Sarah Wilson thought that she had it all, until she didn't, but now she lay here in the middle of the road with her blood coming out of places that it shouldn't be. And she never saw it coming, but she didn't see a lot coming. What Sara regretted was allowing herself to live with such ignorance and faith of people who do not deserve it. Her vision was getting blurry as she watched her car that was being driven by her half-sister, Veronica Walker way from her after it was used to hit her. What made this even worse was that her husband, Allen Wilson, was in the passenger's seat.

Veronica gleefully let her know that they had been planning on getting rid of her for a while; they just chose to get rid of Veronica's husband, well, late husband Jared Walker, first. A few months ago, he was hit by a car, and Sarah condoled her half-sister. She wanted to be there for her, and now it made her sick as she was losing the feeling in her body that she did, and that others would do the same for Allen.

Everything was hazy, and all she felt was humiliation and anger. She didn't deserve this, and neither did Jared. She didn't want to die, but Sarah could tell she was going to. There was nothing she could understand about how Veronica and Allen betrayed and hurt her. Veronica was literally her sister, and she had been with Allen since high school.

Her vision was darker now, and she was fighting to keep her eyes open, but that was useless, so Sarah vowed that if there was another life, she would do everything differently and that she would make sure that she and Jared survived.

There was a sense of nothingness, and it felt like nothing and forever at the same time, almost like madness.

That was until she opened her eyes, and it was ten years in the past, before she married Allen, and before Veronica met Jared.

Sarah’s head was reeling as she took in her surroundings, the soft grass beneath her, the birdsong, the ice-cream cone dripping onto her hands, leaving thick sticky trails of mint choc chip on her fingers.

She over at Veronica. She was younger, dressed in layers and layers of polo shirts, talking about her college boyfriend who had made her a mixtape CD full of Britney and Green Day. The name crossed her mind in a daze. Jared Walker, the boy in Kelly’s architecture class.

Sarah’s heart sank slightly as she realised where she was. Visiting her older sister on campus again, fifteen and full of love for the world, and suddenly very aware that she held all the knowledge of a decade to come within her body. The rest of the conversation glided across her like butter on a hot pan, the imprint of memory baked into every word. By the time Veronica got up and walked back to her dorm, leaving Sarah sat on the green in silence, she wondered if every minute would feel like this, up until...

...her death.

That was the present, she remembered suddenly, and all the conspiracy and plot came back to her with a pounding of blood in her abdomen, pulsing against the absent stab-wound that was a decade yet to come. Sarah stayed very still on the picnic blanket, as if any sudden movement might shatter the thin membrane between past and future she was somehow suspended inside.

Her fingers tightened around the cone, now nothing more than a soggy wafer and a smear of green. She stared at it, at the absurdity of holding ice cream when she had died. When she had felt herself die.

A tremor ran through her. She wiped her hand on her jeans, the same pair she remembered wearing that day: low-rise, embroidered pockets, the kind she’d thought made her look older. She was fifteen, and yet her mind was thirty, bruised and betrayed and furious.

Across from her, a student in a hoodie bobbed his head to music leaking from cheap headphones. Sarah watched him, wondering if he had any idea how fragile life was, how easily it could be stolen by the people you trusted most. She wondered if she had ever looked that carefree. Probably.

Her stomach twisted.

She pressed her palm to it, half-expecting to feel the warm bloom of blood again, but there was nothing. Just smooth skin under the fabric of her Hollister cami.

A bird cawed above her, and her breath hitched. She closed her eyes, letting the noise ground her, letting the past settle around her like dust. She had vowed to do everything differently. To save herself. To save Jared.

Jared.

If she was here, and this was real, then Jared was alive somewhere.

A wave of nausea rolled through her.

The sun dipped behind the clouds as students around her began to pack up, go home, and the restaurants around her turned their lights off. Sarah stood, legs shaky, hands out at her sides as if the world might tilt. People brushed past her, as she stepped onto the main path off the green, the cool evening air hit her face, grounding her. She inhaled deeply, tasting the faint scent of diesel and damp concrete. Everything looked exactly as it had: posters for summer festivals, the fading graffiti, the flickering lampposts that had annoyed her back then.

But she wasn’t the same.

