Rewind

It doesn't begin as an unusual Wednesday.

I awake to the pitter-patter of rain falling against my window. It's still dark outside, the sky coated with thick clouds, and I immediately decide against getting up. The raindrops form an idle rhythm in my head as I lay in the warmth of my covers—the longer and shorter pauses akin to Morse code, I realize, and words actually come to mind thanks to my childhood years of Cub Scouts.

Tap, tap-tap-tap, tap-tap, tap, tap, tap. Bag, frog, wafer. I glance at the clock by my nightstand brightly displaying "6:57 AM". My alarm is going to go off in three minutes, and fine, okay, I should probably actually start getting dressed.

I shove my limp body into a sweatshirt and jeans, then stagger out my bedroom door. Something bacon-scented wafts through the air, and I immediately feel more awake—Juline must be making breakfast by now.

"'Morning, Char," she says, stirring a pan of eggs as I walk in the kitchen-slash-dining-room. A few other plates of food sit on the counter, and the toaster had been stuffed with sliced bagels.

The two of us eat together in relative silence. Neither Juline nor I can really be considered morning people, though she insists on cooking before we both leave for school, being the older sister who's a personified mother hen she is. Juline nurses her mug of herbal tea as she waits for me to finish my food—she'd switched from coffee recently, something about caffeine overdependence and-or addiction.

A chill lingers in the air when we get in the car by seven-thirty. Taylor Swift's Love Story plays on the radio while I crank up the heat to defog the windows, which Juline makes me sing along to with her despite my initial grumbling.

By the time we arrive at the school building, the faint drizzle that peppered the windshield has slowed to a stop. Juline bids me farewell when we split off to our classrooms—she's taking three AP courses this semester, the workload evident through her perpetual dark under-eye circles, and I briefly feel relief for being a sophomore.

School passes by in a blur. I hang around Miguel, eat lunch with him and his girlfriend, Katy, and endure the atrocity that is World History with Mr. Buckham.

"All in all, a pretty standard day," I finish telling Juline, "How was yours?"

We sit on our cushy second-hand couch in the living room—I jot down a few words in my notebook for homework, and my sister softly strums her acoustic guitar.

She hums in response. "Not too bad. I got some stuff done for uni."

Both of us watch as the last streaks of the sunset disappear into the inky stratosphere. Up above, a half-moon peeks out above the high clouds.

I sigh contently and rub my eyes, yawning. "I think I'm gonna head to bed."

Juline reaches across to pat my hair, mussing up the dirty-blond strands, and there's an expression in her eyes I can't seem to decipher. "'Night, love you."

"Love you too," I tell her, and sleep envelops me almost the instant I lie down on my mattress.

It's raining again when my eyes open. The droplets fall steadily, declaring the beginning of a new spring—and the horizon is the same shade of dark gray as the previous morning. A few more minutes of sleep before my alarm goes off seems much more appealing than getting ready for school, so I re-blink my eyes shut.

Something familiar pokes at my memory as I shift under my blankets, and through the thick fleece, I can make out a minor noise in the background: Tap, tap-tap-tap, tap-tap, tap, tap, tap.

It hits me seconds later—the raindrops fall, spelling out words in Morse code: bag, frog, wafer—the exact ones from yesterday.

That's... strange.