The sound of an alarm dragged me out of darkness.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I frowned.
I was sure I had died.
The last thing I remembered was rain, blinding headlights, and the taste of blood in my mouth. I remembered thinking how useless my life had been—how I had failed my parents, my dreams, and myself.
So why was my alarm ringing?
I opened my eyes slowly.
A cracked white ceiling. A spinning fan. The smell of cheap detergent.
My heart skipped.
"This… is my room?"
I sat up so fast my head spun. The wooden table near the bed, the torn poster on the wall, my old backpack on the chair—everything was exactly the same.
Too same.
With shaking hands, I grabbed my phone.
Date: 12 July 2019
My breath caught.
"No… this can't be real."
Five years.
I had gone back five years.
Memories crashed into me all at once—failing my exams, endless arguments at home, losing my mother to stress and illness, working meaningless jobs, and finally dying alone with nothing to my name.
I pressed my palms to my face.
"So this is… a second chance?"
The alarm kept ringing. In my previous life, I had ignored it. That day, I had skipped my exam. That single mistake had started everything falling apart.
I turned it off.
Not this time.
At breakfast, my mother stood near the stove, humming softly. Her hair was tied carelessly, and there were faint dark circles under her eyes.
She was alive.
My chest tightened.
"Ma," I called.
She turned, surprised. "Why are you staring like that? Eat fast, you'll be late."
I swallowed hard and nodded.
In my previous life, I had barely spoken to her. I had always thought there would be more time.
This time, I wouldn't waste it.
College felt unfamiliar and familiar at the same time.
Students laughed, complained, lived.
I remembered all of them—who would succeed, who would disappear from my life, who would betray others.
And then I saw her.
Ananya.
She was sitting under the neem tree, reading a book, sunlight filtering through the leaves onto her face. In my past life, she had been the one person who believed in me—until I pushed her away with my insecurity and failures.
She never looked at me again after that.
My fists clenched.
"I won't make the same mistake," I whispered.
The exam hall was silent except for the scratching of pens.
The paper lay in front of me.
In my previous life, the questions had looked like an alien language. Today, they felt familiar—because I had lived through this already.
I smiled faintly.
For the first time in years, I wrote without fear.
That evening, as I walked home, the sky burned orange with sunset.
I stopped and looked up.
Five years ago, I had been too angry, too hopeless to notice this sky.
"I don't know why I got this chance," I said quietly, "but I won't waste it."
This life wouldn't be perfect.
But it would be mine.
And this time, I would fight for
Writer:- Gaurav Singh
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