Maggie's eyes snapped open.

  She was sitting at a desk, head on her folded arms. The classroom was quiet—too quiet. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in that sickly yellow glow.

  "Huh," she muttered, lifting her head. Her neck ached. "Did I fall asleep?"

  The room was empty. Every other desk sat vacant, chairs pushed in neatly like nobody had been there at all. The blackboard still had equations scrawled across it in fading chalk.

  Maggie rubbed her eyes, trying to remember. There had been... something. A dream? A weird dream about running and—

  Gone. Whatever it was, it was gone completely. Like trying to hold onto smoke.

  She stood, stretching. Nobody had woken her up. The classroom was completely deserted.

  "Really?" she said to the empty room. "Nobody thought to wake me up before leaving?"

  She patted her pockets. No phone. She looked around for her bag—nothing. Just empty desks and that humming light.

  "Great. Someone walked off with my stuff too."

  She headed for the door, figuring she'd find someone in the hallway to complain to.

  The handle didn't turn.

  Maggie jiggled it. Pushed. Pulled. Nothing.

  "Hello?" She knocked on the door. "Hey, someone locked the door! I'm still in here!"

  Silence.

  She pressed her ear to the door. No footsteps. No voices. No sound at all from the hallway beyond.

  A soft whine made her turn around.

  A husky sat in the middle of the classroom—brown and grey, with bright, alert eyes watching her with its head tilted.

  Maggie blinked. "Well, hello there."

  The dog's tail flicked once.

  "How did you get in here, buddy?" She crouched down, holding out her hand. The dog trotted over immediately, sniffing her fingers before letting her scratch behind its ears. "And how did they manage to lock both of us in?"

  The dog leaned into her touch, tail swaying faster.

  "You're a sweet thing, aren't you?" Maggie smiled—the first genuine smile since waking up. There was something comforting about the dog's presence. Made the empty room feel less... empty. "Your owner around here somewhere?"

  The dog pulled away and trotted over to one of the windows. It pawed at the latch.

  "Oh, smart dog." Maggie followed, examining the window. "Let's see if we can—"

  The latch clicked open under her fingers. The window swung outward easily.

  She stared at it for a moment. That was... too easy? The window looked old, paint cracking around the frame. But it had opened like it was brand new.

  "Huh. Weird."

  The dog jumped through first, landing on the grass outside with ease. Maggie climbed through after it, considerably less gracefully.

  The school grounds were empty.

  Not just empty—deserted. The parking lot sat vacant except for a few scattered cars. No students. No teachers. No movement at all.

  "Hello?" Maggie called out. Her voice echoed strangely. "Anyone around?"

  Nothing.

  The dog started walking toward the street, looking back at her expectantly.

  "Guess I'm following you then." She jogged to catch up, falling into step beside the dog. "You seem to know where you're going, at least."

  They walked.

  The town was empty. Completely, utterly empty. Stores stood dark. Cars sat parked along the streets, perfectly aligned. A coffee shop had cups still sitting on tables, steam rising from them. Fresh coffee. But no people.

  "This is so weird," Maggie murmured, peering through another shop window. Lights on. Register open. Nobody there. "Where is everyone?"

  The dog paused, looking up at the sky. Maggie followed its gaze. An eagle circled overhead, dark silhouette against grey clouds.

  "You see that too, huh?" She reached down to pet the dog's head. "At least I'm not alone. Would be pretty creepy walking through all this by myself."

  The dog leaned against her leg for a moment, as if understanding, then kept walking.

  Maggie found herself talking as they went. It helped, somehow. Made the oppressive silence less overwhelming.

  "Okay, so." She kicked a pebble down the sidewalk. "Let's think. I was in a classroom. So I must have been at school, right?" She paused, frowning. "That's odd. I don't remember going to school today."

  She tried to picture it. Walking through doors. Sitting down in class. A teacher's voice. Anything.

  Nothing.

  "What about before that?" She pressed on, the words coming faster now. "This morning. I must have woken up somewhere. Had breakfast. Brushed my teeth. Done normal shit."

  Nothing.

  "Come on," she muttered, pressing her fingers to her temples. "Something. Anything. A face. A street. A fucking grocery store, I don't care."

  The dog glanced up at her, tail drooping sympathetically.

  "Yesterday," Maggie tried. "What did I do yesterday? I must have done something. Everyone does something."

  Grey fog. That was all. Like trying to remember someone else's dream.

  She stopped walking. Reached up and ran her hands carefully over her head—feeling for a bump, a bruise, anything. Am I having amnesia? Did I hit my head or something? She pressed her fingers along her scalp, checked the sides, the back.

  Nothing. No bump. No pain. No sign of injury at all.

  "This is fucked up," she said quietly. "This is really, actually fucked up."

