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SERAPHINA

T he warm glow of string lights reflected in the wine glasses at Azul, one of Miami's trendiest waterfront restaurants. Outside, palm trees draped in holiday lights swayed against the backdrop of Biscayne Bay. The December evening was balmy in typical South Florida fashion.

Seraphina Lucero sat at a circular table, surrounded by friends whose faces blurred slightly from the two glasses of wine she had already consumed. The restaurant hummed with conversation and laughter, mingling with Latin jazz playing softly in the background.

"Make a wish, Sera!" Abby leaned forward, her blonde hair cascading over her shoulders, the tight white dress she wore accentuating every curve. Her blue eyes sparkled with mischief. "Thirty is when the real fun starts."

Seraphina rolled her eyes but couldn't suppress a smile. "That's what people say when they've accepted their youth is gone."

"Speak for yourself, grandma." Abby winked, raising her wine glass.

Seraphina took a deep breath, gazing at the thirty candles burning atop the decadent chocolate cake.

The flames danced, hypnotic and golden. Thirty.

How had that happened? It seemed like yesterday she was finishing her doctorate mapping celestial bodies and plotting her career path.

Now here she was, a full-fledged adult with a mortgage and a 401k.

She closed her eyes, made a silent wish for something—anything—exciting to happen in her methodical life, and blew out the candles in one breath. The table erupted in cheers and applause.

"What did you wish for?" Abby nudged her with an elbow.

"If I tell you, it won't come true." Seraphina reached for the cake knife.

As she positioned the blade above the cake, something strange happened.

The restaurant seemed to blur around her, sounds fading as if someone had turned down the volume.

In perfect clarity, she saw a waiter approach their table, a tray balanced on his palm with a single glass of red wine.

The waiter moved closer just as Abby, laughing at something, pushed her chair back and stood. Their trajectories were set to collide.

Seraphina watched, frozen, as Abby bumped the waiter's arm. The wine glass toppled, its contents pouring like crimson rain over Abby's pristine white dress.

"No!" Seraphina gasped, dropping the cake knife with a clatter. She lunged toward Abby, napkins clutched in her hand.

Abby stared at her, mid-laugh. "What's wrong?"

Seraphina blinked. There was no waiter. No spilled wine. Abby's dress remained immaculate white. The restaurant noise returned to normal volume.

"I—I thought—" Seraphina looked around, disoriented. "I saw wine spilling all over your dress."

The table fell silent before breaking into laughter.

"Did you start the party without us, Dr. Lucero?" one of her friends teased.

"Hazard of turning thirty—hallucinations!" another chimed in.

Abby's smile softened. "You okay, Sera? You look pale."

"I'm fine." Seraphina forced a laugh. "Too much wine."

She put down the napkins in her hands, suddenly needing space. "I'll be right back."

"Don't fall in!" Abby called after her, already turning back to the conversation.

Seraphina headed toward the restroom, her heart pounding against her ribs. What had just happened? It had felt so real—not like imagination or daydreaming, but like watching a scene unfold before her eyes.

Seraphina soon dabbed her face with a paper towel, the cool water helping to clear her mind.

Her reflection stared back at her in the bathroom mirror, her green eyes wide with uncertainty.

What had that vision been? A trick of the light, maybe.

Too much wine. Stress from turning thirty. There had to be a logical explanation.

"Get it together, Sera," she whispered to herself, tucking her black hair behind her ear. "You study stars, not futures."

She straightened her emerald cocktail dress and headed back toward the table, her mind still racing with scientific explanations for what she'd experienced. Stress-induced hallucination. Minor temporal lobe dysfunction. The neural pathways?—

"Oh my GOD!"

Abby's shriek sliced through Seraphina's thoughts.

Time seemed to slow as she watched the exact scene from her vision unfold before her eyes.

The waiter—the same one she had seen in her mind—stumbled as Abby pushed back her chair.

The glass of red wine tipped, its contents arcing through the air in slow motion before splattering across Abby's white dress.

"Are you kidding me?" Abby jumped back, her arms outstretched, the crimson stain blooming across her chest. "This dress cost more than you make in a week!"

