Chapter 6: Dájà vu? (1)
"El!"
A voice cut through the darkness.
Sharp.
Urgent.
Familiar.
El's consciousness floated somewhere between sleep and waking, too heavy to rise, too confused to sink.
He didn't know whose voice it was, but it felt like something he should recognize-
"El, wake up!"
Something was shaking his arm.
Persistent.
Insistent.
Annoying.
"Mira's been calling you for almost a minute!"
Mira? Calling me?
The words didn't make sense.
Mira never called him.
She sent emails.
She left messages in the group chat.
She occasionally appeared at his cubicle with instructions delivered in her crisp, professional tone.
She didn't call.
"EL!"
El's eyes snapped open.
Demi's face hovered inches from his own, wide-eyed and frantic, his hand still gripping El's arm like he was trying to restart him.
"There you are!"
Demi released him and stepped back, breathing heavily.
"Dude, you were completely out. Like, out. I shook you five times. FIVE TIMES. I was about to check if you still had a pulse."
El blinked.
The world came into focus slowly-too slowly.
The fluorescent lights hummed their usual melancholy tune.
The cubicle walls surrounded him in their familiar beige.
His computer screen glowed with an unfinished spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet for Friday.
He'd been working on it.
When?
How long ago?
El looked down at his desk.
His pens were still aligned.
His papers were still stacked.
His succulent looked as professionally pruned as always.
Everything was exactly as he'd left it.
But something felt... wrong.
"Earth to El."
Demi snapped his fingers in front of El's face.
"Hello? Anyone home? Did you hear what I said?"
El's voice came out rougher than expected.
"What did you say?"
Demi threw his hands up.
"I said MIRA IS CALLING YOU. She's been paging you for like a minute. You're supposed to go to her cubicle.
Like, NOW. Before she turns into the ice queen and freezes us all."
El stared at him.
Mira's cubicle.
Now.
But that didn't he'd just seen Mira.
At the door.
This morning.
She'd been flustered and pink-cheeked and-
Wait.
That was this morning.
Wasn't it?
El looked at his computer screen.
The date in the corner glowed at him.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12
El's blood ran cold.
Monday.
It was Monday.
But that was two days ago-he'd lived through Monday already.
He'd gone to work, met the mysterious cafe girl, met Mira at the door, dealt with Demi's interrogation, El's head snapped up, scanning the office.
"Uh, El?"
Demi waved a hand.
"You're doing that staring thing again. The 'I'm about to see things that aren't there' thing. It's freaking me out."
El's heart pounded against his ribs.
Monday.
It was Monday.
He'd gone back.
Or forward.
Or-he didn't know what.
"El."
Demi's voice was more serious now.
"Seriously, man. You look like you just saw a ghost. Your face is literally the color of skim milk again."
El opened his mouth to respond-to ask a thousand questions he couldn't form-when a voice crackled through the office speakers.
"El Ignacio, please report to Head Manager Mira Castillo's cubicle.
El Ignacio to Head Manager Mira Castillo's cubicle. Thank you."
The announcement hung in the air like a verdict.
Demi pointed at him.
"That's you. That's your name. Go. NOW. Before she sends a search party. Or worse-before she comes here herself and glares at us both."
El didn't move.
His mind was spinning, grasping for something solid to hold onto.
Kaye.
The name surfaced immediately.
Kaye.
The garden.
The cliff.
The way she'd said his name like she'd known it forever.
That had been real.
He was sure of it.
But if it was Monday again...
El looked down at his hands.
The same hands that had held hers.
The same fingers that had felt the warmth of her touch.
Has any of it actually happened?
Or was he losing his mind?
"EL!"
Demi's voice broke through again.
"MOVE. YOUR. BODY. I'll push you if I have to. Don't test me."
El stood slowly.
His legs felt like they belonged to someone else-wobbly, disconnected, unreliable.
"Good,"
Demi said, grabbing his shoulders and physically steering him toward the aisle.
"Now walk. One foot in front of the other. You know how to do this. You've been doing it for years."
El walked.
Past cubicles.
