The Last Five Seconds

It started with a sound.

A low hum, like the vibration of a plucked string, but it wasn’t coming from outside—it was inside me, resonating in my chest, my skull, my very bones. I blinked, or at least I thought I did, and the room around me shifted, stretched, then snapped back like a rubber band. The world blurred, and for a split second, I felt as though I was falling, spiraling into something vast and unknowable. 

And then—silence.

One moment, I was standing in my living room, and the next, I was lying on my childhood bed, staring up at a ceiling I hadn’t seen in over twenty years. The glow-in-the-dark stars were still there, faintly luminous against the cracked plaster, just as I’d left them. My heart stuttered in confusion. How was I here? How was this possible? My mind screamed for an explanation, but no answer came. Instead, everything around me felt sharp and soft at once, real but distant, as if I were watching through a frosted window.

I sat up. My legs were small again, skinny and pale, sticking out awkwardly from my shorts. My heart thudded as I ran my hands over the quilt my mother had made, the one with little fraying patches of yellow and blue. The smell of freshly cut grass wafted in through the open window. A summer breeze brushed against my cheek. It felt real, but something wasn’t quite right. I knew this room… I knew this day. 

The details were perfect, yet they didn’t feel alive. The laughter of children playing outside echoed hollowly, like a recording played in an empty hall. It was as if the world remembered how things were supposed to be, but the soul of it had slipped through the cracks.

I stood and moved to the window. My feet were bare against the wood floor, the grain cool and familiar. Outside, I saw a younger version of myself sprinting across the yard with a kite trailing behind. I remembered that kite—a bright orange triangle that had tangled in the oak tree and been lost to a storm.

“How…” I whispered, but the word fell flat in the still air.  My breath caught. This was real. No—it couldn’t be. But I remembered that kite. I remembered that summer. And I remembered what came next.

The scene dissolved before I could warn him. Time folded inward, pulling me along like a current, and when it spit me out, I was

I was sixteen, leaning against my locker, my heart pounding in my chest as I glanced down the hallway. There she was—Emma Parker, her auburn hair catching the afternoon sunlight pouring through the windows. I could feel the knot of nervous energy in my stomach, the weight of the letter in my pocket. I had planned to give it to her that day, a confession of everything I was too afraid to say out loud.

But this moment felt like a memory unspooling in reverse. Emma turned, her smile half-formed, and I felt a sudden ache. I knew how this would end. 

“Go,” I whispered to my younger self. “Tell her.”

But I didn’t. I never did. I never gave her the letter, never said anything. The regret was still sharp, even now.

Before I could reach out, the lockers and sunlight shattered like glass, the world falling away, and I was spinning, tumbling backward into the next moment. 

My college dorm room. I recognized the smell of pizza and stale coffee. My roommate’s laughter came from somewhere far away, muffled like a dream. I was sitting at my desk, staring at a photo of my parents. They’d come to visit the weekend before, smiling for the camera as if we weren’t all pretending that everything was okay. My dad’s illness had been the unspoken shadow that hung over us.

I turned the photo over in my hand, and as I did, it began to blur, the edges softening like melting wax.

“No,” I murmured. “This isn’t right.” shouted, my voice cracking in the void, but it didn’t matter.

The void swallowed me whole.

Time lurched forward again.

I was at my wedding. The air was thick with the scent of flowers and champagne. My wife’s hand was in mine, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. I heard the hum of music, the low murmur of voices. I felt the weight of the ring on my finger, a symbol of promises we hadn’t yet broken.

But even as I held her gaze, trying to memorize the way she looked at me, her features began to fade. The edges of her face softening like an old photograph left out in the sun. My chest tightened. 

“No, no, no, not this one,” I begged. “Don’t take this one.”

The world bent, folded inward as if time itself had been plucked from its steady march. Everything was moving faster now.

The birth of my son—his wailing cry filling the room, his tiny fist curling around my finger.

The long nights in the hospital with my father, the beeping machines counting down moments I didn’t want to lose.

My first gray hair, spotted in the bathroom mirror. My son’s first day of school. The way he grinned at me with his missing teeth.

Each memory flickered by like a lantern sliding through the dark, illuminating fragments of a life I could barely hold onto. I tried to grab at them, but they slipped through my fingers, dissolving into thin air.

Then, I was back in my living room, the very moment it had all begun. But something was different now. The room was still, unbearably so, and the air felt heavy. I glanced down at my hands. They were trembling. My chest ached, a sharp and insistent pain spreading through me.

And suddenly, I remembered.

The car. The screech of tires. The blinding headlights. The shattering of glass.

I was dying.

This wasn’t time travel. These were the last five seconds of my life, my mind racing through the chapters of my existence in a desperate attempt to hold onto something—anything.

The realization struck like a thunderclap, but it wasn’t fear that gripped me. It was a strange, quiet acceptance. My memories began to fade, slipping further into the recesses of my mind. I clung to one last thought, a single moment from the summer I turned eight, when my mother kissed my forehead and whispered, “I love you.”

“I remember… I’ll always remember.”

And then, there was nothing.