The Time Tunnel

The day before my wedding, the car I was in drove through a freak temporal anomaly. Eight hours for me was twenty years for the world.
When the police asked if I had any family they could contact, I stared out the window at a billboard featuring my fiancé’s face and shook my head.
“No one. My parents are gone. I have no one left.”
The moment he pushed open the precinct doors, words scrolled across my vision, like comments on a livestream.
【Luna, hurry up and tell him who you are! Your fiancé is a titan of industry now.】
【The one that got away is back! Kick out that cheap replacement he married, and you’ll be set for life.】
They said he had become one of Crestview’s elite, that in twenty years, he had never forgotten me.
I looked at the man before me, a stranger in a tailored suit, and my voice was hollow.
“Who are you? I don’t know you.”

1
With bloodshot eyes, Lucas Hart crushed me in an embrace.
“Luna, you’re finally back!”
I fought my way out of his arms, my voice sharp and final. “Sir, I think you have the wrong person. I don’t know you.”
He stood there, clad in a bespoke suit, a ridiculously expensive Rolex glinting on his wrist, his red-rimmed eyes locked on me. Across my vision, the ghostly comments flew by, lamenting the fortune I was so foolishly turning away.
But they didn’t know. I’d lived this life before.
In my last life, I had thrown myself into his arms in this very police station, weeping with joy. It was a joy that soured into the cruelest of tragedies.
Lucas took a step forward, reaching for me again, but I flinched away. The officer beside me moved between us, his posture wary. “Mr. Hart, what exactly is your relationship to this woman?”
Lucas’s gaze never left my face, a storm of emotions churning in his eyes before settling into a quiet calm.
It was a long moment before he spoke. “Her parents were my mentors. I suppose that makes me something of a big brother to her.”
The comments erupted again, insisting he was just easing me into the truth, using the "brother" angle so as not to overwhelm me.
I lowered my eyes, a bitter smile touching my lips. I should have known. He wouldn't acknowledge me as his fiancée. That girl was supposed to be a memory, tucked away and cherished, not a living, breathing complication.
The Lucas of today was a wealthy man with a beautiful family. My reappearance was nothing but a problem.
Last time, I was blind to this. I believed his love was as unwavering as mine. I’d rushed to reclaim my title as his fiancée, deluding myself into thinking I could take back everything he had built with his wife, Sophia. It was a delusion that led to a gruesome end, with not even a body to bury.
So this time, I would play the part of the amnesiac. This time, I would not interfere with his perfect life.
After verifying his identity, the police prepared to release me into his care.
“I don’t know him,” I insisted, digging my heels in. “I’m not going with him.”
He pulled out his wallet and from it, a faded photograph of me with my parents. “Come on, Luna. Your parents left some things for you at my house. Consider it a keepsake.”
But I saw it clearly. Tucked into another fold of his wallet was a vibrant, happy photo of a family of three. As he pulled out the old picture, a small, laminated photo slipped out and fluttered to the floor. It was my old student ID.
【Oh my god! He’s kept her picture for twenty years! He’s so in love!】
【I knew it! He only ever loved her! That Sophia is just a stand-in!】
The comments lauded his undying devotion. All I felt was a searing irony. A man with a wife and child—what was the point of pretending to be a tragic, romantic hero?
“Luna, if you don’t come with me, you can’t get your records updated. You’ll be a ghost in the system, unable to do anything.”
I hesitated, then finally, I followed him.
The ride back was suffocatingly quiet. The plush leather of the Rolls-Royce’s back seat felt vast, yet it couldn't contain the turbulent current flowing between us.
After what felt like an eternity, he broke the silence, his voice low. “You really don’t remember anything about me?”
“Nothing at all.” I shook my head, meeting his probing gaze with a calm, practiced smile. I wasn’t lying. I truly didn’t know this man.
The Lucas I knew was a poor but proud boy, twenty years old, who would blush at a single word from me. Love and jealousy were written plainly on his face. He didn't have this man’s money or his cunning. A ride on his beat-up bicycle was enough to make his whole day.
He would never have wavered between me and another woman.
In my past life, this older Lucas had hidden me away in a lavish villa, a dirty secret, torn between his wife and me. In the end, his indecision destroyed us all.
I glanced over. He was rubbing his eyes, a habit I remembered. I could see the silver creeping at his temples. I ran a thumb over my bare ring finger. He still hadn’t noticed the ring he gave me was gone.
Once I find the person I need to find, I will walk away from him and never look back.