Past confused glances from early-morning coworkers.
Past the break room where the coffee machine still hasn't been cleaned since 2019.
Toward Mira's office.
Toward answers he wasn't sure he wanted.
Behind him, Demi's voice echoed one last time:
"YOU'RE WELCOME! SEND ME A THANK YOU NOTE! I ACCEPT SNACKS AS TRIBUTE!"
El kept walking.
Monday.
It was Monday again.
And somewhere, in the back of his mind, he could almost hear Kaye whispering:
Time is weird here.
But this wasn't here.
This was the real world.
Wasn't it?
As he pondered what was happening-this might be an impossible loop, this return to Monday, this nightmare that felt too real-El arrived at the cubicle of his Head Manager.
Mira's workspace was exactly what you'd expect: immaculate.
Papers stacked at perfect angles.
Pens arranged by color and purpose.
A small vase with a single white flower-the only personal touch in an otherwise professional fortress.
Everything about it screamed control, precision, order.
El stood at the entrance, his mind still floating somewhere outside reality, when a voice cut through the fog.
"Are you okay, El?"
The voice was soft.
Gentle.
Concerned in a way that Mira's voice rarely was.
El blinked.
Mira was looking at him from behind her desk, her usual composed expression replaced by something else entirely.
Her brow was furrowed.
Her lips pressed together in a thin line of worry.
And her eyes-those sharp, assessing eyes that could make interns cry with a single glance-were scanning his face like she was searching for something broken.
"Are you alright?" she asked again, softer this time.
"You look pale. Distracted."
El's mind slammed back into reality.
He straightened automatically, his body defaulting to professional mode even as his thoughts continued to spin.
"I-I'm fine, Ma'am."
His voice came out steady-thankfully-but there was a slight hesitation at the beginning that he couldn't quite hide.
His expression, as always, remained stoic.
A mask he'd perfected over years of practice.
Mira didn't look convinced.
"If you're not feeling well, I can send you home."
Her voice was still soft, still concerned.
She'd completely forgotten-or maybe just set aside-whatever reason she'd called him here.
"Really, El. It's okay to take a break if you need one."
El's chest tightened.
Home.
The word echoed in his mind. Home meant sleep.
Sleep meant dreams.
Dreams meant Kaye and questions and a garden that felt more real than this office.
But also dreams meant waking up to find it was Monday again.
Again.
"I just have something on my mind," El said carefully.
"But you don't need to worry. I can still finish the spreadsheet today."
He added the last part deliberately-a reminder that he was still functional, still capable, still the reliable Marketing Assistant who never caused problems.
Mira studied him for a long moment.
Her eyes moved across his face with an intensity that made him feel exposed, like she could see past the mask to the chaos beneath.
For a terrifying second, he thought she might push further.
Might ask what was really wrong.
Might force him to explain something he couldn't explain.
But then her expression shifted.
The professional mask slid back into place-not cold, exactly, but controlled. Careful.
"Alright," she said quietly.
"But if you need to talk... my door is open."
The words landed softly in the space between them.
El nodded once.
"Thank you, Ma'am."
Mira held his gaze for just a moment longer than necessary.
Then she looked down at her desk, shuffling papers that didn't need shuffling.
"I called you here to remind you about the quarterly reports," she said, her voice back to its usual professional tone.
"But it seems you're already ahead of schedule."
"Yes, Ma'am. I'm almost done."
"Good." A pause. "That's... good."
Silence.
El waited.
Mira's fingers tapped once against her desk-a nervous habit he'd never noticed before.
Or maybe he'd just never been close enough to see it.
"That's all," she said finally.
"You can go back to your cubicle."
"Yes, Ma'am."
El turned to leave.
"El?"
He stopped.
Looked back.
Mira's expression had softened again-just slightly, just for a moment.
"Take care of yourself."
The words were simple.
Professional enough to pass as normal workplace concern.
But something in her voice made them feel like more.
El nodded once.
"I will, Ma'am."
He walked away.
Behind him, Mira watched him go, her fingers still tapping against her desk, her heart doing something complicated that she'd never admit out loud.