Eight months ago, I started waking at exactly 3:33 AM. Not around 3:33. Exactly. Down to the second.
For seventeen seconds, my bedroom isn't quite my bedroom anymore. Same layout. Same dimensions. But the details are wrong. Different curtains. A plant by the window I've never owned. A wooden headboard I never bought. And in that bed, another version of me, sleeping peacefully through every visit.
I've catalogued the differences. Filled notebooks with observations. Made peace with my nightly glimpse into a life that's almost mine but not quite.
Then the other me woke up.
Now they're trying to tell me something. Holding up signs I can barely read in the dark. Warning me about a woman I don't remember. Pointing at corners of my room I'm suddenly afraid to look at.
There are gaps in my memory. Three days I can't account for. Photographs of moments I never lived. And a growing certainty that whoever I think I am, the truth is something else entirely.
Something is happening to me at 3:33. Something is happening to the other me too. And a woman in a gray coat seems to know exactly what—even if I've forgotten everything about her.
The seventeen seconds are getting heavier. The other me is getting weaker. And whatever door opens at 3:33 might not keep closing forever.
Every night at 3:33 AM, I wake up for exactly seventeen seconds and watch another version of myself sleep—until the night they finally wake up and try to warn me.
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