2
Sophia was impeccably preserved, looking barely over thirty. The animosity in her beautiful eyes was sharp and undisguised.
Lucas was about to make introductions when his phone rang. He stepped away to take the call, leaving me alone with her in the grand foyer.
I tried to force the word ‘Sophia’ out, to greet her as his wife, but the sound was trapped in my throat.
She approached me with a bowl of what looked like hot pear cider. “Here, drink this. It’ll soothe your throat.”
The moment I reached for it, her wrist tilted. The bowl crashed at my feet. Scalding liquid splashed onto my instep. It was autumn now, but I was still wearing the flimsy summer sandals I’d had on before I got in the car.
When Lucas ended his call, he saw a tearful Sophia, a stunned me, and a floor littered with porcelain shards.
“Luna, what did you do?!” he roared, his voice cracking like a whip. “Apologize to Sophia, now!”
His hand clamped around my wrist, the force of his grip bruising the bone.
The comments flared.
【Just you wait, Lucas! When her memory comes back, you’re going to regret this!】
【Maybe he thinks he’s too old for her now? Is that why he’s pushing her away?】
A chill settled deep in my bones. No, that wasn’t it. In the twenty years I was gone, he had fallen in love with someone else. The scales of his heart had long since tipped in favor of the wife and child who had stood by his side.
Sophia quickly intervened. “It was nothing, I just lost my grip. Luna, are you alright? Did it burn you?” She retrieved an elegant shopping bag from a nearby closet. “I got you some new clothes. Why don’t you go change?”
Lucas took the bag from her, glanced inside, and shoved it back into her arms. “This is the couture gown I had made for you. You can’t just give it to anyone.” His voice was cold. “I’ll get new clothes for Luna.”
I kept my head down. “Thank you… brother,” I mumbled.
I slipped on a pair of disposable slippers and followed them into the living room.
I sat on the sofa, but my eyes were drawn to the room around me, a museum of their life together.
In my last life, I was never allowed in this house.

3
Only now did I see the full, crushing weight of their happiness.
In their wedding photo, Sophia was radiant, nestled against Lucas. The date in the corner was three years after the day I disappeared. An entire wall was a mosaic of their life, a dense collage of memories documenting two decades.
There were photos of them traveling the world, from the Eiffel Tower to the pyramids of Giza. There were photos tracing their son’s growth, from a swaddled infant to a toddler taking his first steps, to the lanky teenager he was now.
The steam from the cup of tea they’d placed before me blurred my vision as memories from my past life flooded back.
When I first returned, I thought he was still the same Lucas I loved. He had held me, sobbing, telling me over and over how overjoyed he was to have me back. He said his life without me had been an agony, every second a torment. He said Sophia and their son were just a responsibility, a duty to appease his parents.
And I believed him. I foolishly thought we could go back.
But the one time I secretly went to see Sophia and their son, he flew into a rage. “You’re still such a child,” he’d snarled. “You can’t possibly understand the pressures a forty-year-old man faces.”
My eight hours had been his twenty years. His habits had changed, his tastes had changed. I couldn’t keep up with the new world. I didn’t know how to use a smartphone, didn’t understand the new slang he used. I could see the impatience, the annoyance, hidden beneath his weary sighs.
That annoyance peaked two years after my return. He suddenly announced he wanted to end things.
“Luna, I have a wife and son. The twenty years we lost is a chasm we can never cross.”
“I can compensate you,” he’d offered. “A car, a house, money… just name it.”
I’d spent the entire night screaming, smashing everything in the house. He just sat on the sofa, chain-smoking until dawn. Neither of us would yield.
So I took the fight to his office, to his company, and finally, to the press.
Whether it was the weight of public opinion or my relentless campaign, I’ll never know. But one day, Sophia took their son and jumped from the roof of their high-rise apartment.
From that day on, Lucas hated me with a passion that burned for thirty years. He never saw me again, instead leaving me to the mercy of his staff, who found creative ways to torment me. Just before he died, he sent a message: “If only we had agreed to just be brother and sister the day you came back.”
So, in this life, no matter how the ghostly comments plead my case, I will stick to my story. I have amnesia.
This time, I’m not chasing some phantom love. I just want to find my footing in this new world, reclaim what my parents left me, and then disappear from his life forever.
Lucas’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “Luna, go apologize to Sophia.”
I lifted my head, my gaze bypassing Sophia and landing squarely on him. “Are we… really brother and sister?”
The comments scrolled faster.
【Whoa, whoa! Is this it? Is the big reveal coming?】
【She’s going to tell him! I knew she wasn’t an amnesiac!】
【Get ready for the groveling to begin!】
Lucas’s eyes flickered. “Yes,” he said, his voice firm. “We are.” Then, a little softer, “Did you remember something?”

