She Woke Up Someone Else

She Woke Up Someone Else

The first time it happened, Alina thought it was a dream.

by Yahya Asim

She awoke in silk sheets she didn’t recognize, sunlight pouring through tall windows she had never seen before. A strange man was humming in the shower. Her phone, face down on a marble nightstand, lit up with notifications addressed to Dr. Alina Razak, Head of Neurological Research, something she had never studied a day in her life.

The man emerged with a towel around his waist, kissing her forehead casually. “Don’t forget the board meeting at ten, love.”

She blinked. “Board meeting?”

He laughed. “You’re the genius. I’m just the husband.”

His name was Ethan. She knew that without being told. Just like she knew she hated bananas, adored Sufi poetry, and could quote the entire second season of The Office.

The memories were the same. Her mother’s funeral. Her first heartbreak. Her college roommate who stole her clothes and her boyfriend. All unchanged. But everything else — her surroundings, her career, even the man claiming to love her — was new.

That night, after pretending her way through research reports she didn’t understand and colleagues who praised her brilliance, Alina lay awake staring at the ceiling. She promised herself she’d see a doctor in the morning.

But the next morning, she woke up someone else.

This time, in a cramped apartment above a noisy street in Istanbul. Her name was still Alina. But now she was a travel photographer with rough fingers and ink-stained journals scattered around the room. The man next to her — Emir — was fast asleep, a tattoo peeking from beneath his shirt. When he opened his eyes, he whispered, “You were mumbling in your sleep again. Something about ‘remembering.’”

It kept happening.

Each morning, a new version of her life waited.

A chef in Rome. A schoolteacher in Lahore. A protest leader in Tehran. A lonely widow in London. A struggling single mom in Jakarta. One day, she had no one. The next, she had three children who called her “Mama” and a husband who smiled like he’d known her for centuries.

But always the same memories. The same core identity. Same stories from her childhood. And the same whisper in her mind: This isn't it. This isn’t the real one.

At first, she thought she was cursed. Or losing her mind. She tried to take notes before sleep, to find patterns — numbers, names, people who showed up more than once. But there were no repeats. The universes were endless, and she was stuck in the middle — grounded only by her memories and that whisper of knowing: Not yet. Keep looking.

In one version, she woke up in a psychiatric hospital. No mirrors. No doors she could open. A doctor asked if she still believed she was “slipping through realities.” She begged them to believe her. She drew maps, timelines, overlapping memories. They called her delusional.

But even there, she didn’t stop searching.

One day, in a quiet version of her life, she was a librarian in a coastal town. No husband. No chaos. Just rows of books and the sound of waves outside her window. That night, while shelving a volume on metaphysical theory, she found a note folded inside an old copy of Leaves of Grass.

It read:

“If you're reading this, you’re close. Stop searching with your eyes. Listen instead. You'll know the moment your name is said with truth.”

The handwriting was hers.

That night, she didn’t sleep. She listened.

The next morning, she woke up in another new life — a cozy home, a dog, a man named Asher cooking breakfast. He turned and smiled at her, softly, almost cautiously.

“You’re here,” he said. “Finally.”

Her heart raced. “Do I know you?”

“We’ve been looking for each other a long time.”

“What do you mean?”

He put down the spatula. “Do you remember when you were seven and you wished you could live all the lives you dreamed of? That there were too many choices, too many futures? You split that night. You fractured into the could-be versions of yourself. This is the first time you’ve found your way back.”

Tears filled her eyes. “How do I know this one’s real?”

He stepped closer. Took her hand. Whispered her name like it was sacred.

“Alina.”

And for the first time, she didn’t hear the whisper saying not yet.

She heard silence. Stillness. Wholeness.

And she knew.

She was home.