"I'm so sorry, ma'am, I—" The waiter fumbled for napkins.

Abby's dramatic backward step knocked her into another server, sending a tray of empty glasses crashing against the table. The domino effect sent water glasses toppling, bread baskets overturning, and silverware clattering to the floor.

Seraphina froze, her mouth hanging open. It wasn't in her head. This was happening exactly as she'd seen it.

"Sera!" Someone called her name, snapping her from her trance.

A restaurant manager soon appeared while servers rushed to clean the spilled drinks. Seraphina barely registered the action, her mind swimming with implications.

"Nice birthday surprise," Seraphina said with a weak laugh as the manager apologized profusely, offering free desserts and drinks.

Abby, dabbing at her dress with club soda, shot her a concerned look. "Are you sure you're okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Not a ghost," Seraphina said. "Something far stranger."

"Well, your night can only get better from here." Abby's smile returned, irrepressible as always. "And this dress was last season anyway." She leaned closer, lowering her voice. "Plus, the cute waiter who ruined it gave me his number while apologizing."

Despite everything, Seraphina laughed. "Only you could turn this disaster into a date."

"Speaking of which," Abby's eyes glinted mischievously, "we're still hitting Eclipse after this, right? Birthday girl needs to dance off her weird incident."

"I don't know if?—"

"Non-negotiable," Abby cut her off. "Thirty means you party harder, not smarter."

Twenty minutes later, Seraphina absently traced the edge of the tablecloth while the dessert plates were cleared away. The restaurant staff had been falling over themselves to make amends after Seraphina's freak accident.

"So, ready for Eclipse?" Abby leaned in, her blue eyes sparkling despite the dried wine stain across her chest.

Seraphina hesitated. All she wanted was to curl up at home with a book on astrophysics and try to rationalize what had happened. But the look in Abby's eyes made her pause.

"Fine." She sighed. "But I'm not staying too late."

Abby squealed and clapped her hands. "Perfect! We'll swing by my place first. I need to change out of this disaster, and you need to borrow something that screams 'I'm thirty, flirty, and thriving.'"

Thirty minutes later, Seraphina sat perched on the edge of Abby's king-sized bed, surrounded by discarded dresses. Her mind kept replaying the restaurant incident while Abby fluttered around her walk-in closet like a hummingbird on espresso.

"What's happening to me?" Seraphina whispered to herself. The analytical part of her brain—the astronomer who mapped celestial bodies and calculated orbital trajectories—searched desperately for explanations. Stress? A minor stroke?

"What about this?" Abby emerged in a crimson dress that hugged every curve. "Does it scream 'I laugh in the face of wine stains'?"

Seraphina forced a smile. "It looks amazing."

"You're still freaked out about that weird prediction thing you mentioned in the car, aren't you?"

"Wouldn't you be? I saw it happen, Abby. Exactly as it did."

"Maybe you're psychic now." Abby shrugged, twirling to check her reflection. "Happy birthday, you got a superpower!"

Seraphina rubbed her temples. "That's not how the real world works. There must be a rational explanation."

"Or maybe there isn't." Abby sat beside her, surprisingly gentle. "Who knows? Maybe turning thirty opened some cosmic door. Either way, let's dance it off."

Before she knew it, Seraphina was standing in the middle of the dance floor of Miami's most popular nightclub.

Eclipse pulsed with neon blue lights and deep bass that Seraphina felt in her chest. The nightclub's dance floor was packed with bodies moving like a single organism.

Normally, she'd have planted herself at a corner table with a drink, but tonight, Abby dragged her straight to the dance floor when they'd arrived.

"Let loose!" Abby shouted over the music, already moving with the beat. "Best cure for an existential crisis!"

Seraphina tried to surrender to the rhythm, but her eyes kept darting around the room. Was that man going to drop his drink? Would that couple start arguing? Every movement seemed like potential déjà vu.

Then she saw it—a bartender reaching for a bottle that teetered dangerously on the edge. Without thinking, she began counting.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Nothing. The bottle remained intact on the bar and the bartender was nowhere in sight. Seraphina exhaled, relieved that her mind was just playing tricks after all.

Until the bottle crashed to the floor a few minutes later.

