Lina’s eyes meet his… just for a second.

But she is looking for Jack. She notices nothing — or perhaps she wants nothing more than to find her rival.

The boy keeps watching, waiting for her to look back. He waits longer than he should, but nothing happens.
“Unusual,” he murmurs, then returns his attention to his phone, indifferent.

A loud voice approaches the crowd.
“I’m here, I’m here!” someone shouts while running.

Jack finally arrives, breathless. He passes through the students, takes off his jacket, sits on it, and says,
“Sorry, the teacher punished me.”

Everyone bursts into laughter.

Lina begins shuffling the cards and says,
“And how does it feel to be punished by the teacher?”

Jack laughs.
“It’s getting boring. Too bad a top student like you has never experienced something like that,” he says proudly, adding,
“I have a point here,” pointing to one of Lina’s rare defeats.

Lina smiles.
“One against a hundred.”

Laughter explodes again. Jack laughs too, and they begin their game with excitement and intensity.

Just as Lina is about to win, the bell rings, announcing the end of the break. Disappointment spreads.

“Not again,” Jack groans.

Lina stands up lazily and says,
“That’s because you were late.”

They all head back to their classes. As Lina and her friend walk past, she tells Jack,
“Try not to get punished next time.”

Jack laughs loudly.
“And why should I? You should get punished too, so we can be even.”

Lina smiles and shakes her head at his foolishness.

The day ends… and with it, school ends as well.

Lina returns home surrounded by her things and books, always scattered the same way every time she comes back from school. She sits on her chair in front of her desk, studying before sleep, deeply focused, nothing able to distract her.

It is exactly nine in the evening.
The sounds outside slowly fade away, and the rain begins to fall gently, as if saying goodbye. The sound of drops touching the window, and the whispers of dreams fluttering in the distance…

Lina finishes her studying. Leaning back in her chair, she lifts her head and says heavily,
“Bedtime… again.”

She closes her eyes for a moment. And as she does, the boy’s eyes—the ones that met hers at school—suddenly cross her mind.

“Ah… have I seen him before? I don’t remember… so I don’t think it was déjà vu…”

She closes her eyes again and murmurs,
“Déjà vu… damn it.”

She rises from the chair and throws herself onto the bed. Then, lightly, she gets up again and starts tidying her room, saying,
“I’ll clean this, then I’ll go to sleep.”

Elsewhere… far from Lina’s room…

The owner of the brown eyes stands on his balcony, staring at the sky as raindrops touch his long face. With his eyes closed, he whispers,
“That déjà vu… it was unusual.”

He lowers his head sharply, then says again,
“I hate sleeping… I hate bedtime. Can’t I just stay awake?”

In frustration, he turns and falls heavily onto his bed, saying,
“I don’t want to see any future, please… it’s exhausting… and never enjoyable.”

He stares at the ceiling, anger pressed tightly inside his chest.

The clock strikes ten.

The whispers of dreams begin to draw closer.
The body is tired, but the mind refuses to sleep.

Perhaps that is why dreams come so often…
Or perhaps… this has all been seen before.

“I will tell you a story,”
a gentle voice whispers inside Lina’s mind every time she lays her head on the pillow to sleep.
She lies on her back, her hands resting on her stomach, staring at the ceiling for a long time… thinking of nothing.
She takes a deep breath, as if she were about to dive into a place of immense depth,
then murmurs, “I will just sleep,”
and closes her eyes, sinking into what seems like a deep sleep…

But the truth is different.

Lina always swims consciously in the depths of her dreams,
as if her soul leaves her body to rest,
while her mind and spirit drift together…
in nowhere… or in space-time,
where time stops, or perhaps where timelines meet.

Sometimes she meets the dead and speaks with them.
Sometimes she sees echoes of a near future.
At times, you may think you are seeing yourself—
but in truth, you are living the events.
For Lina moves through her own bodies across different times each time she falls asleep.

As if time had passed quickly this time, Lina opened her eyes and reached for the alarm clock before it rang.
She stretched her hand, as usual, to turn it off—
but her fingers touched nothing.

She frowned, then stared at the ceiling for a long moment.
Confused, she whispered,
“What… why do I feel awake then?
I’m still inside my dream…”

She sighed and tried to fall asleep again,
but in vain.

It seemed she was truly awake—
in a place that was not her own.

Her features froze.
She moved her legs and felt another person’s feet beside her.
Her emotions tangled within her.

She turned to her left and stared at the wall decorated with pictures,
searching for something…
until her eyes caught a family photo:
a husband, a wife, and two children,
embracing gently.

She smiled faintly.
Then, after staring longer, she suddenly sat up and rushed toward the picture.

“Brown eyes…” she murmured.

She turned sharply toward the person sleeping beside her—
but as if struck by lightning, she turned back to the photo.

Her mind nearly collapsed.

Staring at it in disbelief, she whispered,
“Me…”

She reached out to touch the picture on the wall,
and the moment her fingers did,
she collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

The blanket on the bed shook violently.

“Damn… what happened?” the man said.
He tried to stand—
but he too fell to the ground.

Seconds later, Lina woke again.

Her heart was racing, her breathing shallow.
She jolted upright, trying to understand what had just happened,
only to find herself in her own room.

Her hand moved instinctively toward the alarm clock to turn it off.
She froze, watching her own reflex, then looked at the time.

“Seven thirty…”

She pressed a hand to her chest, her heartbeat still wild,
her throat dry, barely able to swallow.

She stood up, hardly feeling her body, and muttered,
“Damn these cursed dreams…”

As usual, she walked toward the window and stared outside.
But all she could see was the image she had stared at in her dream.

Nothing remained in her memory except that picture.
She felt as if she had just returned from another world.

Standing by the window, anxiety crept over her,
and strange, unfamiliar emotions rose within her.

Suddenly, the image of a person she had once seen when she was only one year old surfaced in her mind.

She whispered,
“What… was that memory from the past… me?”
She wondered.