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  She walked in silence for a while after that, the dog trotting steadily at her side. The empty storefronts stared back at her like hollow eyes. A newspaper stand had papers in it—today's date, she noticed, though the date itself meant nothing to her.

  "You know, this reminds me of those post-apocalypse movies," she said eventually, more to fill the silence than anything. "Except usually there's zombies or something. This is just... nothing. Everyone vanished." She paused. "Actually, I'm not sure which is worse."

  The dog glanced back at her, and she could swear it looked sympathetic.

  "You're a good listener." Maggie smiled slightly. "Better than most people, honestly."

  They turned a corner, and the dog stopped abruptly. Its posture changed—alert, focused.

  Maggie followed its gaze.

  Ahead, in the intersection, two cars sat crumpled together.

  · · ·

  The accident came into view gradually.

  First, the smell—burned rubber, that acrid chemical scent of deployed airbags. Then the details. A sedan had T-boned a truck. Glass scattered across the asphalt like diamonds.

  And blood. Not a lot, but enough. Dark stains on the pavement, spatter on the inside of the windshields.

  But no people. No bodies. No emergency responders.

  Just the wreckage.

  Maggie's stomach churned. This felt wrong. Not just wrong—personal. Like looking at a photograph of something she should recognize but couldn't quite place.

  The dog whined softly, pressing against her leg.

  "Yeah," Maggie whispered, absently running her hand through its fur. "I don't like this either."

  "Well, well."

  Maggie spun around, heart jumping.

  A tall man stood a few feet away, hands in the pockets of a white lab coat. Dark hair, sharp eyes behind his glasses—and the faintest hint of a smirk, like he'd just walked in on something mildly entertaining.

  The dog trotted over to him immediately.

  "Jesus!" Maggie's hand went to her chest. "Where the hell did you come from?"

  "Around." He scratched the dog behind its ears. "Thanks for looking after him, by the way. He tends to wander."

  "He's yours?" Maggie looked between the man and the dog. The dog sat down next to him, looking perfectly content. "So you've just been... what? Out for a stroll while the entire town vanishes?"

  "I find it peaceful, actually." He glanced around at the empty street. "No crowds. No noise. No one trying to make small talk at the grocery store."

  "Must be nice," Maggie said, deadpan. "Having the apocalypse all to yourself."

  "I don't think it's the apocalypse. Apocalypses are dramatic. This is more of a..." He waved his hand vaguely. "Quiet Tuesday."

  "It's not Tuesday."

  "How do you know? You don't remember anything."

  Maggie blinked. "Wait—how do you know that? We just met."

  "He told me." Mark nodded at the dog.

  "What? Can you talk to dogs?"

  "Sure can. Can't you?"

  Maggie stared at him, waiting for the punchline. It didn't come. Mark just looked back at her, perfectly straight-faced.

  "Okay," she conceded, giving up. "Fine. It might be Tuesday."

  A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "You're easy to argue with."

  "I'm not arguing, I'm—" She stopped. Crossed her arms. "You know what, forget it. Do you have a name, or should I just call you 'lab coat guy'?"

  "Mark." He said it simply. "And you?"

  "Maggie."

  "Maggie." He repeated it like he was testing the weight of it. Then nodded. "At least you remember your name."

  The way he said it made her pause. Not mocking. Almost careful.

  "Look, I..." Maggie hesitated, then looked at him directly. "Do you know me? From somewhere? Because I genuinely can't remember anything. Not a single thing. I tried the whole way here—where I live, what I do, yesterday, this morning. Nothing." She held out her hands like she was offering him something empty. "So if you know me somehow, please. Anything helps."

  Mark studied her for a moment, expression unreadable. Then he shrugged, like she'd just told him the weather. "Huh."

  "'Huh'?" Maggie stared at him. "That's it? I just told you I have zero memories and your response is huh?"

  "Look, despite the lab coat, I'm not a doctor. And no—I don't know you. Never seen you before today." He shrugged. "But I don't think there's much I can do about the memory thing right now."

  Maggie opened her mouth, then closed it again. He had a point.

  "You're really not gonna be helpful about this, are you," she said. It wasn't really a question.

  "I never said I was helpful." But there was something in his eyes—something almost amused—that suggested he was enjoying this more than he was letting on. "I'm just a guy walking his dog.

  "In an empty town."

  "In an empty town," he agreed cheerfully.

  Maggie shook her head, but she was smiling despite herself. The banter felt... normal. The first normal thing in this whole bizarre situation.

  Mark's expression shifted, becoming more serious. He nodded toward the wreckage. "Well, do you want some help? There's been something bothering you since you got here—I can see it. That accident." He nodded at it. "Why don't you go check it out? Could be something in there that helps."

  Maggie looked back at the sedan. He was right—she hadn't been able to stop glancing at it since they'd rounded the corner. Something about it made her chest feel tight in a way she couldn't explain.

