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Across the parking lot, Barry stepped out of the library doors, phone in hand. He looked up, saw Brighton, and frowned.

"You look like hell," Barry called out.

Brighton swallowed hard.
"Yeah," he said. "I think I took the long way home."

---

> Somewhere behind him, in a street that shouldn't exist, a single swing rocked once and stopped.
Barry didn't go home after the assembly. He couldn't. His mind was still stuck on that screen-the slide with the wrong name, the empty chairs that changed places, and that one line of text on his phone: "You aren't supposed to remember this."

He told himself he was going to the library to "research." That was the lie he used for anything he couldn't explain.

The library smelled of paper that had stopped trying. The computers at the back hummed like tired insects. Students milled around, pretending to study. The librarian, Mrs. Calloway, was at her desk, lost behind a fortress of returned books. She didn't notice Barry slip past the rope cordon marked "Staff Only."

The AV room sat behind a door with an old paper label that said AUDIOVISUAL ARCHIVE - RESTRICTED. The paint on the walls there had peeled in long vertical lines, like time itself had been trying to scratch its way out.

He'd been in there once before-two years ago-helping record the school play. The door was supposed to be locked. It wasn't.

He pushed it open.

Dark. Dust-heavy. Rows of metal shelves lined with old film canisters, microphones coiled like sleeping snakes, boxes marked with faded dates. A faint red light pulsed at the back of the room.

He followed it.

At the far end stood a sound booth-a small, glass-panelled box with a desk and a single chair. Inside sat a girl.

Barry froze.

She had dark hair cut blunt at her shoulders, headphones hanging around her neck, and a school sweater two sizes too big. She was sorting through old cassette tapes, one by one, holding them to the light as if checking for something only she could see.

She didn't look up when he entered.
Just said, quietly: "You're not supposed to be here."

Barry swallowed.
"Neither are you."

That made her smile-small, not friendly.
"I have permission."

"From who?"

"Someone who doesn't exist anymore."

She placed a cassette into an old player, pressed play, and leaned back. The speakers crackled with white noise. Then-faintly-a voice.
Sadie Langford's.

> "I remember the sky looked like water that day. I thought if I touched it, it would ripple."

Barry stepped closer to the glass. "What is that?"

The girl tilted her head, eyes still on the tape. "Audition tapes. School play, two years ago. Sadie was reading lines from Macbeth, but this isn't Shakespeare. This isn't in any script."

The tape continued:

> "He said if I forget, it'll stop happening. But I can't forget, because that would mean it's real."