I stay frozen by the pie display case, waiting for the reflection to glitch again. My lungs feel like they’re trying to pull air through a straw.
Designer coat.
For one impossible second, the universe had tried to dress me in something I could never afford, overwriting my thrifted yellow wool with a reality that doesn’t exist. I wait, counting my heartbeats. Five. Ten. Fifteen.
The glass stays normal. The lagging shadow stays normal—well, normal for our new, broken reality. When I lift my hand, the reflection in the glass waits a painful three seconds before lifting its own hand to match.
“Nessa! Fries are dying in the window!” Jerry yells from the grill, his voice snapping the spell.
“Coming!”
I grab the red plastic basket of fries and force my legs to move back toward the corner booth. My mind is sprinting in a dozen directions at once. The anomaly. The lag. The glitch. I set the basket down on the laminate table between Atlas and Kevin.
“Finally,” Kevin says, immediately stealing a fry. “Your weird cousin from upstate was just explaining the concept of ‘nutritional efficiency.’ I think he’s in a cult, Ness. I’m calling it right now.”
I slide into the booth next to Atlas. His thigh brushes against mine, and a jolt of static electricity arcs through my jeans. The touch grounds me, pulling me out of the spiral of panic.
“He’s not in a cult,” I say, though I keep my eyes glued to the table, watching our shadows cast by the overhead pendant light. I subtly shift my water glass. Three seconds later, the shadow of the glass moves across the wood.
I look up at Kevin. He’s chewing, totally oblivious.
“Kevin, look at my hand,” I say softly. I wave it back and forth over the table.
Kevin tracks my hand. He blinks, his thick eyeliner crinkling. “Okay. I’m looking. Are we doing magic tricks now?”
“Look at the shadow,” I press.
He looks at the table. He looks back at me. “It’s a shadow, Nessa. It’s doing shadow things. Did you inhale too much grease smoke by the fryers?”
He can’t see it. A cold thrill of terror and relief washes over me. The lag, the glitches—they are invisible to the rest of the world. Only the people who passed through the anomaly are suffering the consequences.
“Never mind,” I murmur.
Atlas is staring at me, his dark eyes entirely too perceptive. He leans in closer, his voice dropping to a frequency only I can hear. “The temporal dissonance. It is increasing?”
“I saw myself in a different coat,” I whisper back. “And the shadows...”
Before Atlas can answer, a sound bleeds into my ears. It sounds like someone has turned up the volume on a radio, static and sharp.
“Whoops, slippery handles today. Sorry about the mess, Jerry.”
It’s Old Pete’s voice, raspy and distinct, right behind me.
I whip around in the booth. Old Pete is sitting at the counter, calmly reading his newspaper, both hands resting on the laminate. He isn’t speaking. He isn’t moving.
I frown, turning back to the table. “Did you guys hear that?”
“Hear what?” Kevin asks.
Atlas’s posture goes rigid. He heard it. I can tell by the slight widening of his eyes, the absolute stillness of his breathing.
Crash.
The sharp, violently loud sound of shattering ceramic cuts through the diner’s country music. I flinch, spinning around again.
By the counter, Old Pete is looking down at a shattered white coffee mug on the linoleum floor, hot brown liquid pooling around his boots.
“Whoops,” Old Pete rasps, his voice perfectly matching the ghostly echo I heard three seconds ago. “Slippery handles today. Sorry about the mess, Jerry.”
My stomach drops into my shoes. Temporal echoes. We aren’t just out of sync with light. We are falling out of sync with sound. We are experiencing time before it actually hits us.
“I’ll get the mop,” I say, my voice sounding incredibly far away. I slide out of the booth, desperate for an excuse to move, to burn off the adrenaline spiking in my veins.
But as I step into the aisle, the bell above the front door chimes.
The diner goes quiet. Even the grease popping on the grill seems to hush.
Standing in the entryway, looking entirely too polished and expensive for Murphy’s Diner, is Chloe Madison. She’s flanked by Brad, the linebacker who threw the dollar bill at me, and another girl from our AP History class. Chloe is wearing a cream-colored cashmere sweater that probably costs more than my family’s mortgage.
She surveys the scuffed linoleum, the faded neon beer signs, and the duct-taped stools with exaggerated disgust. Then, her eyes land on me.
Her lips curl into a smirk that I have dreaded every day since freshman year.
“Well, well,” Chloe says, her voice carrying across the quiet room. “If it isn’t the Poverty Princess holding court in her castle.”
Kevin stiffens in the booth, half-rising, his protective instincts flaring instantly. Behind him, Atlas turns his head, his expression intensely analytical as he locks onto Chloe.
Normally, this is the part where my throat closes up. This is the part where I look at the floor, apologize for existing, and retreat to the kitchen while the heat of humiliation burns my cheeks. This morning, I literally ran out of school crying because of them.
But today is not this morning.
