Chapter 1: Rewind and Repeat

My name is Alex Carter.

I paused, staring at my name scrawled in blue ink at the top of the test. The letters felt heavier each day—443 days, to be exact, trapped in a loop of my senior year. Most kids count down the days until graduation. Me? I’ve been counting how many times I’ve done this—each morning as familiar as the faded linoleum in the halls.

This is day 443 of repeating senior year.

I stared at the half-finished monthly test on my desk, sighed, and tossed my pen down. The clatter echoed, making Mr. Thompson flinch at the front of the room.

The pen skittered across my battered desk, earning a few looks. Mr. Thompson—always in that too-tight corduroy jacket, patient to a fault—peered at me over his glasses, brows furrowed as if I’d disrupted the fragile peace of third period math. Someone in the back tried to stifle a laugh.

"Alex, what’s going on?" he asked, his gentle Midwestern drawl wrapping my name like a warning.

His voice was soft, steady, the same tone he used when he thought I was falling behind.

"I dunno, Mr. Thompson. My brain just froze up. Guess I’m not winning student of the month, huh?" I muttered, forcing a lopsided smile.

My voice sounded hollow, like I was reading lines from a play I’d rehearsed too many times. I shrugged, feeling the weight of the room pressing in on me.

Under his confused gaze, I slid a box cutter from my pocket. My hand moved on autopilot. I wondered if this time it would hurt, if I’d feel anything at all. Maybe this was the only way to make it stop. Maybe then I’d finally break free.

I drove the blade from my right eye straight into my brain.

A cold, electric jolt shot through my skull—a split-second of pain, chaos. Screams tore through the classroom, chairs screeching as kids scrambled away. Someone yelled for the nurse, Mr. Thompson’s voice cracking, the world spinning as I pitched forward. Everything snapped away—

In the middle of the chaos, I was yanked back—a week ago.

The world blinked out and then in, everything reset: the scent of dry-erase markers, the hum of the overhead lights, the same old gum stuck under my desk—everything exactly where I left it. My desk was covered in an old test, the clock on the wall ticking out a time I already knew by heart. I checked the date on my phone and blinked at my familiar lockscreen—yep, a week ago. Again.

And this time, I wasn’t sure I’d make it out.