Dr. Elena Marsh always drank her coffee black. So when she woke up one morning to find sugar and cream already stirred in — in her handwriting — she knew something was wrong.

The apartment was hers, but framed photos showed her with a man she didn’t recognize. Her books were on other shelves. Her cat didn’t seem to know her. But at work, everything was normal — except her office pass now read “Head of Research.”

Her heart raced as the pieces clicked. She’d been working on a quantum resonance theory — alternate timelines, realities shaped by choice. What if something had shifted… and she slipped through?

Over the next weeks, she discovered more: a friend she hadn’t spoken to in years was suddenly her best friend. Her parents, who'd divorced, were now happily married. The life she once regretted not choosing was now hers — and perfect.

But something was missing. Her old self — with all its pain and flaws — had something this version didn’t: purpose. Passion. The fight.
And so, with trembling fingers, she returned to the lab. She would go back — not because she hated this life, but because she loved the one she built too much to abandon it.