  "I don't know why it bothers me," she admitted quietly.

  "Only one way to find out."

  The dog trotted over to her, bumping its head against her hand. Maggie scratched its ears absently, drawing comfort from the simple contact.

  "Okay," she said finally. "Yeah. Let's look."

  She approached the sedan carefully, the dog staying close to her side. The driver's side door was crumpled inward. The airbag had deployed, stained with blood. More blood on the seat, the steering wheel, the dashboard.

  But no driver.

  Maggie peered through the broken window. Registration papers on the passenger seat. A phone in the cup holder, screen shattered. Fast food wrappers on the floor.

  Normal car stuff. Nothing special.

  Then something glinted in the footwell.

  Maggie reached through the window carefully, avoiding the jagged glass. Her fingers closed around something small and metallic.

  A keychain.

  She pulled it out into the light.

  It was small—a pewter charm on a worn leather strap. Two figures, frozen mid-strike. Silhouettes of fighters—no details, just shapes, locked in combat. The style looked like karate, or maybe something close to it. Beneath the figures, a faded circular emblem, worn almost smooth with age. A gym logo. Some kind of martial arts academy.

  The leather was soft, clearly carried for years.

  The dog pressed closer to her leg, whining softly.

  And the moment Maggie's fingers closed around the keychain, something in her chest cracked.

  She didn't know why. Couldn't explain it. But holding this small, worn object felt like drowning and breathing at the same time.

  "This is..." Her voice came out shaky. "I don't know what this is."

  Mark had moved closer. "Don't you?"

  "No. I've never—" But even as she said it, her hands were shaking. Her vision was blurring. "Why does this feel so—"

  She couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't name the emotion rising in her throat like a wave.

  The dog leaned heavily against her, offering silent support.

  "Take your time," Mark said quietly. "Look at it. Really look."

  Maggie did. Turned the keychain over in her hands. Ran her thumb across the two fighters, worn smooth from years of handling. The emblem beneath them. The faded text she couldn't quite read.

  And for just a moment—so brief she almost missed it—she saw something else.

  A hand pressing this keychain into her palm. A voice—deep, warm, safe—saying something she couldn't quite hear. A feeling of being protected. Of being loved.

  Gone.

  The memory—if it even was a memory—vanished like smoke.

  "I don't understand," Maggie whispered. Tears slid down her cheeks. When had she started crying? "I don't understand why this hurts."

  The dog whined, pressing closer. She buried her free hand in its fur, holding onto something solid while everything else felt like it was falling apart.

  "What's happening to me?" She looked up at Mark. "Why can't I remember anything? Why does this—" she held up the keychain with trembling fingers, "—feel like it's breaking my heart?"

  He studied her for a long moment. Something like sympathy crossed his face.

  "Maybe you're not ready yet," he said, more to himself than to her.

  "Ready for what?" Maggie took a step toward him, still clutching the keychain. "Please. I need to understand. I need to know what's happening—"

  Mark held up a hand. "Hold on. Take a breath. Look at what you're holding."

  Maggie looked down at the charm. The two silhouettes frozen mid-strike. She turned it over in her fingers, and something stirred—not a memory, but a feeling. A pull in her muscles, like an echo of movement.

  "This is from a martial arts gym," she said slowly. "And I... I think I know how to fight." She flexed her free hand, watching her own fingers curl into a fist. "It's weird. I can't remember learning, but my body feels like it knows."

  "Yeah?" Mark tilted his head. "Want to find out?"

  "Find out how?"

  "Spar."

  Maggie looked at him—really looked. The white lab coat. The glasses. The relaxed posture of someone who'd never once been in a serious fight.

  "No offense," she said, "but you don't exactly look like someone who knows how to fight."

  "Oh, I'm not fighting you." Mark nodded toward the husky sitting calmly at his feet. "He's good at boxing, though. Can tear your ear off in no time."

  Maggie stared at the dog. The dog held her gaze, tail wagging once.

  "What are you talking about? What does that have to do with boxing?"

  "Tsk, tsk." Mark shook his head slowly. "Youngsters."

  "Aren't you my age?"

  "Anyway." He turned back to the wreckage, the spar idea already dropped like it had never come up. "Look at the accident again. Do you remember anything else? Anything at all?"

  Maggie turned back to the crumpled cars. The blood. The shattered glass. She held the keychain tighter in her fist, waiting for something—another flash, another crack in the fog.

  Nothing.

  "I don't think so," she said quietly.

  Mark was quiet for a moment. Then, almost to himself: "Is that so? Guess this is no good either."

  Maggie turned back to him. "What do you mean? What's no good? Mark—"

  He was already raising his hand, fingers curling together.

  "Wait—"

  He snapped his fingers.

  "Wake up."