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I can only nod. My throat is so parched it’s all I can manage.

“Good,” the voice says. “Now that you’ve annihilated the old you, you’ve made space for the new one to flourish.”

As I gaze upon the slain monster slowly disintegrating at my feet, a part of me is overcome by grief as I wonder:and now who will I be without my sad stories?

In the depths of my despair, amid the howling of old ghosts, I sense an unexplored path. It’s obscured, daunting, yet it whispers of the metamorphosis I long to attain—a rebirth that awaits just beyond the veil of my fears.

“Release them,” the man urges, as though reading my mind. “None of those events define you. Remember, an interesting experience on the path isnotthe path. The same goes for the terrible experiences. They’re simply fragments of a larger sequence that led you to this moment. What matters isn’t what happens, but what you make of what happens. The only way to become your best and brightest self is by transforming your experiences into opportunities, growth, and in your case, into seizing your destiny. Think of it as emotional alchemy. Your strength grows from your struggles. It’s how you’ll truly live amor fati.”

As I grapple with his words, desperate to absorb them, let the truth of them seep through the cracks of my fractured identity, a startling new vision begins to emerge.

It’s me, standing in this very space, encircled by a fiery blaze.

My breath catches in my throat as an overwhelming heat engulfs me. The sensation is so real, so visceral, it feels like actual flames are searing my skin, incinerating every trace of my former self. Yet it’s in this inferno that I am reborn—a luminous new version of me rising from the ashes of the old—untouched by any of the negativity that once defined me.

A formidable strength courses through my veins, filling me with an awe-inspiring energy I’ve never known, never imagined I could claim. It’s as though I’ve been resurrected into a dawn of possibilities beyond my wildest dreams.

“Describe what you see,” the man says, sensing the shift in my energy.

I’m on the verge of sharing the profound metamorphosis I didn’t just witness but vividly experienced when another vision disrupts my thoughts. It’s only a fragment, barely more than a sliver of memory, yet its impact leaves me awestruck.

It’s me.

Standing in this very room.

Doing the exact same thing I am now.

“It—it’s perplexing,” I say, finally finding my voice. “It doesn’t make sense, but it feels incredibly real.” I continue watching as the vision of me flickers as though threatened by an unseen wind. “It’s like I’m retracing my steps on a path I’ve already walked. And there’s this undeniable certainty in my heart that I’ve been here before, lived all of this. It’s a truth that resonates deep in my core.”

I cling to this fleeting scrap of memory, aware of how my breath steadies as all the panic and fear bottled up inside loosen their hold and recede into nothing. With the bonds of my past now broken, I am open, liberated, emancipated from the me who entered this room.

This brilliant white light now burning inside me has banished every shadow that once lurked in my psyche. In its wake stands a person with no attachment to her personal tragedies, reminding me of what Michelangelo said about creating the statue of David:I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

A pair of hands fumble at the back of my head, removing my blindfold and leaving me gazing into a pair of deep green eyes, the same shade as mine.

“I am Natasha Antoinette Clarke,” I hear myself say, my voice resonating with newfound conviction. “And you’re my dad,” I whisper, relief washing over me in waves as I gaze upon his encouraging face. “And I—” I shake my head, needing a moment to find the right way to explain. “I know who I am. Just as I know that I’ve lived this before. And yet…” I look to him, desperate for answers. “How is that even possible? Was it some sort of déjà vu?”

My dad studies me for a moment, his face a potent mix of relief and concern. “Sounds more like déjà vécu,” he says, carefully enunciating the unfamiliar term. “Rather than the feeling that you’ve seen something before, it’s the sense of having lived it already. As though your experiences are replaying with a familiarity that extends beyond mere visuals.”

“But…it was more than just a feeling,” I say, needing him to understand. “I actually saw myself experiencing this very thing—like a visual echo of something that’s already occurred.”

My dad’s gaze remains fixed on mine, hanging on every word.

“And it reminds me of something Jago, a friend of mine at Gray Wolf, once said,” I continue, my words hurried, voice rising in pitch. “That every moment has already been lived and continues to be lived.”

“Sounds like the metaphysical explanation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence,” my dad says. “Life is a flat circle—a philosophical theory suggesting our lives are caught in a continuous loop of existence. Everything that happens has happened before and will happen again, without end.”

I squint, not sure that I follow. “I always thought it meant the past is a continuous echo, looping through time, which is what makes time travel possible.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” he says. “There’s also the idea of quantum jumping theory.”

“Which is?”

“It follows the many-worlds idea,” he says. “Suggesting that every possibility in our lives leads to the creation of a new universe where that possibility is realized. Or, if you’ve seen the movieGroundhog Day, you can also think of your vision like that. Only, in this case, instead of one day that plays on repeat, your entire life is lived again and again, caught in an endless cycle of cause and effect. Sort of like reincarnation, only instead of multiple lives, it’s just the one, lived on repeat.”

A continuous loop of existence. The idea is as comforting as it is daunting.

“So, if all this has happened before, doesn’t it mean I must’ve failed the last time around?”