
Outside her window, her reflection didn't disappear with the screen.
It stayed in the glass.
Watching her.
But she wasn't alone in it anymore.
Someone was standing beside her.
Smiling.
Reva.
But not the Reva she knew.
Not anymore.
***
She couldn't sleep.
Not because she was scared, but because her thoughts refused to line up. They ran in loops, overlapping like a bad recording. Every time she tried to hold onto something, like a memory, or a moment... it split in half.
She would remember sitting beside Reva during lunch last week.
But then a voice in her head would say, "That wasn't you."
She'd remember helping Nadia study for math.
But then… "That version didn't survive."
It wasn't doubt.
It was interference.
She pulled the blanket over her head and tried to quiet her breathing. But the silence wasn't silent anymore.
It whispered.
"I used to sit there."
"Not you."
"You came after me."
She squeezed her eyes shut.
The voices didn't stop.
They weren't loud. They weren't violent.
They just… existed.
Calm. Plain. Certain.
Like truths spoken by ghosts with nowhere else to go.
---
The next day, she didn't speak to anyone.
Not because she was ignoring them, but because no one spoke to her first.
Not even to say hi.
Not even to look confused.
It was like she had become a placeholder.
Present in shape.
Absent in presence.
She sat in the back of class.
Reva didn't show up.
Or maybe she did.
Just not in the same Reva body Lira remembered.
Instead, Reva sat beside someone else.
Laughing.
Talking about old memories.
Memories Lira had shared with her.
"Remember when we skipped that quiz together?" Reva grinned.
Lira turned.
The person Reva was talking to looked surprised… and flattered.
It was Nadia.
But that memory wasn't Nadia's.
It was hers.
Reva glanced up then... just for a second and met Lira's gaze across the room.
Her smile didn't change.
But something in her eyes did.
Recognition?
Guilt?
No.
It was permission.
Like Reva was silently saying, "This version is better."
---
Lira left class without waiting for the bell.
She walked through the halls, unsure of where to go. The walls felt tighter. The floors stretched slightly longer than usual, like the school was expanding while she moved through it.
Halfway down the hall, the announcement screen above the lockers lit up.
It usually displayed exam schedules or lunch menus.
Not today.
Today it showed data logs:
TRANSFER: LIRA_A0176 → HOST: NADIA_B7
TRANSFER: LIRA_A0201 → HOST: REVA_A9
TRANSFER: LIRA_CURRENT → STATUS: NOT DETECTED
She stepped back slowly.
The hallway lights flickered.
Then steadied.
Then flickered again.
Her flip phone buzzed.
She didn't open it.
She already knew what it would say.
---
Outside the school gates, she paused.
A girl walked past her on the sidewalk. Wore her shoes. Her jacket. Even her walk was eerily familiar.
Lira turned her head slightly. The girl did the same.
Their eyes met.
Same shade. Same blink.
The girl smiled.
Beside her, Reva appeared smiling back.
They laughed together.
Like old friends.
Like versions that had always belonged.
And for the first time, Lira wasn't sure which of them had been replaced.
***
Lira didn't go home after school.
She wandered. Past the same shops she used to stop at. Past the bench where she and Reva once sat eating ice cream in uniforms two sizes too big. Past the bakery with the window she cracked in third grade.
Every place held a version of her.
But none of them felt like they belonged to the version walking there now.
The memories were still vivid, sharp enough to sting.
But the world around them had begun to blur her out.
As she passed a convenience store window, her reflection stared back. But something was off.
It wasn't following her movements anymore.
She turned her head.
The reflection didn't.
It just smiled.
A second too early.
---
She went back to her room and locked the door. Not out of fear, but out of instinct. Like her body knew it was the last territory left, her final claim to existence.
The lights flickered when she turned them on.
She didn't try to fix it.
Instead, she opened the drawer by her bed, the one she hadn't touched in months.
Under stacks of crumpled papers and unused notebooks, something caught her eye.
A small, leather-bound journal. Worn at the edges. No label. No name.
She opened it.
The first page was blank.
So was the second.
But the third…
Handwriting.
It wasn't hers. Not exactly.
It was almost hers. Like someone had tried to write in her style and missed just enough to feel uncanny.
The words were neat. Purposeful.
"If I'm ever lost, let this be the place I left myself.
I don't know which version will find this.
I only know one of us has to remember."
She flipped to the next page.
"They'll overwrite us. One by one. Not by force, but by replacement.
Not by violence, but by preference.
Because we're not chosen for being real.
We're chosen for being remembered."
Lira closed the journal, hands trembling.
It wasn't a message to her.
It was a message from her.
But not this version.
Someone before her.
Maybe someone better.
Someone who saw what was coming and wrote it down... knowing they wouldn't survive to finish the entry.
---
The flip phone buzzed again.
This time, she answered.
Not with words. Just a tap. Just a breath.
The message read:
ONE OF YOU HAS BEEN REMEMBERED
ONE OF YOU HAS BEEN ERASED
And underneath it, a timestamp:
11:11
---
The room went still.
Even the shadows stopped shifting.
Lira looked back at the journal.
On the last page, a single name had been added in handwriting that didn't match the others.
Just one word.
Alina.
***
Lira stood in front of the mirror.
The house was quiet. Too quiet. Not just stillness, but the kind of silence that feels engineered. Intentional. As if the world had stopped breathing so she could hear something else.
Her reflection stared back.
It moved with her this time.
At first.
Then... barely... just slightly... its blink came early.
Its head tilted a fraction too late.
And its smile... was not hers.
"You're not the one who was supposed to stay," it whispered.
The voice didn't come from the glass.
It came from inside her.
She took a step back. The reflection did not follow.
It stayed.
Standing in the same spot.
Still smiling.
And then it moved forward... toward her... from inside the mirror.
No glass shattered. No noise. Just motion.
And then… she was no longer looking at a reflection.
She was looking at herself.
Real. Breathing. Wearing the same shirt. Same hair.
But colder.
Sharper.
More decided.
"I don't want to take your place," the version said. "You already gave it up."
Lira's voice came out small. "No, I didn't."
"You did. Every time you hesitated. Every time you doubted who you were. The system doesn't choose originals. It chooses conviction."
Lira shook her head. "You're just a piece of me. Just one possibility."
The other Lira stepped closer. The light flickered overhead.
"I'm the version who didn't ask permission to exist."
Then she was gone.
No sound. No warning.
As if she had never been there at all.
---
Lira's knees buckled. She sat on the floor, breath shallow, heart trying to catch up with time that had already moved past her.
The phone lit up beside her hand.
New message.
THE REFLECTION HAS BEEN FILED
CLASSIFIED AS: ALINA_A00_ROOT
ORIGIN UNKNOWN
INTENTION: NON-HOSTILE
She didn't recognize the designation.
But the name struck her like a memory from a dream she hadn't dreamed yet.
Alina.
Why did that name feel like a door she had locked herself from the inside?
---
Her room dimmed.
Outside, the world moved as if nothing had happened.
She stood slowly and walked to her window.
Across the street, someone passed by.
Same walk. Same profile. Same silhouette.
A version of her.
Accepted. Seen. Smiling beside Reva.
For a long time, Lira said nothing.
Then, without thinking, she whispered, not to the world... but to the version within her still trying to speak...
"I remember you now."
No one answered.
But her reflection smiled.
And this time, it smiled with her.
***