4
I smiled and shook my head. “No. Just asking.”
He let out a quiet, almost imperceptible sigh of relief. His fingers tapped a light rhythm on the tabletop.
I knew that sound. It was the sound of his relief that I remembered nothing.
The front door clicked open, and a young boy with a backpack walked in. “Dad, who is she?”
Lucas opened his mouth, but seemed to struggle with how to introduce me.
I spoke up first. “I’m your aunt.”
The boy, Leo, eyed me suspiciously. “How come I’ve never seen you in any of the pictures?” he mumbled.
Dinner was soon served. Sophia urged me to eat more. The table was laden with rich, elaborate dishes, but not a single one was something I liked.
I felt a wave of dizziness. I remembered when Lucas and I were starting out, so poor we could barely scrape by. A single fancy meal was a cause for celebration that lasted for days.
As I drifted in memory, the doorbell rang.
A moment later, Lucas walked back in holding a McDonald’s bag.
My eyes instantly flooded with tears. The comments went wild.
【She told him she wanted McDonald’s right before she got in the car!】
【He remembered for twenty years… I’m not crying, you’re crying.】
But in the next second, Leo leaped up and excitedly grabbed the bag from his father.
“I knew you’d remember, Dad! It’s Wednesday—our family McDonald’s night!”
Wednesday was McDonald’s night. That was my thing with Lucas. Our wedding was set for a Thursday, and the Wednesday before, we were so busy we never got a chance to eat. It was the one thing I kept complaining about.
“I’ll get it for you as soon as I get off this thing, I promise,” he had laughed over the phone.
“Luna, what’s wrong?” Sophia’s concerned voice cut through the haze.
I lowered my head, forcing down a mouthful of rice. My voice was thick. “It’s nothing. I was just… thinking about my parents.”
Lucas was gone from dawn till dusk, consumed by work. The household was Sophia’s domain. And she found endless reasons to torment me.
One day, the dishes I washed were still greasy. The next, the floor I mopped wasn’t clean enough. Then, the clothes I hung had too many wrinkles and she had to re-iron everything.
Before I could even defend myself, she would sigh, her eyes downcast. “It’s my fault, Lucas. I didn’t explain the house rules clearly enough… Oh, never mind. I’ll just go do it all again.”
Lucas would only scowl at me and tell me to stop being so childish.
Their son, Leo, was even worse. He secretly took photos of me changing and even tried to sell my underwear online.
I brought it up once. Lucas’s face darkened instantly. “He’s a teenager, Luna. How can you even think something so vile about him?”
Time truly changes a person. In my last life, sleeping next to the forty-year-old Lucas, my love had created a filter, obscuring the truth. I never realized he was no longer the twenty-year-old boy I adored.
Ping. A notification on my phone. My official records were finally updated.
That night, my phone rang.
“City Hall. Ten a.m. tomorrow.”
“I’ll be there.”
The next morning, I ran into Lucas right outside the building.
“Luna? What are you doing here?”
I clutched the marriage certificate in my hand, its crisp edges digging into my palm. “Nothing. Just taking a walk.”
If he had only asked one more question, he would have known I was there to get married.

5
Sophia’s voice called from the car. “Lucas, darling, hurry up! We’ll be late for work.”
With them both gone for the day, I found the safe in Lucas’s study. Inside was the letter my parents had left me, along with the company’s original shareholder agreement. With these, I could take back what was mine.
The password was still our anniversary. The first day of spring.
The comments were still fawning over his supposed sentimentality. It just made me sick.
I was dragging my suitcase down the street when a car careened out of control, heading straight for me.
I collapsed in a pool of my own blood. My first instinct was to call Lucas. I dialed his number again and again, until the world went black. He never picked up.
When I woke up, Sophia was sitting by my bed.
“You’re finally awake, Luna.” Her voice was laced with faux concern. “Lucas and I were so busy with our fertility treatments for a second baby, we didn’t hear the phone.”
I stared at her. “A second baby?”
“We’re hoping for a girl this time,” she said, smiling sweetly. Her eyes fixed on me, and then, with a flick of her wrist, she smashed the jade bracelet she was wearing against the bedside table.
Lucas walked in at that exact moment to the sound of Sophia’s theatrical sobs. “Lucas, darling! Luna… she broke the only thing your mother ever gave me!”
He rushed to her side, shielding her with his body. It was the second time he’d fallen for such an obvious, pathetic trap.
But this time, Sophia added a new twist. “Lucas, I don’t think she ever lost her memory. If she’s been faking it this whole time, then all of this… it would finally make sense.”
His eyes snapped to me, filled with a dawning, terrible suspicion.
I met his gaze. “She’s right, Lucas. I never lost my memory.”
“And I never did a single thing to Sophia. The pear cider, the bracelet… it was all her.”
His face contorted, a storm of shock and betrayal washing over him. His eyes reddened.
I stared right back at him, my voice clear and steady. “I never wanted to destroy your family. That was your own self-important fantasy. Did you really think the twenty-year-old me would still be in love with a forty-year-old man?”
The veins on the back of his hand stood out in sharp relief. “Stop it, Luna! Don’t say such things! I don’t believe you!” he roared. “If you never lost your memory, how could you be so calm? How could you not… not come running back to me?”
The comments exploded.
【No way! Absolutely no way! If she remembered everything, with how much she loved him, she’d never be this cold!】
【I don’t buy it. She’s just saying this to get a reaction out of him, to make him jealous!】
My gaze shifted to the still-sobbing Sophia. I slapped her, hard, across the face. The sound echoed in the sterile room.
“I was trying to be civil, but some people just keep shoving their face in for a slap.”
“Luna!” Lucas lunged for my wrist.
But his hand was caught mid-air, stopped by a grip of iron.
A tall man with sharp, intelligent eyes stepped between us, pulling me gently behind him. His gaze on Lucas was like ice.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” the man said, his voice a low baritone. “I’m Richard Vance. Luna’s husband. Legally.”
I peeked out from behind him, holding up the marriage certificate.
“It’s true. We’re legally married. And I have absolutely no interest in you.”
“I never lost my memory, Lucas. I just lost interest.”

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