This morning, I hadn’t jumped across a century. I hadn’t survived a sterilization drone. And I hadn’t looked at my own life through the eyes of a boy who would trade a perfect, painless world just for the freedom to eat a plate of greasy fries.
I stand in the middle of the aisle, my thrift-store coat hanging off my shoulders, and I don’t shrink.
“Hi, Chloe,” I say, keeping my voice perfectly level. “Are you lost? The country club is about five miles that way.”
Chloe blinks, momentarily derailed by my lack of panic. She recovers quickly, stepping deeper into the diner. Brad trails behind her like an overgrown guard dog.
“We were just driving by,” Chloe says, pulling out her phone. “I realized I didn’t get enough footage for my documentary on minimum-wage tragedies. Though I see you’ve already found an audience.” She points her phone toward the booth. “Who’s the stray? Did you pick him up at the Salvation Army with that coat?”
Atlas stands up.
He doesn’t scramble out of the booth like a normal teenager. He rises with the fluid, calculated efficiency of a machine, his gray tunic contrasting sharply with the loud colors of the diner. He steps out to stand beside me.
“I am not a stray,” Atlas states, his voice a smooth, calm baritone that completely lacks the defensive edge Chloe expects. “I am Atlas. And this coat,” he reaches out, gently brushing the mustard-yellow wool on my shoulder, “was selected by Vanessa. It is a manifestation of her personal autonomy. It is beautiful.”
Brad snorts. “What a freak.”
Chloe lowers her phone a fraction, her perfectly manicured eyebrows knitting together. “Are you serious right now? Are you actually defending her garbage?”
“I do not understand your hostility,” Atlas says, tilting his head slightly. He examines Chloe the same way he examined the rust in the boiler room—fascinated by the decay. “Your clothing is pristine. Your nutritional intake appears optimal. Yet your verbal outputs are highly aggressive and inefficient. Why do you expend so much energy attempting to degrade someone who provides sustenance to others?”
He looks around the diner, gesturing to the counter, to Old Pete, to me. “Vanessa performs noble work. She connects with her community. What do you provide?”
The silence in the diner is absolute.
Chloe’s mouth opens, but no words come out. Her face flushes a dark, furious red. She’s used to dealing with anger. She’s used to tears. She has absolutely no defense against Atlas’s genuine, clinical bewilderment at her cruelty.
“Are you psycho?” Brad growls, stepping forward, trying to salvage Chloe’s pride.
“Leave it, Brad,” Kevin says loudly, finally stepping out of the booth. He stands on my other side, his arms crossed, the black eyeliner giving him a fierce, feral look. “Unless you want me to remind you what happened to your protein shake before the playoffs last year?”
Brad freezes, turning slightly pale.
I look at Chloe. The absolute power she held over me just hours ago has evaporated. Stripped of my own shame, her bullying just looks... sad. She’s a girl trying to build a throne out of other people’s insecurities.
“I’m working, Chloe,” I say, my voice calm and grounded. “What are you doing? Did you really drive thirty minutes to a rundown diner in the rain just to make fun of me? Because honestly, I’m flattered by the obsession, but I have a mess to clean up.”
I turn my back on her. It is the most terrifying and exhilarating thing I have ever done. I walk to the utility closet, grab the mop, and head over to Old Pete.
“Don’t worry about it, Pete,” I smile at him. “I’ve got it.”
I hear the diner door chime violently as it swings open.
“Whatever,” Chloe’s voice echoes thinly from the entrance. “Have fun in the grease trap, losers.”
The door slams.
I exhale a long, shaking breath, my hands gripping the wooden mop handle to hide their trembling. It wasn’t movie-perfect. My heart is still beating out of my chest. But I did it. I didn’t run.
Atlas steps up beside me. He doesn’t say anything, but he carefully takes one of my trembling hands off the mop handle and laces his fingers through mine. His skin is warm.
“You did not retreat,” Atlas says softly. “You defended your space. You are very strong.”
I look up at him, a genuine smile breaking across my face. “I had a little perspective.”
“Hey,” Kevin says, breaking the moment. He’s standing a few feet away, his arms still crossed, but the fierce look has faded into something much more serious. “Nessa. We need to talk. Outside.”
Ten minutes later, Jerry lets me off early. The diner is dead anyway, and the shattered mug killed what little vibe was left.
The November air is biting as the three of us walk across the cracked asphalt of the diner parking lot. The sky is the color of a bruised plum, the streetlights buzzing to life overhead.
Atlas is entranced by the sky. He keeps looking up, occasionally stumbling over parking blocks because he refuses to look down. “The atmosphere is untethered,” he murmurs to himself. “No containment dome. Beautiful chaos.”
Kevin grabs my elbow, pulling me a few steps behind Atlas.
“Talk to me,” Kevin says, his voice stripped of all its usual sarcasm. “And don’t give me the ‘I’m fine’ crap. Because you are distinctly not fine.”