She needed to get home. She needed to figure out what rules governed this… rebirth.

And then, halfway across the street, she froze.

A familiar voice drifted from behind her. “Sarah? Hey, Sarah Wilson?”

She turned slowly.

Jared Walker stood a few feet away, backpack slung over one shoulder, hair a little too long, smile warm enough to melt the last of her fear.

Her breath caught in her throat.

“Hi,” she managed, her voice trembling.

Jared’s smile widened. “Didn’t expect to see you here. Veronica said you were visiting today.”

Sarah swallowed, her pulse thundering.

Jared. Poor, poor Jared. She suddenly felt the burden of knowing the next decade's knowledge weigh heavier upon her shoulders. Sarah thought of the local paper in 2015, highlighting his death as a tragedy involving a hit-and-run on a winter's evening. She bit her lip, dragging her teeth across the flesh and licking away the specks of blood that rose to the surface. Should she tell him? That in ten years' time, his current girlfriend, as well as future wife, would run him over and frame it as a car accident?

Jared looked at her sympathetically albeit a little confused, his brows furrowing. "Sarah, are you alright? Did Veronica say something?" His voice recalled from her troubled mind and back into the present- wait, past? Present-past. Right now, she just had to act like a silly 15 year old enamoured with her older sister and her boyfriend. That would a little difficult, seeing as she hadn't been a teenager in, oh, maybe a decade?

"Yeah. Uh, I mean, no. She didn't say anything. Just... school stuff." She shrugged it off, trying to force nonchalance. This was probably how she tried to act around Jared and Veronica, right? Trying to seem more mature for her age was a challenge when she knew the reality of the situation.

Sarah decided she wouldn't warn Jared of his impending doom. She couldn't exactly tell him the love of his life was going to kill him and... steal Allen from her.

Oh God, Allen. Her heart beat a little faster remembering the two of them as adolescents. He was well beloved during high school, being on the soccer team and having won tons of matches for the school. He could've had his pick of any girl, and there certainly wasn't a shortage of them, but he chose her. Sarah's cheeks heated thinking of the times they jigged class to sneak behind the gym and make out. But the light hearted reminiscing faded out, and the flash of an unpleasant memory took its' place. Allen, standing over her body with Veronica clinging to his arm. Did he ever really love her? Or were all those years spent trying to get closer to her more favourable older sister?

An uncontainable anger flared up within her, and she guessed it was showing on her face based off of Jared's muddled look. "Listen, you know you can talk to me about anything, right? I'm here for you if you need a shoulder to cry on... or something." Jared laughed awkwardly, running his hand through his hair.

And that's when Sarah's hot headed temper she was known for in her youth revealed itself. "You're going to marry Veronica three years from now. Around the same time, I'm going to marry my current boyfriend, Allen, when we graduate high school. Then, you and I will live happily with our respective spouses for seven years. But, Veronica is going to run you over on the 17th of January, 2015. She's gonna act all sad and say it was a car accident that killed you. I'm next to die, on the..." She thought for a moment. Did she technically have a death anniversary now? The trauma surrounding her death used to overwhelm and sicken her, but now, it's overshadowed with determination and desperation. Knowing what she knew, she wanted to live. She needed to live, if only to exact her revenge on Allen and Veronica.

She remembered herself and steamrolled ahead with her shocking declaration. "...on the 29th of April, 2015. Veronica is doing this because she actually loves my husband Allen, but needed to get us both out of the picture first to have him. I know this because the night she killed me, I- well, I was transported ten years back to today." She inhaled deeply, taking a break to allow Jared to process all the information she told him and to silently gauge his reaction. Obviously, exactly as she expected. Distressed. Horrified. Unsettled.

"Sarah... I... Do you even understand what you're saying? Do you hear yourself right now?" He whispered angrily, gripping her shoulders with frightening strength. "Listen, I really think you should see a doctor. It's not normal to imagine these things." Of course he didn't believe her. Of course. Stupid, stupid. What had she been thinking? She just made herself look like a total lunatic.

Sarah grabbed his hands, removing them from her shoulders, and took a mad gamble. "No, you listen. We're going to save ourselves, whether you believe me or not. You just have to follow what I say. Are you with me or not?"