The sky above Mapleview was never truly dark anymore.
Even after the sun dipped behind the low mountains and the streetlamps flickered on with their pale orange glow, the night carried a low pulse—an eerie shimmer—like static waiting for a signal. Some blamed light pollution, others called it a quirk of geography. But Duran saw more than that.
He saw patterns in the flickering lights. Symmetry in the clouds. Glitches, sometimes, in his photos.
At first, he thought it was just a fault in his camera. But then, he changed cameras. And then lenses. And then locations. The strange visual anomalies followed him like ghosts: blurred corners where nothing had moved, duplicated shadows, moments that appeared in two frames taken seconds apart.
And always, always, when the anomalies showed up, so did she.
It began two weeks ago—just after the Equinox.
The evening had smelled of rain and ozone, the air heavy and expectant. Duran had been in the park, scouting compositions for a new series. His latest gallery wanted something different. "Nature meets time," they said. He wasn't sure what that meant. But this park, with its ancient sycamores and artificial quiet, felt like the right place to begin.
Then he saw her.
She sat on a bench beside the old fountain. Dark hair, deep eyes. A green shawl wrapped around her shoulders like moss clinging to stone. The way she sat—perfect posture, hands in her lap—she could've been a statue, carved from dusk and silence.
Duran raised his camera. Click.
The shutter echoed louder than expected. As if the park itself had exhaled.
The girl turned and looked directly at him.
His breath caught.
Her gaze wasn't accusing. It wasn't even curious. It was knowing. Like she had been waiting for that moment, that click, for a very long time.
He lowered the camera.
She blinked slowly, then returned her attention to the trees, where a murmuration of starlings spun patterns in the sky too synchronized to be natural.
Duran backed away.
The next night, he returned.
She was there again. Same bench. Same posture. Same birds.
Only this time, she was already looking at him when he arrived.
And this time, when he raised his camera, nothing happened.
The screen went black. The battery, full when he left his apartment, was now empty. Dead.
He lowered the camera, frowning.
A soft smile tugged at her lips, but she didn't speak. Didn't wave. Just watched him.
Then the lights flickered—all of them.
Streetlamps. Path lights. The apartment windows across the street. A synchronized blink. Off. On.
Duran blinked too. Hard.
When he looked again, the girl was gone.
Only the birds remained, circling above.
He reviewed the footage when he got home—what little he'd taken before the camera failed. Frame by frame, the world looked normal. Park. Trees. Light. Then, in one frame, there she was—half in focus, half blurred—as if she were mid-movement. But the blur was wrong. It wasn't motion. It looked… duplicated. Like she existed in two places at once.
He enhanced the frame, his pulse quickening.
There were two of her.
One on the bench. One, ten feet away, dissolving into the trees.
What the hell?
He couldn't sleep.
The next few days passed in a haze. He returned to the park every night. And every night, she was there. Always in the same spot. Always at the same time—6:44 p.m.
Not 6:43. Not 6:45. The exact moment the birds began their sky dance.
It was as if she arrived with them.
Duran stopped trying to explain it.
Instead, he observed. Photographed. Took notes.
He noticed other things too: how the air around her shimmered faintly in the golden hour light, like heatwaves off asphalt. How time felt slower near her. Not metaphorically—literally slower.
He tested it.
He set two watches: one on his wrist, the other placed on the bench beside her when she wasn't looking.
Fifteen minutes passed.
When he retrieved the bench watch, it was five minutes behind.
He checked again. Reset. Retested. Same result.
A field of temporal distortion. He didn't even know he remembered the phrase until it came out of his mouth.
He googled it. Found obscure forums. Fringe science blogs. Mentions of "soft zones" where time folds, glitches, warps.
One poster described an area in Oregon where birds repeated the same flight pattern every evening. "Like a loop," the user had written. "Nature stuck on playback."
Like the birds in Mapleview?
Duran's skin prickled.
Who was this girl?
And then, on the sixth night, she spoke.
He had approached carefully, camera slung around his neck, notebook in hand. She was seated, as always, but this time, she looked tired. Her eyes were shadowed, her posture slumped.
He hesitated, then sat on the bench beside her.
Close. Closer than ever before.
He expected the air to hum again. For time to shift. But instead, the world remained still.
"You shouldn't be here," she said, voice barely above a whisper.
Her accent was hard to place. Like someone who'd studied languages but never lived in them.
Duran swallowed. "You're the one who's always here."
She looked at him then, full and direct.
Her eyes were wrong.
Not in a monstrous way. But in their depth. Their color. Like galaxies on the verge of collapse.
"I don't come here by choice," she said. "I come because I'm caught."
"…Caught in what?"
She turned back to the sky.
"In a loop. A stasis field. A pocket left behind when something went wrong."
Duran stared at her, heartbeat thundering.
"What went wrong?"
Her fingers tightened around the edge of the bench. "A tear. In the Field. You wouldn't understand."
"Try me."
She was silent for a moment, then looked at him again. "I'm not from here. Not this here. Not your timeline."
A laugh bubbled up in his throat, but died quickly. Her expression didn't change.
"I was part of an observation crew," she continued. "Assigned to study temporal distortions on Earth-1. Something malfunctioned. A ripple passed through the field during a solar spike. I was trapped in the fold."
Duran shook his head, slowly.
"Like… another dimension?"
"Another version," she said. "Of this one."
"And the birds? The loop? The light?"
"Artifacts," she said. "Residual patterns. You're seeing side effects. Echoes."
He stared at her. "So, what now? You just… wait here forever?"
She smiled, but there was no joy in it. "I wait for someone who can see me. Truly see me."
Duran felt his throat dry. "Why me?"
"You have the Eye," she said. "Your perception is... tuned."
"To what?"
"To frequency."
Duran blinked. "I'm not special. I'm a photographer."
"That's why you are special."
She stood then, slowly.
The birds above froze in the sky. Mid-flight.
Not hovered—frozen.
Time stopped.
The hum returned. The world pixelated, just slightly.
"You've already crossed the threshold, Duran."
He rose to his feet, legs shaking.
"What threshold?"
She took a step closer. "You're no longer anchored. You'll begin to see more now. Glitches. Fractures."
A soft crack echoed nearby—like glass under stress.
She reached out and touched his chest with two fingers.
Everything went white.
He woke in his apartment, sweating. Camera beside him. Shirt damp.
The clock read 2:02 a.m.
He sat up, blinking. The room looked normal. The city, outside the window, normal.
But the clock on the wall read 1:46 a.m.
And the one on the microwave: 3:19 a.m.
All ticking.
None matching.
Duran reached for his camera and scrolled through the footage.
The last photo was not of the park. Not of the girl.
It was of the sky.
But the stars were wrong. Too many. Too close.
He zoomed in.
And saw her face—in the stars.
Smiling.
Waiting.