The Envelope

M Mehran

Claire found the envelope on her desk on a rainy Wednesday morning.

No return address. No stamp. Just her name written in tidy block letters. Inside, on a single sheet of paper, were three bold letters:

FYI: Don’t take the 8:15 train.

She frowned. Someone’s idea of a joke, maybe? She tossed the note into her drawer and didn’t think about it—until her train app lit up with breaking news.

Derailment on the 8:15 to Midtown. Casualties reported.

Her breath caught. She stared at the message in her drawer.

Who would send something like that?



The next day, another envelope waited.

FYI: Skip the staff meeting.

She obeyed this time, feigning illness. Later, coworkers whispered about the ceiling collapsing in the conference room during the storm. No one was badly hurt, but everyone was shaken.

Claire’s hands trembled as she reread the note.

This wasn’t coincidence.



The envelopes kept coming. Always plain, always addressed in the same neat hand.

FYI: Don’t cross Maple Street at dusk.
She waited at the corner instead, and moments later a speeding car plowed through the crosswalk.

FYI: Check your neighbor’s window tonight.
At midnight, she peeked across the alley. The old man who lived there lay collapsed on the floor. She called 911, saving his life.

Each message was precise, urgent, life-altering.

But the sender remained a mystery.



Claire began searching for clues. The envelopes had no fingerprints, no watermarks. She asked the mailroom staff, but no one had seen who delivered them. Her coworkers teased her about a “secret admirer,” but Claire knew it was more than that.

Someone was watching her. Someone knew things no one could know.

The question was: why?



One evening, she returned home to find an envelope slipped under her door. Her stomach tightened as she opened it.

FYI: You’re being followed. Don’t turn around.

Her pulse spiked. She froze in her doorway, sensing movement behind her. Slowly, she stepped inside, locking the door, then pressed her back against it. Through the peephole, she saw a man in a dark coat lingering at the end of the hall, staring at her door before walking away.

Her hands shook so badly she nearly dropped the note.

Whoever was sending these warnings—they weren’t just helpful. They were protecting her.



Days turned into weeks. Claire’s life became a strange rhythm of waiting for envelopes and following their instructions. They saved her from danger, guided her to small acts of kindness, even nudged her toward opportunities she would’ve ignored.

FYI: Speak up in the meeting. They’ll listen.
She did—and her boss praised her idea.

FYI: Buy the red umbrella. You’ll see why.
She laughed but obeyed. That evening, caught in a downpour, she shared the umbrella with a stranger named Daniel. By the end of the walk, they had exchanged numbers.

Whoever was behind the notes seemed to know not only what might harm her—but what might heal her.



Then came the message that unsettled her most.

FYI: It ends soon. Be ready.

Ends? What ends?

The next days were torture. She jumped at shadows, avoided crowds, barely slept. She checked her desk every morning, desperate for another envelope, another clue.

Finally, on Friday, it came.

FYI: Meet me at the old clock tower. Midnight. Come alone.

Her heart pounded. Should she trust this? Was this the trap all along?

And yet—hadn’t the notes saved her again and again?

She went.



The clock tower loomed against the night sky, its hands frozen at twelve. Claire’s footsteps echoed as she climbed the stairs. At the top, in the dim lantern light, a figure waited.

A woman.

Older. Gray streaking her hair. But when she turned, Claire gasped.

The woman’s face was her own.



“I don’t have much time,” the older Claire said. Her voice trembled with urgency. “For your information—these letters were from me. From your future.”

Claire staggered back. “That’s not possible.”

“It is. I found a way to send messages back. To warn myself. To change things.”

Claire’s mind spun. “Why? Why me?”

The older woman’s eyes softened. “Because I remember being you. I remember the fear, the loneliness. And I remember every moment I saved with these notes. The train. The neighbor. Daniel.”

Claire froze. Daniel. She had only just started seeing him.

“You need to know something,” the older Claire whispered. “Without the notes, you die next week. With them… you live. But sending these warnings drains me. I can’t hold on much longer.”

Claire’s chest tightened. “So this is what ends.”

Her older self nodded. “I’ve given you the path. Now it’s yours to walk.”

The lantern flickered. When Claire looked again, the woman was gone.



The next morning, there was no envelope on her desk.

None the day after.

Weeks passed, and still nothing.

At first, Claire panicked, afraid to step outside without instruction. But slowly, she realized she didn’t need the notes anymore. She carried them within her—the courage, the instinct, the trust in her own choices.

And when she and Daniel stood together months later, laughing under the same red umbrella in the rain, she understood:

Some information saves your life.

But the most important part is what you do once you have it.