I sensed a presence as soon as I clicked open the file. My projector hissed, and the light above its lens lit up, red as a laser.

Then I felt the unmistakable weight of staring eyes.

Spinning around in my seat, I saw a young girl, maybe about 18. And she looked eerily familiar.

She was my high school classmate, Laura. Who’d died nearly 30 years ago.

She looked as shocked as me.

“W ... w ... Where am I?” she shouted, her head cocked back, an expression of pure horror playing across her face. She was in a little low-cut black dress, sheer stockings, and black pumps. Her golden blond hair had been teased and permed. Shining in an electric white silhouette, she appeared icily beautiful.

“You’re in Tokyo, Japan,” I replied. Cautiously rising from my computer chair, I began walking toward her.

Laura’s blue eyes were widening, her smooth button nose twitching. Then she began stepping backward, pressed her shoulders to the bedroom’s white wall.

“But, like, I was just at Emily’s party...”

Laura had left Emily’s house party with two other girls. Then Laura wrapped her mom’s Mazda Miata around a tree. Instantly killing every passenger. I’d read in the local paper that one of the girls had been severed at the waist, her body literally ripped in half.

But Laura didn’t seem to remember that. Or anything past leaving Emily’s place.

“Where’s Jessy and Pam? And how did I get to ... Tokyo?! And what’s up with that crazy-looking remote control?” she asked, nodding toward the smartphone in my hand. She was trembling, becoming increasingly upset.

“It’s not 1994, Laura. It’s 2023.” I replied, doing my best to bring balance to this strange league of circumstances.

“It’s what? 2000... 23? No, no, it’s not. We ... We were just at the party. I have to go to cheer practice tomorrow. Homecoming is next week.”

She began muttering to herself but quieted when she shifted her gaze, saw the view from the window ... the glittering Tokyo skyline and its sleek skyscrapers, the sea of brake lights blinking in heavy traffic ... the sprawling maze of streets and bustling neighborhood below...

“Oh my ... We really are in Tokyo...” Laura exclaimed, her panicked voice high-pitched, rising like a flute. Sweeping her gaze around the room, she stopped and fixated on my computer, appeared mesmerized by my laptop, “Is that ... A computer? It’s so ... tiny...”

Computers of all types, back in 1994, sure were a lot bulkier.

“Oh, oh my God ... I must be dreaming ... I must have passed out...”

“No, you didn’t pass out,” I assured her, not sure how to break the dreadful news. She was growing paler by the minute, whiter than flowers.

“And who are you?” she lifted her thin brownish-blond eyebrows, swung her gaze back toward me and inquired. She still had the highest cheekbones I’d ever seen.

“I’m _____ _______. We were classmates...”

It was clear, after she shrugged her shoulders, swayed those hyperborean cheekbones, that she had no recollection of me. And that stung.

“And so how exactly did I get here? Did I, somehow, step into a time machine?”

I also didn’t know how to answer that, and after an awkward pause, she went on, a tad angrily, “So, okay, like, if it’s the future, show me the flying cars.”

“You know, there aren’t many flying cars in 2023. Well, there are a few. There’s this company called Alef, an aeronautics company, that just...” Laura crinkled her nose, not seeming too interested in emerging tech companies, “We do have drones, but they’re not exactly the same.”

“Drones?” she asked, before sighing heavily. “Is that better than a flying car?”

“A drone is a ... yeah ... never mind, I can show you later ... So you only remember leaving the party, nothing else?”

“Nothing else ... Just that I was leaving the party, with Pam and Jessy, and now I’m here, 29 years, allegedly, in the ... future.”