6:47 AM

The alarm sounds wrong.

Not broken — wrong. Like someone recorded your alarm, played it back through a tin can, and re-recorded the echo. The same three-note chime you've heard a thousand mornings, but with a frequency underneath it that makes your teeth itch.

You open your eyes. Ceiling. Same ceiling. Same crack that looks like a river delta. Same water stain from the upstairs neighbor's bathroom that they swore they fixed in March.

Your phone says Tuesday. 6:47 AM. October 14th.

Outside: Waseca, Minnesota. Population 9,400. The kind of town where nothing happens twice — except it does. It always does. The same conversations at the same gas station. The same geese colonizing the same pond in Tousely Park. The same train whistle at 6:52 that shakes the same windows.

The coffee maker is already running — you set it last night, like you always do. The apartment smells like yesterday. Like every day.

But something is off.

Not in the room. In the feeling. Like the air pressure changed, or gravity shifted by half a percent, or the world took a breath and held it. That weird Waseca thing — the locals call it 'the bubble.' A heaviness in the air that comes and goes. Most people blame the lake. You've never been sure.

You sit on the edge of the bed. Your feet touch the cold floor. Everything is ordinary.

That's what scares you.