She stood frozen for a moment, watching the ball arc through the air, almost as if it belonged to someone else. That was impossible. Her body couldn’t move like that—not without her mind controlling it. It was like she had no control over it at all. And yet, the ball flew into the net with a satisfying thud, as if it had been destined to go there from the start.
The realization hit her a moment later, hard and cold. I didn’t do that. It was as if her own body had taken over, moving on its own accord, performing an action she hadn’t even willed.
Nova’s heart hammered in her chest, but not from physical exertion. No, this was something else. Fear? Panic? No, not fear. Not exactly. It was deeper than that. It was a crushing, dizzying sense of loss. The feeling of losing control. The feeling of not being in control of herself. Of realizing, too late, that something inside her had been… altered.
As she stumbled, trying to steady herself, her hand shot out, instinctively reaching for the ground. Her knees buckled, but when her palm hit the earth, it didn’t scrape against the rough, uneven surface. There was no sting of gravel against her skin. No scrape. No burn.
Instead, her palm pressed into something unnervingly smooth. Soft. Synthetic. The ground didn’t feel real.
This isn’t right.
The other kids had stopped, staring at her with wide, confused eyes. The game had come to a halt, and for a moment, everything was frozen—her, the other students, the world itself. Their eyes bored into her, but no one said a word. No one asked if she was okay. They just watched. As if she were a puzzle they couldn’t quite figure out.
They weren’t scared, not really. But they didn’t understand her. They never did. She felt it in their silence, in the way they exchanged looks, in the way they stood just far enough away, their eyes cautious, as if they were afraid to get too close to something they couldn’t quite comprehend.
Nova’s heart beat faster. Her breath caught in her throat, and the strange, suffocating sense of wrongness spiraled out of control.
She was different. She’d known that for a long time. But this—this was something else. Something about her had changed. And she didn’t know how. She didn’t know why.
Was it just her body? Or was it her mind too? Was she… was she something else entirely? She thought this as she struggled to her feet.
Nova felt the chill of the air settle deeper into her bones as she stood there, frozen in place. The soccer field had fallen eerily silent, the kids standing just outside her personal orbit as if the air around her had suddenly turned thick and unbreathable. They weren’t speaking, but the distance they maintained seemed to speak volumes.
Her hand, still pressed against the ground, trembled. The synthetic surface beneath her fingertips felt wrong—too smooth, too perfect, as if it weren’t supposed to exist in this space, this world. The sensation spread up her arm, creeping into her chest, making her lungs tight. She wanted to yank her hand away, but the movement didn’t feel like her own, as if her body had already made the decision for her.
Her breath came in shallow, quick bursts, and her eyes darted around, trying to make sense of it all. The ball had flown into the net, yes, but it wasn’t just the perfect shot that had unsettled her. It was the way her body had moved, how it had done something she hadn’t willed. It was almost as if it had moved beyond her—a puppet on invisible strings.
What if it wasn’t just her body that had changed? What if her mind, too, was losing control? She had always felt like there was something she couldn’t grasp, something hidden just beneath the surface of her own existence. She had chalked it up to loneliness, the constant isolation. But now, it was something else. Something deeper, more fundamental. What if she wasn’t who she thought she was?
The world around her seemed to bend and warp in her vision. The soccer field, the familiar faces of classmates she’d known for years, everything began to feel unreal, as though it had been constructed for her to witness, but never to truly belong to. The concrete bleachers, the rusted goalposts, even the pale blue sky overhead, everything felt… detached. Fake.
Nova’s pulse raced, every beat a reminder of her alienation, of her isolation. She closed her eyes, trying to steady herself, but it was no use. The world around her blurred, like a TV screen that had lost its signal, pixelating into static.
“Nova?” The voice was small, tentative. She opened her eyes, blinking against the strange, shifting world. It was Emma, one of the girls from school, standing a few feet away. She looked uncertain, her brows furrowed as she watched Nova carefully. “You… okay?”
Nova didn’t respond right away. Her lips parted, but the words felt like they were caught in her throat. Okay? No, she wasn’t okay. How could she explain what had just happened? How could she put into words the fact that she felt like she was slipping through the cracks of something she couldn’t even comprehend?
Instead, she just nodded slowly, trying to convince herself as much as Emma. The other girl didn’t seem entirely satisfied, but she didn’t press further, her eyes scanning Nova’s face for signs of something deeper. Something more.
“That was an amazing kick, by the way,” Emma added after a long pause, her voice a little warmer, as if the tension in the air could be dispelled by a simple compliment. “It was like… like you knew exactly what was going to happen.”
Nova didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to be the center of attention, didn’t want to be anyone’s mystery to solve. But the words hung in the air, replaying over and over in her head. Like you knew exactly what was going to happen.
Had she?
She wasn’t sure anymore.
And then, without thinking, without warning, her vision flashed again, and the world around her shifted.
