The moment Mia opened her eyes, a strange stillness greeted her. The air smelled faintly of lemon polish and something older—dust settled into the grain of worn wood. She lay on a floral-print couch, its cushion firm beneath her back, her head cradled by a hand-stitched pillowcase that screamed suburban 1980s. Her gaze darted upward, tracing a popcorn-textured ceiling fan, lazily spinning despite the stillness outside.
Where am I?
She pushed herself upright. Her joints ached with an odd resistance, not fatigue but a sensation as though her body didn't quite match the world around it. The living room was quaint and curated. A boxy television, its dials dulled by time, sat atop a crocheted doily. Wood-paneled walls were decorated with framed school portraits and an embroidered sampler that read, "Home is where the heart is."
Her breath quickened. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
She glanced down. The clothes on her body were unfamiliar—high-waisted jeans, a faded pastel sweatshirt, and thick white socks with pink stripes. She lifted her wrist. Her watch had stopped at 2:42. It wasn't just broken. It had seized, as though time itself had rejected it.
Chronodisplacement. The term slid through her mind like a shiver. The theory wasn't unfamiliar. In her original timeline, she'd studied it. A phenomenon of relocation across time boundaries, unpredictable and often memory-corrosive. A tear in continuity, voluntary or not.
But she had no memory of activating anything. No passage. No trigger.
Only fragments: a dreamlike pulse, a call she couldn't answer, and a whirl of cold air. Then this.
The kitchen door creaked open as she stepped cautiously through it. She was met with avocado-green countertops, a rotary phone mounted beside a fridge plastered with outdated coupons and clippings. The hum of the refrigerator was the only sound. A calendar on the wall read April 1987. Her stomach clenched.
1980s America. That much was clear.
She opened a cabinet. Inside were ceramic mugs with faded slogans: "World's Best Dad" and "I Survived the Blizzard of '83." The silverware drawer stuck before sliding open with a jerk, revealing cutlery that felt too heavy, too real. She touched the handle of a butter knife, just to ground herself.
A sudden tension clutched her ribs.
Sarah.
This was Sarah's childhood home. Mia knew it instinctively, though she had never been here before. The couch she had awakened on matched the faded one in old photographs. The crooked wall clock above the hallway entrance ticked in a slow, deliberate rhythm. Tick. Tick. Tick.
She moved closer, drawn by the sound. Her reflection caught faintly in the clock's glass surface. Pale. Strained. Not entirely her own.
Was this real? Or the start of disintegration?
Her hand brushed against the wall as she walked down the hallway. She needed to see her. Confirm what had brought her here.
Yet beneath the panic stirred something more primal: fear of being trapped. Of never returning to the now. Of fading, piece by piece, until even her purpose dissolved.
Outside the window, a neighborhood lay in still repose. Station wagons lined the driveway. A tricycle lay overturned on the lawn next door. Beyond that, silence. No planes overhead. No smartphones. Just the distant bark of a dog and the chirp of unseen birds.
She opened a closet door. Cardigans hung neatly beside a raincoat wrapped in plastic. Beneath them, a pair of Mary Janes and roller skates with pink laces. They looked freshly used, but she knew the moment had long passed. A hint of fabric softener clung to the air.
Then—a sound. Laughter. Light, girlish. It floated from down the hallway like a ripple through time.
Sarah.
Mia's breath caught.
It had begun.
The hallway stretched before her like a tunnel. Faint sunlight filtered in through frosted glass panels. The ticking clock echoed louder now, each second pressing against her chest like a countdown.
As she passed a bedroom door left ajar, she caught a glimpse of floral wallpaper and a pink lamp with a ruffled shade. A teddy bear sat upright on a neatly made bed, its stitched smile watching her. A sketchpad lay open on the nightstand, a crayon drawing half-finished. The figure drawn had long hair and outstretched arms. A child's fantasy version of safety, perhaps.
Her throat tightened. She remembered Sarah talking once about drawing dream guardians as a little girl. Mia had thought it an odd coincidence—until now.
She moved on.
The laughter came again, clearer this time, bouncing against the walls. It wasn't just memory; it was real. Present. Resonant. She paused outside the room from which it emanated. Her fingers hovered near the doorframe, brushing against chipped paint. She didn't dare open it.
The ticking clock behind her faltered. Just for a second. A missed beat. A silence between ticks.
She turned slowly. The wall clock was still ticking—but it wasn't in sync anymore. The rhythm had shifted, irregular, like a skipped heartbeat. Her watch, still frozen at 2:42, began to feel heavier on her wrist.
Was that a TimeRipple? Already?
She stepped back from the doorway and leaned against the opposite wall, pressing her palm to her chest. Her heart was racing, not just with fear, but with awe. She had always theorized about the risks of chronodisplacement: destabilization, cascading effects, loss of identity. But to feel it, to live it, was something else entirely.
She exhaled slowly. This wasn't the time to panic. Not yet. First, she had to observe. To confirm. To find Sarah—her mother—before this window closed.
The hallway light flickered. Just once. The silence that followed wasn't natural. It was pregnant. Waiting.
Then the laughter rang out again, trailing into a hum. It came from the far end, where the hallway bent left, out of view.
Mia took one last look back at the crooked clock, now swaying slightly on its nail.
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New Term:
Chronodisplacement — A phenomenon enabling Mia's time travel between her original era and the past, at the cost of memory stability.
TimeRipple — A side effect of timeline alterations where discrepancies begin to manifest in the perceptions of others.