The night was quieter than usual, as if time itself was holding its breath.
Koyi sat at her desk, her fingers trembling above the paper. The moment she dipped her pen into ink and pressed it to the page, something shifted. A current passed through the air, subtle but real—like a thread connecting her to the beyond.
This time, she wasn't just a receiver.
She was writing back.
> "To whoever's listening,
I don't know what I'm doing. But I need to know if I can change what's coming. I want to understand. I want answers. Not riddles. Not regrets.
Aren says he's not supposed to be part of my story.
But he's in it.
And maybe… I don't want to take him out.
So if there's a cost, tell me.
I want to see what love looks like when you don't run away from it.
–Koyi"
She folded the letter carefully, sealing it in a plain envelope. Then she stood, walked to her window, and let the wind take it.
No lavender wax. No black seal. Just her heart, released into the open night.
---
The following morning, something felt different.
The world looked the same, but everything in her life had taken a breathless pause. The hallway of Newbridge High felt narrower. The ticking of the classroom clock felt slower. Her friends spoke, but the words didn't register.
Then Aren walked into the room.
Their eyes locked across the hallway.
He didn't smile.
Neither did she.
But something passed between them—an acknowledgment. They were no longer playing along with fate. They were tampering with it.
---
Later that afternoon, they met under the tree again. It was cloudy, the wind curling through the branches like whispers.
"Did you write it?" Aren asked.
"I did," she said.
His eyes widened slightly. "You really did it?"
"Yes."
"Did you get a response?"
She shook her head. "Not yet. But something's changed. I can feel it."
He nodded slowly, as if affirming something only he could see. "I had another dream last night."
"What did you see this time?"
"You." He looked down at his hands. "But you were older. Stronger. You weren't afraid anymore."
She stared at him. "And you?"
"I was… distant. As if I'd already made the wrong choice. Like I was watching a version of you I no longer had access to."
Her heart twisted.
"Then don't make that choice."
"I won't," he promised.
But Koyi wasn't sure either of them had that power anymore.
---
That evening, she found a letter on her windowsill.
It was sealed in gold wax—a color she hadn't seen before. Her heart skipped as she opened it, careful not to tear the paper.
> "You've crossed the threshold.
This letter isn't from tomorrow. It's from a new line—one that you have started.
There will be consequences. Some moments may shift. People may forget things you remember. Places may disappear. But so will pain that wasn't meant to belong to you.
The story is no longer being told to you.
You are writing it.
And so is he."
Koyi read the words three times.
She had changed something. Maybe everything.
And she wasn't alone in doing so.
---
The next few days blurred.
There were no new letters, not from tomorrow, not from the after. It was as if the universe was waiting to see what she would do next.
But Koyi felt it—the shift. Some things were different.
Mr. Mallory, her literature teacher, no longer called roll with the same order. Joseph, the boy who had teased her since primary school, suddenly didn't seem to know her name. A tree near the old playground was gone—as if it had never been planted.
The changes were subtle.
But they were there.
She mentioned it to Aren during one of their quiet talks under the observatory roof.
"You're not imagining it," he said. "I see it too. The more we lean into this connection, the more unstable things around us get."
"That's not comforting."
He chuckled faintly. "It's not supposed to be. We're rewriting a map while standing on it."
She looked at him, her voice soft. "Do you regret any of it?"
"No." He didn't hesitate. "I only regret the version of me that warned you away."
---
Later that week, Koyi stood in front of her mirror.
She looked the same. But the girl staring back at her was no longer passive. She had defied time. She had sent her own message. She had chosen someone who wasn't "supposed" to be part of her fate—and she didn't regret it.
She touched her chest. The ache was still there—but now it had a pulse. A rhythm. A purpose.
That night, she wrote again.
> "To me. Or to whoever I become,
I don't know what the end of our story looks like. But I think I understand now why they came.
The letters weren't warnings. They were blueprints.
They were trying to show me that the future isn't something we wait for.
It's something we build—with every choice.
–Koyi"
She didn't release it into the wind this time. She placed it in the box under her bed. A message for the next her. For the next timeline. For the version that might forget again.
---
Then came the fire.
It happened fast.
A scream at the far end of the school. Smoke curling through the air like a threat. Students running in all directions.
It was the library.
By the time Koyi reached the entrance, flames were licking the doorway. Someone pulled her back. Someone shouted for help.
She searched through the crowd for Aren—but he wasn't there.
Then a horrible thought struck her.
The wall. The observatory. The records.
She turned and ran.
---
The observatory was already ablaze when she reached it.
Flames poured through the cracks in the wood, heat searing her skin. Smoke curled up into the sky, taking with it every version of their story.
She screamed.
But it wasn't for the letters.
It was for Aren—because she saw him.
Inside.
Trapped.
---
She didn't hesitate.
She ran through the broken side door, coughing, eyes burning. The air inside was unbearable. Pages curled and blackened around her, the smell of ink and ash thick and bitter.
She found him collapsed near the center, trying to drag a wooden trunk toward the exit.
"Aren!"
He looked up, shocked. "Koyi?! What are you doing?!"
"I'm getting you out!"
She reached for his arm, yanking him upward.
"I have to save them," he gasped.
"No, you don't!" she cried. "We already are the story!"
She pulled him, stumbling together through the fire, dodging falling debris. They burst out the side, collapsing onto the grass as the building groaned and crumbled behind them.
---
Hours passed.
Firetrucks. Paramedics. Questions. Confusion.
They were fine, mostly. Smoke inhalation, some burns. But alive.
What wasn't fine was what they had lost.
The observatory was gone.
Their letters, their charts, their dreams—all of it.
But strangely… Koyi didn't feel grief.
She felt something else.
Freedom.
---
Later, as they sat on the hospital bench, wrapped in silver blankets, Koyi looked over at Aren.
"We lost everything."
He turned to her.
"Not everything," he said. "I still remember."
She stared at him. "Me too."
He took her hand. "Maybe that's all we ever needed."
---
That night, one final letter came.
This time, there was no wax. No signature. No timeline.
Just a single piece of white paper, folded on her pillow.
> "The fire was never meant to destroy.
It was meant to clear the path.
The future has been watching.
Now, it will follow you."
---