Chapter Text
Today started normally. I thought I would go to work as a reporter and then teach my advanced dance class tonight. Nothing about the morning felt unusual enough to remember later.
My name is Adeline Langford. I’m twenty-three years old, and in my world, I write for a small-town newspaper—covering everything from council meetings to local human-interest stories no one else thinks matter. Before that, I belonged to a different kind of stage entirely.
I had been a child star on Broadway once.
I stepped away at sixteen.
Not because I failed. Because I wanted a normal life more than I wanted applause.
At least, that’s what I used to tell myself.
I was walking down the street on my way to work when I saw a pair of black aviator sunglasses lying on the sidewalk.
At first, I assumed someone had dropped them. I glanced around, expecting to see someone doubling back for them—frustrated, late, careless.
No one was there.
I hesitated.
It would have been easier to keep walking. I almost did.
Instead, I bent down and picked them up.
That might have been the worst mistake I could have made.
Or maybe the best.
Only time would decide.
The moment my fingers closed around the frames, the world didn’t just blur—it folded.
Sound vanished first. Then light. Then the feeling of the ground beneath my feet.
It was like falling without moving.
And then, suddenly—
I was sitting in an unfamiliar office.
Across from me sat Quincy Jones.
A calendar on the wall caught my eye.
October 2, 1982.
And somewhere in the distance, I understood something I didn’t want to understand yet:
I wasn’t in my life anymore.