"Oh god." Her heart hammered in her chest. This wasn't normal.

"Shots!" Abby appeared with two glasses of electric blue liquid. "Birthday medicine!"

"I can't." Seraphina stepped back. "Abby, something's wrong with me. I just saw that bottle fall before it happened."

"You're just hyperaware of everything because of earlier tonight." Abby held out the shot. "Drink. Dance. Worry tomorrow."

Seraphina forced herself to stay another hour, declining every drink after that first shot. The music blurred with laughter, but she couldn't shake the feeling of time folding in on itself.

"I think I need to go home," she finally said, her voice tight. "My head—I can't think straight."

"I'll call you an Uber." Abby squeezed her arm. "Is the birthday curse still bothering you?"

"Something like that." Seraphina leaned against the wall, watching the crowd with new eyes. "I just really need to lie down right now."

Seraphina stepped outside Eclipse, tugging at the hem of the black cocktail dress Abby had insisted she borrow.

The fabric hugged her curves in ways her usual attire never did, making her simultaneously self-conscious and oddly powerful.

Miami's cool December night air felt refreshing carrying the scent of salt water from the nearby bay and the faint sweetness of night-blooming jasmine.

She checked her phone. Three minutes until her Uber arrived.

Seraphina leaned back against the brick wall, watching other club-goers stumble out into the night, their laughter echoing down the street.

The soft glow of the club's neon sign painted the sidewalk in electric blue, creating surreal shadows that danced with each passing car.

Then it happened again.

The world blurred at the edges, sounds fading as her vision sharpened with crystalline clarity on a specific point.

A woman in silver heels leaving the club, checking her phone as she walked.

In Seraphina's vision, the woman's ankle twisted, sending her tumbling into the street just as a black sedan began backing out of its parking spot.

The impact wasn't deadly, but the woman crumpled to the ground, clutching her hip in pain as onlookers rushed to help.

Seraphina gasped, the vision dissipating. Her heart raced as she soon spotted the woman from her premonition exiting the club, silver heels glinting, phone already in hand.

"I can stop this," Seraphina whispered to herself.

Instead of charging forward as instinct dictated, Seraphina made a split-second calculation. The trajectory needed changing.

"Hey!" She waved to the woman. "Excuse me! Do you have a lighter?"

The woman looked up from her phone, momentarily confused. "What?"

"A lighter?" Seraphina repeated, gesturing for her to come over.

The woman hesitated, then changed direction, stepping toward Seraphina and away from the path that would've led to her accident. Behind her, the black sedan backed out of its spot, passing harmlessly through the space where the woman would've fallen.

"I don't smoke, sorry." The woman gave Seraphina an apologetic smile before continuing down the sidewalk, unharmed.

Seraphina staggered back slightly, her breath coming in short gasps. "Holy shit," she whispered. She had changed it. She had prevented the accident.

Her Uber pulled up then, a silver Honda with a slight dent in the passenger door. Seraphina slid into the backseat, her mind racing.

"Good night?" The driver glanced at her in the rearview mirror.

"Interesting one," Seraphina murmured, staring out the window as Miami's lights blurred past.

As the car navigated through late-night traffic, Seraphina's thoughts drifted to her office at the university observatory.

Her star charts and calculations, the predictable patterns of celestial bodies she had devoted her life to studying.

Was this somehow connected? Had a lifetime of staring at the cosmos somehow attuned her to patterns in time itself?

She had always found comfort in the stars, and in their ancient light telling stories of the past. As a little girl, she'd lie on the grass behind her grandmother's house, connecting constellations and imagining their movements.

Astronomy had given her order in a chaotic world, explanations for the unexplainable.

Late that night, as she curled under her duvet, Seraphina stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars she'd stuck to her ceiling years ago.

Turning thirty had seemed like such an arbitrary milestone this morning.

She'd done her usual birthday ritual of worrying about her biological clock, and about the relationships sacrificed for research grants and academic papers.

Now, those concerns felt minor compared to whatever was happening to her perception of reality.

"Happy birthday," Seraphina murmured into her pillow as sleep finally pulled her under, dreams of falling stars and blood merging as she drifted off.