𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐆 𝐆𝐎𝐃𝐒 ⍟ 𝖰𝖴𝖨𝖭𝖭

⁰⁰¹ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴇᴛᴜʀɴ

LUCY FIELD STANDS ALONE IN HER BEDROOM, staring at the photographs on her wall. It’s been 18 years since she lost her sisters, Freya and Summer, and the grief has etched itself deep into her face. Everyone around her tells her to move on, but Lucy can’t let go. She can’t forget. She’s haunted by the memories of her sisters, by the fragments of laughter and little moments of sisterhood, shattered in a single night of horror.

In the weeks following the murders, the police investigated thoroughly, but it was too late to save Freya and Summer or to bring justice. The world moved on, yet Lucy’s life froze on that terrible night. Unable to accept that her sisters are gone, she dives deep into researching every detail, every clue she can find, hoping for some understanding. And then, one rainy night, as she’s going through her sisters’ belongings, Lucy stumbles upon something strange: a diary that belonged to Freya.

Freya’s diary is filled with details about her relationship with Quinn, her boyfriend. There’s page after page of him showering her with affection, but as Lucy reads on, something darker surfaces. She notices that Freya had begun to feel trapped, that Quinn’s kindness was suffocating and possessive. Freya wrote about how he isolated her from friends, controlled her every move. And finally, one last entry chills Lucy to her core:

“I’m scared of him. He’s not who I thought he was.”

Lucy’s hands shake as she closes the diary. Her mind races with unanswered questions. Why did Freya stay with him? What was he planning? And how did it all go so terribly wrong? Unable to sleep, Lucy decides to go for a drive, her thoughts spiraling as she considers everything she knows about Quinn.

But as she speeds down a winding road, something inexplicable happens. Her vision blurs, and a sudden, blinding light fills the car. She loses control, veering off the road. And then… darkness.

When she opens her eyes, she’s lying on the cold ground, her body aching. Disoriented, she gets to her feet, scanning her surroundings. But instead of the dimly lit street she expected, she finds herself standing in her own neighborhood — only it’s different, like stepping into a memory.

Lucy stumbles through the streets, her head pounding. She glances at a nearby storefront, its lights dimmed in the early morning, and her heart stops. It’s the year 2003.

Somehow, against all reason, she’s been thrown back twenty-one years, just days before the murders. But how? And more importantly — why?

Confused and overwhelmed, Lucy searches for answers. When she finally makes it back to her childhood home, her legs feel weak. Standing there on the front porch, she takes a deep breath and knocks on the door, her heart pounding. Moments later, her mother opens it, looking exactly as she did years ago, younger, vibrant, and utterly unsuspecting of the dark fate that awaits her family.

“Lucy?” Her mother’s eyes widen in confusion. “What are you doing here, honey? Didn’t you say you were going to stay at a friend’s tonight?”

Lucy falters, trying to process this. She’s been thrown back in time — into her own teenage body. But there’s no time to explain; her thoughts are consumed with one thing. If she’s here, if she’s truly gone back to 2003, then Freya and Summer are alive.

She rushes up the stairs to her sisters’ rooms. First, she sees Summer, her bubbly younger sister, sprawled out across her bed, lost in a teenage magazine. Then, she moves to Freya’s room. Freya is quietly listening to music, lost in her own world as she often was. Neither sister notices Lucy standing in the doorway, the look of awe, horror, and hope mixed on her face.

But something isn’t right. When she finally steps inside, Freya looks up at her, confused, as if she’s seeing a stranger. And when Lucy calls her name, Freya only blinks, her expression distant.

“Do I… know you?”

Lucy’s heart sinks. Freya doesn’t recognize her. Neither does Summer. To them, she’s a stranger. Her sisters are alive, but they don’t know her. It’s as if she’s a ghost from a future they can’t comprehend.

Overwhelmed, Lucy spends the next few days trying to adjust to this strange reality. Her sisters treat her like an outsider, a friendly visitor but nothing more. She desperately tries to get them to remember her, but nothing seems to work. She realizes she can’t push too hard; she might drive them away. But beneath her calm exterior, she’s panicking. Every moment she spends here, she’s haunted by the countdown ticking away in her mind. She has only days to find a way to save them, to change the course of fate, before Quinn arrives and the nightmare unfolds.

As Lucy watches her sisters, she notices things she had missed before. Freya is quieter, more withdrawn than she remembers. She’s still dating Quinn, and from a distance, Lucy can see their interactions are wrong — there’s a darkness in Quinn that she failed to see in her own time. Freya flinches at his touch. She laughs at his jokes, but her eyes are hollow.

And Lucy realizes that this is her chance. If she can find a way to reach Freya, if she can convince her to leave Quinn before it’s too late, then maybe she can break the deadly chain of events that claimed her sisters’ lives.

With each passing day, Lucy battles her frustration and fear. The clock is ticking down to the night she knows too well, the night everything falls apart. She’s racing against time, trapped in the past, her sisters alive yet unknowingly standing on the edge of a tragedy. And somewhere in the shadows, Quinn waits, oblivious to Lucy’s presence but as dangerous as ever.