If I had to blame something, I'd blame the bell.
It rang once, as usual. Nothing weird about that. Second period ended, chairs squeaked, and students shuffled around like sleepy robots. I stared out the window, half-listening to the rustle of notebooks and soft chatter.
Spring sunlight filtered through the glass, catching dust motes in the air. Peaceful. Boring. Perfect.
Then it rang again.
Exactly five minutes later.
Ding—dong.
A second chime. Same bell. Same sound. But wrong. Completely wrong.
Junpei, my seatmate and serial napper, didn't even flinch. He snored softly into his math book. Our teacher, Mr. Goto, paused mid-sentence, the whiteboard marker frozen in his hand.
"Did the system glitch?" someone muttered.
No one moved.
And then I noticed it.
Out the window—way up in the sky—a thin, jagged line shimmered across the clouds. Like cracked glass, only the crack was glowing faintly blue, like lightning frozen in place.
I blinked.
It was gone.
"Did you see that?" I whispered, elbowing Junpei.
"Huh?" He lifted his face, red from the textbook. "See what?"
He looked out. Perfectly normal blue sky. Birds flapping past. No crack.
Maybe I imagined it?
Then the third bell rang.
But this one didn't belong here. It wasn't mechanical. It sounded deep—like something ancient. Like a church bell, underwater. A slow, vibrating hum that made the floor feel unstable beneath my feet.
Time stopped. Literally.
Not a metaphor. The second hand on the classroom clock stopped ticking. The leaves outside froze in mid-fall. Even Junpei's open mouth—mid-yawn—hung there like a paused video frame.
Everything… halted.
Except me.
And her.
She stood in the middle of the classroom, though I didn't see her walk in. No footsteps. No sound. Just… there.
A girl, around my age. Long silver hair that looked like falling moonlight. Pale violet eyes. She wore a black robe with golden symbols that pulsed faintly, like breathing ink.
"You weren't meant to stay," she said quietly.
I opened my mouth. No sound came out.
"You are a flaw," she continued, expression unreadable. "This world has expelled you."
That word. Expelled. Like I broke some rule I didn't know existed.
"What… what do you mean?" I finally managed.
She raised one delicate hand. "I'm sorry."
The windows cracked. Not from impact—from pressure. Blue light poured in through the spreading fractures, and I felt my body pulled—no, peeled—from reality.
As the room shattered around me, one last thought slipped through the panic:
I never asked to be here.
But somehow… I wasn't supposed to be.