“I just stood up to Chloe Madison,” I whisper back, pulling my coat tighter against the wind. “I’m great.”
“Yeah, you did, and it was awesome,” Kevin says, his eyes darting to Atlas, then back to me. “But that’s my point, Ness. You’re acting entirely different. You disappeared for an hour, your phone was dead, and then you show up with... him.”
He points at Atlas, who is currently inspecting a crushed soda can on the ground like it’s a rare artifact.
“I told you, he’s—”
“If you say ‘exchange student cousin’ again, I’m going to scream,” Kevin interrupts. “He doesn’t know what french fries are, Nessa. He talks like a robot that read a dictionary, he’s wearing clothes that look like they’re made out of yoga mats, and he’s looking at a Pepsi can like it holds the secrets of the universe.”
Kevin stops walking. He turns to me, his dark eyes filled with genuine, terrifying worry.
“Nessa, this isn’t sustainable,” Kevin says softly. “Something’s wrong. Really wrong. Are you in trouble? Are you... running away or something?”
My heart aches. Kevin has been my rock since we were eleven. He’s the only one who knows how bad things get at my house, how empty my fridge usually is. Lying to him feels like swallowing glass.
“I’m not in trouble, Kev,” I say, forcing myself to hold his gaze. “I’m not running away. Actually, for the first time today, I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
Kevin searches my face. The wind whips his hair across his forehead. Finally, he sighs, his shoulders slumping.
“Okay,” Kevin says. “Okay. I’m not going to push. But if you’re keeping a secret, you better be careful, Ness. Because whatever high you’re riding right now... gravity always kicks in eventually.”
He gives me a tight hug. “Text me when you get home. I mean it.”
“I will,” I promise.
Kevin turns and walks toward the bus stop, his vintage blazer flapping in the wind. I watch him go, feeling a twinge of guilt. He doesn’t know how right he is about gravity. He doesn’t know that our shadows are currently dragging three seconds behind us on the pavement.
“He is highly protective of you,” Atlas says, stepping back to my side. “It is an admirable trait. In my sector, lateral allegiance is discouraged to prevent mutiny.”
“He’s my best friend,” I say. “He’s just worried.”
“He perceives the instability,” Atlas observes quietly.
“Well, he can’t see the lag,” I say, trying to sound confident. “As long as we keep our heads down, we’ll be okay.”
We start walking down Route 9 toward my neighborhood. The street is lined with abandoned storefronts and flickering neon signs. It’s a depressing stretch of road, but with Atlas beside me, it feels like an adventure. We walk in silence for a few blocks, our shoulders bumping.
“Vanessa,” Atlas says suddenly.
Something in his voice makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It’s tight. Strained.
I look at him. He has stopped walking entirely. He is standing in front of the dark, reflective glass of an old, abandoned electronics store.
I step up beside him, following his gaze to the window.
My breath catches in my throat.
In the reflection of the glass, I am standing in my yellow coat, looking terrified.
But the boy standing next to me in the glass isn’t the Atlas of right now.
The reflection shows Atlas, but his face is pale and sunken, his eyes wide with a quiet, desperate panic. He is wearing his pristine, matte-gray Sector 4 tunic. But worse than that—the background behind him in the reflection isn’t the dark, rainy street of my town.
It’s the blinding, seamless white walls of the holding cube where I first met him.
Temporal echoes.
It’s not just objects flickering anymore. The timeline is trying to pull him back.
I reach out and grab his hand. “Atlas?”
In the reflection, the ghostly, gray-clad Atlas looks down at his hand. He can’t feel my touch. In the window, he is completely alone.
He opens his mouth in the reflection, and a second later, the audio bleed hits my ears—a static-laced, panicked whisper from a future that is fighting to reclaim him.
“Vanessa... where are you?”
I squeeze his real hand, the one standing right next to me on the pavement. “I’m right here. I’m here.”
We stare at the glass for what feels like an eternity. Ten seconds pass. Then twenty. The reflection isn’t snapping back. It’s holding.
“Atlas,” I whisper, genuine terror finally breaking through my new confidence. “Why isn’t it stopping?”
The Atlas standing next to me on the street grips my hand so hard it hurts. He watches his ghostly, trapped counterpart in the glass, his jaw clenched tight.
“Because,” Atlas says, his voice shaking for the first time since I met him. “I think... I think my timeline is noticing that I am gone.”
Then, like a rubber band snapping, the glass violently shatters the illusion.
The white walls vanish. The gray tunic disappears. The reflection normalizes, showing the two of us standing in the cold November rain.
But the crack in our paradise has already been formed. Kevin was right.
This isn’t sustainable.
Spooky to the max!-- and I loved the line about the grease!!
"The diner goes quiet. Even the grease popping on the grill seems to hush..." 🥓💦🤫