Seven seconds

The first time they saw each other was in their sleep. They were close but couldn’t touch, like a mirror held just out of reach. Their mouths moved; nothing crossed. Behind the quiet, a clock ticked: one… two… three… four… five… six… seven.

He woke in her body, in her bed, in her room.
Notebooks were stacked by the window. A school blazer hung from the door. A dried flower was taped to the wall beside a small photo. Her phone lay on a paperback with a cracked spine. The lock screen said Sunday. He let out a breath. If it had been a school day, he wouldn’t have known what to do.

At the same time, she woke in his body, in his room.
It was dim even with daylight. Posters were pinned crooked. A model kit sat half-finished on a chair. The window stuck. A stain on the ceiling looked like a torn map. She sat up, steadying herself on the desk, and thought, Where on earth am I?

They tried to act normal. Families noticed. He poured tea too strong and laughed in the wrong place at her mother’s story. She walked into his father’s garage and said “sir,” and he chuckled because his son hadn’t said that in years. She followed him into the bay and held the light steady. He told “his boy” he was finally learning to be useful. In her house, he found the novel on her desk and read for an hour. Later, when she checked, the page had no mark, as if no one had touched it. Anything they wrote or set up was gone by the next switch. Notes on skin, alarms with warnings, words on the mirror—erased. That was a rule.

That night they met again in sleep. The same glass between them. The same ticking. Seven seconds. They managed a small wave before time cut them off.

Days shuffled. Sometimes he opened his eyes on her bus route with the city sliding past. Sometimes she opened hers to the smell of oil and metal. They tried to hold on to landmarks—shop signs, a hill, a corner store—but the details slipped away after waking. That was a rule too.

Then came the day with the car.

In the seven seconds before it, they saw each other. Her hair drifted; his hands were tight. Palm to palm against air. The clock counted: one… two… three… four… five… six… seven—

He woke inside her body, only watching. She moved through a simple morning: toast, shoes, a short message, a bus ride with one earbud low so she could hear the street. School passed in a rhythm he could follow even if the work wasn’t his. On the walk home, the light turned soft.

At the bakery corner, he saw himself across the street—his body, his stride. She looked past him like he was a stranger and kept walking. He watched his own body start to run toward her.

A car turned too fast and hit him. Voices rose. He watched his body go down.

At the same minute, she woke inside his body, also only watching. The garage, an errand, the shortcut by the bakery. Across the street she saw herself—the angle of her head, the small tug at her left shoulder with a heavy bag. Her body ran toward him. The same car took the corner. It struck her. She watched her body fall.

They both saw the bodies drop. Each thought the other had failed the life they were wearing. Guilt arrived fast and stayed.

In the seven-second space, they faced each other again. No words. The same fear in both faces.

They woke in their own beds and tried to remember. Their minds kept only the shape of worried eyes. Life pressed forward because life does. After school, memory returned to both of them like a line pulled tight: the bakery, the run, the car. Each ran to the same corner, believing that meeting the minute together could change it.

They spotted each other from afar, and in that instant they understood. They didn’t rush in for an embrace; they stepped forward to shove the other out of danger. Their hands lifted, fingers brushing for a heartbeat. Destiny had its own design—one they had tried to outrun. The car struck not one of them, but both.

Back in the seven seconds, the place felt known—this had happened more times than they could hold. Their eyes said what their mouths could not: they should let go, yet they didn’t. The ticking went on, and they let it pass; they knew they would keep repeating this, again and again.

one… two… three… four… five… six… seven.

He opened his eyes in her bed, in her room. The blazer on the door. The dried flower. The notebooks by the window. Sunday on the screen. Across the city, she opened her eyes in his room and saw the map-shaped stain and the crooked posters and the stuck window...

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The images were created using GPT-5.