On Saturday the 10th of September, 2022. My alarm went off. I woke up, turned it off, and stood up—but there was a lingering feeling in my head, like something was missing. Something I needed to remember. Something very crucial.
Then it hit me.
I remembered the things that took place on the second 12th of September, 2022.
I ran downstairs and started searching for my mother. Then I heard a voice. I quickly grabbed a knife, ready to attack if I saw another one of those beings. But to my surprise—and relief—it wasn't an otherworldly creature.
It was the person I cherish most in this world: my mother.
I dropped the knife, ran toward her, and hugged her as I bawled my eyes out.
There was a look of shock on her face as she asked me, "What's going on?"
I didn't answer. I was simply relieved that my mother was alive.
After a while, I told her about my experience. She listened quietly, then said, "It's just a nightmare. Don't take it too seriously." I never really expected her to believe what I said, so I just left it at that.
Shortly after, we had breakfast. As we were eating at the table, she asked me, "Are you excited to finally start high school?"
I answered, "Not really. You know everyone is just going to ignore me."
To my surprise, she asked, "What do you mean everyone is just going to ignore you?"
I stopped eating the moment I heard that. This was my mother—the same woman I'd been telling for three whole years about how I'm practically non-existent in the eyes of other people. And now, suddenly, it was as if I had never told her anything at all.
I sat there, confused and concerned, trying to jog her memory. I recounted everything I had ever told her about my experiences up till now, but she couldn't remember. After several attempts to make her remember, I gave up and dropped the topic.
By 9:50 AM, we had finished eating. My mom went out to work, leaving me alone in the house.
The moment she closed the door, I ran to the kitchen and armed myself with a knife, just in case anything unusual occurred. Even though I'd learned from the last incident—when I died—that a knife is useless in the face of these entities, having some form of protection, even symbolic, wasn't a bad idea.
I walked upstairs to my room.
And I saw it.
This was the third time I had encountered it. There was no way I could forget—taking on my shape, completely black, with a faint presence, almost as if it wasn't even there. The thing that had killed me twice now was standing next to my bed.
In that moment, I came up with a name for it. I called it my Image, seeing as it resembled me.
I was confused. It was originally supposed to appear on the 12th, but this was the 10th. And then, a certain detail about this current restart hit me—one I hadn't thought about since I woke up.
Why did I come back to the 10th instead of the 12th like last time? I said to myself.
Then, at that exact moment, my Image started walking toward me.
Filled with confusion and fear, all I could do was stand there. But to my surprise, it just walked past me—as if it didn't even notice I was there.
As it moved, I noticed something else—it started to change. Its shape and physique shifted from mine into the form of a person I had never seen before.
Then it stopped walking.
The Image turned around, looked me straight in the eyes, and said:
"Find it. You need to find the records I left behind."