3: 3

"Lucy, why are you so worked up tonight?"

Doris picked up a rib and set it on my plate, her eyes searching my face.

"I finally have a home. Of course I'm happy," I said.

Joe was sprawled on the couch, one leg crossed over the other. "Lucy, I'm just saying, what does a woman need her own place for? Marry me and you'll have a house anyway."

"Who said anything about marrying you?" I rolled my eyes at him.

"We were promised to each other as kids. What, you want to back out?"

"That was a kid thing. It doesn't count."

Joe's face shifted, then smoothed over just as fast. He lifted his beer. "Come on, a toast. To Lucy finally getting her own little hole to crawl into."

"You're the one crawling into a hole." I raised my juice and clinked it against his bottle.

I didn't drink the beer.

In my last life, it was that glass of wine that put me under.

This time I wasn't touching a drop. I didn't believe I could still be knocked out cold if I stayed sober.

Ten-thirty at night.

Doris and Joe had both had a bit too much. They were slumped on the couch, one scrolling on a phone, the other dozing.

I carried the dishes into the kitchen and checked the evidence I'd saved.

The social media post was still there. So was the chat log from the residents' group.

The call recording in my cloud storage and the footage from the door camera were fine too.

I let out a breath.

The nightmare from my last life wouldn't happen this time. Right?

I loaded the bowls into the dishwasher, dried my hands, and walked out of the kitchen.

That was when the lights went out.

The whole apartment dropped into black.

Doris shrieked and shot up off the couch. "Why'd the power go out?"

"Breaker probably tripped." Joe's voice came out of the dark. "I'll go check the box."

"No need, I'll go," I said.

I fished out my phone, turned on the flashlight, and headed for the door.

The breaker box was on the ground floor.

I opened the door. The emergency lights were on in the hallway.

I hurried to the elevator and hit the down button.

Ground floor. I found the breaker box.

The indicator lights were on. Everything normal.

I froze for a second. Then it hit me.

I spun around and ran, straight for the elevator.

The doors opened. I threw myself in and jabbed the button for the eighth floor over and over.

The elevator climbed. Every second was agony.

Finally. Eighth floor.

I burst out and ran to 802, dug out my key, my hand shaking too hard to fit it in the lock.

Click. The door opened.

I pushed it in and stopped dead.

Doris and Joe were gone from the couch.

In their place stood a strange man.

His back was to me. When he heard the door, he turned around.

Every drop of blood in me froze.

It was Zachary.

The man who, in my last life, had taken my apartment out of thin air.

"Who are you?" He frowned. "Why do you have a key to my place?"

My mouth opened. This couldn't be happening.

I hadn't drunk anything. I hadn't blacked out. So why was this still happening?

"I asked you a question!" Zachary stood and came toward me. "Who the hell are you?"

I stepped back, then bolted for the bedroom.

I yanked open the drawer, pulled out the deed, and opened it with shaking hands.

The moment I saw Zachary's name on it, I screamed and nearly went down.

Zachary came in after me and grabbed my arm. "Are you insane? What are you doing digging through my place?"

I threw him off. "I bought this apartment!"

"You bought it?" Zachary sneered. "Then why is my name on the deed?"

"No. How do you even know my deed is in the bedroom drawer?"

I didn't answer him. I stumbled into the living room, snatched up my phone, and opened my social media feed.

The post showing off the deed was gone.

I opened the cloud storage. Every other piece of evidence I'd saved ahead of time had vanished with it.

4: 4

I called the building management with shaking hands.

"Hello, this is Lucinda Winters, the owner of Unit 802, Building 8. Do you remember me? I sent a payment gift in the residents' group chat tonight!"

The line went quiet for a beat.

"Sorry, I just checked. The owner of Unit 802, Building 8, is a Mr. Mason, not a Winters."

"And no one sent any payment gift in the residents' group tonight. Are you sure you're not confusing something?"

I hung up, shaking all over.

Only then did I notice the residents' group chat I'd pinned was gone.

Zachary stood in the bedroom doorway, watching me coldly. "Get out of my home right now, or I'll call the police and report you for breaking and entering."

"This is my home!" I shouted. "You're the one who broke in!"

But I had no proof. The evidence I'd saved ahead of time was all gone.

I ran to the door and pounded on 801.

"Ma'am! I'm Lucinda Winters from across the hall, 802. I brought you fruit tonight! Do you remember me?"

The door opened.

The woman poked her head out, her face all confusion.

"Isn't Mr. Mason the owner of 802? I don't know you."

"That's impossible!" I grabbed her arm. "You have a camera at your door! Check it!"

She couldn't shake me off. Frowning, she pulled out her phone, scrolled through it. "Tonight's footage... no one came by..."

She turned the screen toward me.

In the footage, the space outside 801 was empty. Nothing had happened there at all.

I let go of her, backed up two steps, and slumped against the wall.

"Just call the police," Zachary's wife said, coming out. "This woman's a lunatic."

Fifteen minutes later, two young officers arrived.

"Ma'am, you say this apartment is yours. Can you provide a purchase contract or bank statements?"

With trembling hands I opened my banking app.

There was no record of the money I'd spent on the apartment.

"That's impossible... I drained every cent of my savings..."

One officer sighed. "Ma'am, we just checked. This apartment does belong to Mr. Mason. The purchase contract, the bank records, the deed—it's all there."

I sank to the floor.

Had I been reborn only to end up trapped in the same fate as before?

Just then, my phone rang.

It was Doris.

I answered with shaking hands.

"Lucy? Why aren't you here yet? We agreed to do hot pot at your rental tonight. Why aren't you home?"

I froze.

"My rental?"

"Yeah," Doris laughed. "Don't tell me you've been so worn out from work you forgot?"

"I gave up the rental and bought an apartment three months ago! You came tonight to celebrate the move with me! Did you forget?" I shouted.

Two seconds of silence on the other end.

"Lucy, have you gone crazy wanting to buy a place? You spend your whole paycheck every month. Where would you get the money to buy an apartment?"

Just then the elevator doors opened.

Joe walked out, saw the scene, and stopped short.

I grabbed at him like a drowning woman clutching a straw, seizing his arm. "Joe, tell them! You came to my place this afternoon!"

"I bought a new apartment, and you brought an oven, said you wanted to help me celebrate the move!"

Joe went still for a second, then sighed. "Lucy, are you having hallucinations again?"

"Ever since your mother passed, you've been like this, imagining you bought some big apartment..."

"I didn't!"

I backed up two steps and dropped to the floor.

Everyone was looking at me like I was insane.

The officer said helplessly, "Ma'am, I suggest you go to a psychiatric hospital for an evaluation first. If everything checks out, come back to the station with us and give a statement. Stop making a scene."

Joe put his arm around me and murmured, "Don't be scared. I'll stay with you."

My head was splitting, and all at once I couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't.

Was all of this really just a hallucination of mine?

And then, as I was being steered mechanically toward the door of the building,

I suddenly saw the bracelet on Joe's wrist.

The pattern carved into it looked familiar, like I'd seen it somewhere before.

I frowned, turning it over in my mind, and then it hit me like a bolt out of the sky.

At last I understood exactly what was going on here.